-I want to speak today
concerning mental health. I believe that one of the most crippling things a person can have is not physical crippledness. It's when a person
has a mental problem. In fact, there are some of the
smartest people on the earth on the wheelchair. Because as long as the mind is free and prosperous, you're not limited by
the physical restrictions. I'm not in any way
downplaying paralysis or downplaying physical limitations
like when persons don't have limbs or a person does not have
particular bodily functions but like for example, Nick
who doesn't have limbs who it seems like on the
outside is supposed to be crippled yet he writes books,
finished bachelors degree led presidents, I think he led
Brazilian president to the Lord; without legs, and makes an impact. Now has children and
literally is changing the world. Why? Because what matters at the
end of the day is what happens here not what happens with
your hands or with your feet. Also, some of the smartest
people in our generation are physically crippled. But because they're
not mentally crippled, they're still able to make a
difference in their generation and they're able to make
a difference in their world. Satan is playing target
practice with everyone's mind. Everyone's shooting
and you do target practice where you make this target
and you start trying to shoot and see if you can hit it and
you can miss few times and then you finally hit it. And that's what exactly devil
does with everyone's mind. He plays target
practice with your mind. His number one focus and target
is not your body, it's your mind. He wants to destroy your mind.
He will use the sickness in the body to inflict the mind. He will use the poverty
to torture the mind. He will use relationship problems. One of the children that's
not doing good, he will use that to harass the mind. Sometimes he will use
the external circumstances to glitch the mind.You know
when your mind is glitching you can't get out
of your own head. You're like you're stuck in there. And the Bible says think on
these things and you feel like your thinking is doing
the thinking by itself and you can't control
it, it's thinking by itself. You're like, "Stop it!" And it's thinking, it's
saying stuff in your head. It's like it's harassing you.
It's like these intrusive thoughts. And my friend, I want
to tell you something that the enemy is an
architect of a mental glitch. And the person sometimes
has both legs, both arms, has a retirement fund, a government
job, has a car and has a house and mentally they are in prison. Mentally they can't function,
something is broken there. I remember Saul from our church. She had an iPhone
that was doing functions on its own. And so she helps with to
manage some of my Instagram and she would write to
these people you know, like, thank you for following
and everything. And then she said that the phone by itself start calling, video
calling people on Instagram by itself. Randomly
choosing contacts and just video chatting
with them randomly. Now, how many of you
know that's not good? When the phone has a mind
of its own, that's a mind control. And some people that's exactly
what they experience with their mind when their mind controls their life instead of their spirit
controlling their mind. And so, when there is a war
that's been declared on your mind when an anxiety attacks,
when depression attacks when you feel like your
mind has made you a target and harasses you,
and torments you and instead of you
leading your mind, your mind is tormenting
and torturing you. COVID, news media, you know
what happened in our nation, the protests, the elections,
everything contributed to a huge attack on the
minds of people in this day. If you're watching
us on live stream, I want you to spam
the chat if you agree that the devil really plays a
target practice with your mind. And today we want to
equip you and also pray that God will begin to bring
healing not just to our body but begin to bring
healing also to our mind. Sometimes the enemy uses
our past experiences to build strongholds in our mind. That even if we are no
longer in those situations we're still living in the residue,
in the painful consequences of being in those situations. Israel went through Egypt but
then Egypt went through them because even when
they got out of Egypt, the Egypt never got
out of them. Like they say, "You
can a man out of a ghetto but you can't take the
ghetto out of a man." Once the person
goes through sickness once the person goes through
rejection, through divorce, and even if they're
not in that situation, the enemy's goal is to infiltrate
their mind with that situation so even if they're no
longer there, there is in them. And that's what the
Bible calls strongholds. And God wants us to
cast down strongholds. See, demons we cast out,
strongholds we cast down. Demons come and leave quickly but strongholds are
broken down slowly. Demons come out through the
anointing of the Holy Spirit but strongholds are broken down
through the Holy Scriptures. Through being in the community, through developing
habits of worship, through training your thoughts,
turning your thoughts over to God and begin to work with your mind. Mind management is the most
important thing for a believer because your success
doesn't start on the outside, it starts on the inside. Your success does not
start with your education it starts with your mind. Your prosperity does
not begin with how wealthy your father or your mother was,
it begins with your mind. That's why apostle John says,
"I pray you will be in good health and prosper as your mind
prospers, as your soul prospers." That means that we cannot
prosper on the outside permanently if we are broke on the inside. And today God wants
to shift some things and equip us to
be mentally sound. One of the reasons that I'm
talking about that is because the fallacy, the faulty
thinking is this: "Well, Vlad I understand
that's really cool and stuff but "if God really wants
me to change my mind He should get busy
changing my circumstances." And this is our concept.
