Start Your New Life Today (14 page)
It took me a while, but I eventually learned when the devil brings those harsh, unkind, judgmental thoughts to us, we can use God’s Word to chase them away.
I went through many years of misery because I judged others. It took me a long time to replace those negative thoughts with all the good things I had to think about, but the Holy Spirit kept working with me and eventually with His help I was able to overcome being critical and judgmental toward others.
During the process, God began to hold me accountable for my critical spirit, pointing me to the words of Paul:
Why do you criticize and pass judgment on your brother? . . . Why do you look down upon or despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. . . . And so each of us shall give an account of himself [give an answer in reference to judgment] to God. Then let us no more criticize and blame and pass judgment on one another, but rather decide and endeavor never to put a stumbling block or an obstacle or a hindrance in the way of a brother (Romans 14:10, 12–13).
Who are we? We’re God’s people. As Christians, we’re part of one family—God’s family. And He wants us to love and protect our family members instead of judging them. Not only is it important to stop being critical in simple obedience to God, but we should also realize that as long as we are critical we will not be happy ourselves. What we think about is what we nourish ourselves with. Another way to say it is we eat what we think and speak. Do you want to eat garbage or good, fresh, healthy food? We need to ask God to help us completely renew our minds so we learn to think with the mind of Christ and are able to do as He would.
As long as we are critical we will not be happy ourselves.
Loving One Another
H
ate
is an extremely strong and harsh word. John uses that word in 1 John 2:9–11: “Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now. Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin. But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”
Any discussion among believers about
hating
other Christians would lead most of them to say, “I don’t believe I have ever hated anyone.” If we think about these words of John, however, perhaps he didn’t mean
hate
as we think of it—feeling great hostility or animosity toward someone. Perhaps our form of hatred today is more like
indifference.
We don’t really dislike people, but we don’t care enough to help them when they have troubles and problems.
“Most of the loving I see today in the church is based on convenience,” someone told me recently. He went on to say we will reach out to others as long as it’s convenient or doesn’t demand too much time or effort. This opens a wide door of opportunity for Satan to separate us from those who most need our love. Jesus commanded us to love each other. In John 13:34–35, He said people would recognize us as His disciples by our expressions of love toward one another. Perhaps one reason they don’t say that about many of today’s Christians is because too often we’re unwilling to go out of our way to meet the needs of others.
Love is an action verb. If you love others, you do things for them. To hate (in the biblical sense) is to do nothing or turn away. To make it worse, many people judge and criticize others and think,
If you were more obedient to God maybe you would not have the trouble you have.
We need to be compassionate, not critical.
We need to see that if we practice God’s “love walk,” we not only grow ourselves, but we enable others to grow. The devil can’t do us much harm if we truly walk in loving relationship with others.
During my fourth pregnancy, I was extremely sick. When I prayed for healing, God reminded me I had criticized another woman in our church who was always tired and sick during her pregnancy. I said she was just weak-willed and needed to stop being such a complainer. Now, here I was in the same circumstances. I realized how wrong I was and repented. But it took more than repenting—it also became a time of learning for me. God forced me to realize how often I judged or criticized others because they didn’t measure up to the standards I thought they ought to live by.
All of us make mistakes. All of us have weaknesses. God didn’t call us to point out those weaknesses to the person (or worse, to someone else), but He did call us to care—to show Christ’s love in any way we can. That is the way we can win over satanic attacks. Paul said not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God and to let all bitterness, wrath, anger, and evil-speaking be put away from you with all malice (see Ephesians 4:30–32).
God used these verses to help me see that being Jesus’ disciple means being kind to others, tenderhearted, understanding, and forgiving. I also realized it often means overlooking their weaknesses and shortcomings. If we truly love others as Christ loves us, it isn’t difficult at all.
The main thing the world is looking for is love. Most of the time they look in all the wrong places, but if they do look to the church or a Christian they should not be disillusioned and disappointed. Jesus said they should know us by our love.
Jesus was walking along and saw a fig tree in the distance covered with leaves. He was hungry so He went to the fig tree to eat some of the fruit that was supposed to be underneath the leaves. He found no fruit and cursed the tree saying it would never bear fruit again. I believe Jesus cursed the tree because it was a phony. It had leaves and no fruit. We must make sure we are not Christians with leaves and no fruit. We might have a large Christian library, good church attendance, and a bumper sticker that says, “Honk if you love Jesus.” We might wear a cross necklace and even listen to Christian music, but if we are not walking in love and the other fruit of the spirit we can be a huge disappointment to someone who is truly searching for something genuine to believe in. I urge you to make walking in love a priority in your life.
If we are not walking in love and the other fruit of the spirit we can be a huge disappointment to someone who is truly searching for something genuine to believe in.
Guarding Our Hearts
I
n Proverbs 4:23 we read that God tells us to guard our hearts—to watch over them carefully. But what does that really mean? It means to be alert or watchful about the ways of the enemy. It is easy to become careless about guarding our hearts and being alert to Satan’s subtle tactics when things are going our way and God is pouring out His blessings on our lives. It is sad, but the truth is, when things go really well for a long time we often get lazy and stop doing what we should be doing. We need to guard our hearts diligently, not just occasionally.
