100 Days of Right Believing: Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing (21 page)

U
nfortunately, unbeknownst to many believers today, the enemy has launched malicious disinformation campaigns that have effectively enslaved them for years to low self-esteem, self-hatred, guilt, eating disorders, perversions, inordinate fears, and all kinds of crazy habits and addictions. I want to expose the enemy’s lies and to help you see with pristine clarity the enemy’s deceptive and manipulative tactics. These lies will collapse like a house of cards the second you see your true identity in Christ.

Your weapons for this warfare are found in the truth of God’s Word, and they are mighty and have the power to overthrow and destroy every stronghold that has been built up through disinformation and wrong believing. And the way we can destroy these strongholds in our mind is by “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

When I was a young believer, I was taught that it was my responsibility to bring my every thought into obedience
to
Christ. I tried and struggled with that for years and ended up with more mental oppression, stress, and guilt than I had started with. One day God opened my eyes and said to me, “Son, keep your focus and your thoughts always on the obedience
of Christ
, and that will be a powerful weapon to pull down the devil’s strongholds in your mind.” When He said that to me, it felt like the lights were suddenly switched on in my head.

So what does it mean to capture every thought to the obedience of Christ? Simply this: to focus on Jesus’ obedience to the Father at the cross, through which we were all made forever righteous the moment we believed in Him. Can you see that our obedience today under the new covenant begins with choosing to
believe
that we are made righteous by
Christ’s obedience
at the
cross? The apostle Paul describes our obedience as “obedience to the faith” (Rom. 16:26)—believing right about what Jesus has done to make us righteous. And when we believe right like this, we will find His grace motivating and empowering us to think and live right.

God’s Word tells us, “The just [righteous] shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). You can say it like this: the righteous shall live by right believing. When you have right believing, you release the power of God to live right. The next time you have negative thoughts, catch yourself and look toward the obedience of Christ. See the cross. See Jesus. See Him washing your mind with His precious blood.

When you believe the gospel, the true gospel that says you are righteous through Jesus’ obedience (see Rom. 5:19), you will have right living. The right results will follow. My friend, the more you believe right that you have been made righteous and blessed through Christ’s obedience, the more you will see the fruit of obedience in your life. Praise Jesus for His marvelous grace!

T
he devil loves to play mind games. When I was a young, impressionable believer, I was taught erroneously that a Christian could commit “the unpardonable sin” when he blasphemes against the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31–32). Just the thought that I could commit this sin put me under severe oppression. I was really worried that I had already committed the unpardonable sin and was on a one-way ticket to hell. That one thought opened up all kinds of terrible experiences in my life.

What is the “unpardonable sin”? It is simply the sin of an unbeliever continually rejecting Jesus as his or her Savior, as the self-righteous Pharisees were doing in Jesus’ day. But it is impossible for a believer to commit this sin, because he or she has
already
received Jesus as his or her Savior as well as been forgiven and pardoned of every sin through His finished work at the cross.

Unfortunately, no one taught me about God’s grace then, and I lived under this dark cloud of mental oppression for more than a year before the truth of God’s grace set me free. During that time, I kept hearing in my mind, “
I
have committed the unpardonable sin.” I would be praying to God, and wrong, sometimes vulgar, thoughts would come in, and my response then typically was, “What is wrong with me? I’m a Christian. I shouldn’t be thinking these kinds of thoughts!” At other times, the devil would knock me on the head with accusations such as “How can you think such nasty thoughts and still call yourself a Christian?” The enemy is an expert at throwing thoughts (using the first-person pronoun) into our minds and then backing off and coming at us as a legalist to knock us on the head with the very thoughts that he first put in our heads.

My mental oppression lasted for as long as it did because I always felt that I had to do something about it. I felt responsible for those thoughts in my
head, and the moment I believed those horrible thoughts were mine, the devil got me right where he wanted me—defeated, guilty, and feeling condemned. Every major bondage begins in the mind.

How do you win this battle for your mind? My friend, the answer is found in the person of Jesus. He is your righteousness. He is in heaven and He can never be removed, no matter what you have or have not done. Your righteousness is Jesus Christ Himself, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (see Heb. 13:8)!

So don’t be deceived any longer. The apostle Paul says, “I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). The gospel is simple. It’s all about Jesus. It’s not about you. Christ is our righteousness, our obedience, our sanctification, and our justification. Glory and boast in Christ and Christ alone. The enemy will try to make it all about you. Keep it simple. Unlike Eve, don’t be deceived by his craftiness. Ignore him and simply focus on the simplicity that is in Christ.