Is, my mind will change if my life changes. But Scripture flips the script and the Scripture tells us
in Romans 12:2 the opposite. It says your mind has to change first so that your life transforms. You don't have to wait
for your spouse to change before you change your mind. Don't wait for your
circumstances to change before you change your
mind. God says in fact they are waiting for
you to change your mind. You have to work with your mind. And God gives us His word,
God gives us the church God gives us our friends,
God gives us His Spirit so that our mind changes. The real reason the Lord wants
us to begin to manage our mind and wants to bring
healing also to our mind is that our life currently
is headed in the direction of our most dominant
strongest thoughts. Your life is currently
following the direction of your most dominant
strongest thoughts. Where those thoughts are at, that's exactly where your
emotions, where your body, and everything is headed to. If those thoughts are,
I am a failure; if those thoughts
are, my life sucks sucks everyone around me
hates me, I'm rejected, I'm lonely; not only you and I are in danger of letting these
thoughts invite demons but sometimes these thoughts
were already sent by demons so that these thoughts can
open the door to demons. Did you catch that? Sometimes these thoughts
are sent by demons themselves. Why? Because if we hold on to
them, it will open the door to them so that then the demons
begin to torture our life. It says in book of Acts when
Peter rebukes Ananias and he says, "Why did you let Satan
fill your heart to lie?" It says in John chapter 13 that
Satan put on the heart of Judas to betray Him and few
verses later the Bible says Satan entered Judas. It's almost like he sent the
thought seeing, will Judas take it receive it, cook with it,
feed it, nurture it, adopt it, and if he does that it will open
the door for me to enter him and begin to bring
havoc in his life. My friend, Satan uses
thoughts to harass Christians. And if we hold on and these
thoughts take root in our mind they begin to develop a
life of its own in our mind. They become stronghold mindset. They go into our subconscious
thinking. What it thinks on its own. You can't even stop
it, it's like a glitch. It just attacks you
now, harasses you. It can open door to
the demonic influence. And God wants to
liberate us from that. Amen! "This Book of the Law shall
not depart from your mouth, "but you shall meditate
in it day and night, "and then you will make
your way prosperous, and then you will have
good success." Joshua 1:8 Mind management is the
priority of an overcomer because your winning starts
within you not around you. Now in the Scripture Bible talks about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven types of minds. Seven minds. I'm going to give you quickly,
verses and then we're going to dive in on how to begin to see a
shift in the state of our mind. Seven types of minds. The
first mind is the right mind. Do you remember the possessed
man who Jesus delivered? And the Scripture says in Mark
5:15,"Then they came to Jesus, "and saw a man who had been
demon-possessed and had a legion, sitting and clothed
and in his right mind." That means you
can have a left mind. You can have a wrong mind. This was not just
talking about a thought this was talking about a
state of a mental environment, your mental atmosphere.