Instead of using the word
guard,
I like to think of it this way: We need to post a sentinel around our hearts. Think of what a guard or sentinel does—he’s on duty. He watches for the enemy to attack. He’s not just ready; he’s actively watchful and prepared to resist all attacks from the enemy. This is how we need to live—with a trustworthy sentinel. It doesn’t mean we live in fear or constantly have to check to see if the devil is sneaking around. Think of it more as posting a sentinel to do that for us.
What kind of sentinel do we need? I think of the two most obvious ones: prayer and the Word of God. If we pray for God’s Holy Spirit to help us guard our hearts, He will honor that request. When the enemy creeps up, the Holy Spirit will remind us of a scripture and we can meditate on it or speak it out loud and the enemy will flee.
In Philippians 4:6–7, Paul says not to fret or have any anxiety about anything; in a sense he is saying, if we push away our anxieties (which we do by prayer) and fill our hearts with thanksgiving, God’s peace stands guard over us. God helps us resist the attack of the enemy.
Don’t minimize thanksgiving, for it is powerful. As we give thanks to God through our words and our songs, we are guarding our hearts. As the old hymn says, we should count our blessings one by one and name them to rehearse what God has done for us. It is more than just singing a few words; it is actually pausing on purpose to remember all the good things God has done in our lives. As we rejoice over past blessings, we open ourselves to more blessings in the future.
What better guards can we post than those who cry out to God on behalf of others? The devil doesn’t like hearing such prayers.
Another ally we sometimes overlook is other believers. When we’re aware of our weaknesses, we can agree in prayer with other believers. We can ask them to pray specifically that we won’t be misled or defeated by the enemy. Other believers can intercede for us—just as we can for them. What better guards can we post than those who cry out to God on behalf of others? The devil doesn’t like hearing such prayers.
One of our responsibilities as Christians is to guard our hearts. We must be careful what we permit to come into them. Being victorious does not just automatically happen; we must be diligent to do our part. We don’t receive from God by merely wishing, but we must act on His instructions to us. The enemy is always lurking around waiting for an opening into our lives, but as we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, Satan will be continually disappointed.
Overcoming Passivity
T
o be passive means to be inactive. A passive person is one who would like to see something good take place and then waits to see if it does. That desire is right, but the person takes no action. If passive people spot a need, they usually say something like, “That is just not right, someone needs to do something about it.” It never occurs to them that the “someone” who needs to do something might be them. Inactivity is very dangerous. Empty space is a breeding ground for the devil. Jesus warned that if an evil spirit was cast out and the space he occupied was swept clean and kept empty the evil spirit not only would come back but would bring others with him and the last state of the man would be worse than the first.
For example, if we cast down a wrong thought we need to replace it with a positive one; otherwise the devil will simply drop another wrong one in our minds. Always remember, empty space is still a place and the Bible says we are to give no room or foothold to the devil (see Ephesians 4:27).
I once read an article about diets in which the author said most people who diet do lose weight—until they stop dieting. When they stop working at the problem, they not only stop losing, but they’re worse than before they started. The author went on to say that the only way to win the battle of being overweight is to make a lifestyle change—by becoming aware of the danger areas and guarding ourselves against making wrong choices.
It works that way spiritually as well. One way to keep wrong thoughts out of your mind is to keep the mind active and alert and full of right things. You can cast out the devil, but then you must remain alert, always aware of his tricks.
There are aggressive sins (sins of commission), and there are passive sins (sins of omission). That is, there are things we do that hurt a relationship, such as speaking careless words. But we also hurt relationships by the omission of kind words, those thoughtful words that express appreciation, affection, or awareness of kind deeds done by others.
When confronted, passive individuals yell, “But I didn’t do anything!” That’s exactly the point. It’s what they don’t do. Their lack of action actually invites the devil back into their lives.
That’s a strong statement, so I will say it a different way. You can win any time you take action and push away the thoughts and desires not coming from God. You may do this through prayer, reading the Bible, or even resisting the passive feelings that may be natural for you. But once you’ve been set free, that’s only the beginning. It’s not just one victory that lasts forever. It’s an ongoing battle—it’s being willing to constantly resist if you need to. Satan seeks to wear out God’s people, but if we are persistent we will outlast him.
The best, easiest, and most effective way to resist the devil is to fill your mind and your heart with praises to God. When you worship and praise God, you’ve slammed the door in the enemy’s face and put up a “No Trespassing” sign.
The best, easiest, and most effective way to resist the devil is to fill your mind and your heart with praises to God.
I don’t want to make it sound as if you have to fight evil every second of your life. That’s a trick of the devil himself to make you feel defeated before you even get started. We do have difficult times but we also have times of great blessing. The Bible promises God won’t allow more to come on us than we can bear, but with every temptation He always provides the way out (see 1 Corinthians 10:13).
Right Action Follows Right Thinking
A
friend once talked about a building bought by his church. “Function follows form,” he said, as he described the shape of the building and the size of the rooms and how that determined how they could best use the building.
As I thought about it, I realized that’s exactly how our lives work. Once we decide the form, the function follows. This could be stated another way: Once we set our minds to something—that’s the form—the function, or the action, follows. Many people want to change their actions but not their thoughts. They want to be free from anger, gossip, lust, dishonesty, or lying. They want the bad behavior to stop, but they don’t want to change their bad thinking.
The principle of God’s Word is simple: Right action follows right thinking. None of us ever walks in victory unless we understand and put this principle into practice. We won’t change our behavior until we change our way of thinking.