The right mind. This doesn't just mean that
he finally had one right thought this means that dominant
thoughts were right. The strongest thoughts
were now right thoughts. And this was a sign
that he was delivered is that he was sitting,
he was clothed, and the Bible says, "and
he was in his right mind." Are you in your right mind? Is what's happening
in your mind constantly always, regularly,
your strongest thoughts are they right or
are they wrong? If you take it back and
take it through the scan and just become aware of
what's going on in your head, is it right state of
mind or is it wrong? Because when Jesus comes,
He wants to bring you to a place where your mind is right. Your
finances might not be right yet your family might
not be right yet but the first thing
Jesus did to this man He didn't give him money,
He didn't brought him a wife He didn't build him a house, He
didn't give him a new car or a job He didn't give him a degree,
He gave him a right mind. One of the greatest
gifts my friend, if you have a right mind,
you are blessed by God. You don't realize how
powerful it is to have a mind that doesn't glitch until
you get one that glitches. And then you begin to look
back in your life and you're like, man, nothing comes in
comparison to having a right mind. When it doesn't harass you,
intrude, torment and trip you up that's the first
mind, the right mind. The second kind of mind, in Titus 1:8 it talks about bishops. "Bishops be hospitable, a lover
of what is good, sober-minded," somebody say sober mind. "just, holy, and self-controlled." Sober mind. See, we know what it's
like when a person is sober meaning you're not intoxicated. That means that you're not not
normal but there's also sober mind. Sometimes the enemy intoxicates
our mind with our problems and it becomes inflated. And we begin to
exaggerate the facts. We begin to feel like, my life
sucks. No, you just had a bad day. You don't have a bad
life, you just had a flat tire. No, you're just on
your period, that's why. No, this is just you know
what, it's just Monday all right you just not had
coffee that kicked in and the devil wants your
mind to be intoxicated meaning that you
are exaggerating and you're saying things that
are not true. You're not sober. And we need to
sober up in our mind . God wants His word to
make us sober in our mind that we think clearly
about the situation. We look at our life and we
see it could always suck more and be grateful to God. Be thankful to God in
whatever situation that we are in and not be not
sober in our mind. A lot of Christians don't
drink, their mind does. What liquor has devil been
giving to your mind to drink? Which news medias have
been intoxicating your mind and causing things to seem darker
than they are, worse than they are and make you feel
terrible about your life when in reality your
life is not that bad? Many people in a coma
right now or on the dialysis who would trade to
have your problems. There are people today
that are on a death row that would love to
have your problems. My friend, God wants
you to have a sober mind. Come on somebody say sober mind. [Applause] The next mind, in 2 Timothy 1:7 it says, "For
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love
and of a sound mind." Come on somebody
shout, sound mind. Somebody drop that
in the chat, sound mind. So we see a right mind,
we see a sober mind, and we see a sound mind. See, I want you to notice
this is not just sound thought. For once in a while you
have-- even a crazy person once in a while
has a sound thought. Having a sound thought does
not mean you have a sound mind. Sound thought
meaning once in a while something good crosses
through your head. When you have a sound
mind means the dominant and the strongest and
perpetual thoughts are sound. Sound, meaning they're not sick. They're not sick. Bitterness, envy, hatred, for some reason, you just hate. Those are not sound thoughts. They are sick. Those thoughts got COVID. Those thoughts got arthritis. Those thoughts, they're not healthy. And maybe none of the
body parts have sickness but remember one
thing, sooner or later if your thoughts, dominant
thoughts are not sound they will infect your organs. This is a medical fact
and I'm not a doctor. You can read this on
almost every health website and talk to every
medical professionals and they will tell you, most of our
organs and our physical problems are a result of the
state of our mind. Not once in a while bad thought,
a state. Meaning perpetual consistent, constant, continual,
strongest, dominant thoughts. The Bible says that an envy
spirit erupts the bone- broken spirit. When you're broken on the
inside, it affects your body organs. So, sound mind is extremely
healthy to your sound body. It's good to take vitamin D.
Vitamin C, A, Z, X, every vitamin is good It's good to eat your broccoli.
It's good to eat the fish, less steak It's good to take the whole grain,
it's good to drink your smoothies to drink your water,
it's good to get enough sleep but my friend, if
your mind is sick, you are not treating
the root of the problem you are treating the symptoms
by dealing on your body instead of your mind. One mother came in one
time and took a garbage from her garbage can and
dropped it on her son's plate. Says, "Mom, why
did you put that in?" She says,"Well if you don't
mind putting garbage in your mind you shouldn't mind putting
garbage on your plate." My friend, keep your mind sound. It will do more good to your
body than any vitamins that you-- I'm not against taking
care of your body, don't hear what I'm not saying. But what I'm saying is that God
wants you to have a sound mind not just few sound thoughts. Because even the crazy one of us
among here have once in a while a few sound thoughts
that circulate the head. The only problem is they never land. They never stay. And it's the crazy ones,
they hang out over there and adopt themselves
as your children and they literally like plant
themselves in your mind you're like, "Man what
are you doing here?" And they're like, "Well
I'm part of you now." God wants you to have a sound
mind. Somebody shout sound mind. Romans 8:6, we're going
to look at the fourth mind. "For to be carnally
minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace." Somebody say spiritual mind. Or spiritually minded. So
this is the mind that focuses on the spiritual things. This is the mind that
focuses on the things of God. God wants you to
have not only a spirit, but your mind
focused on your spirit. Because the problem with
many of us is that the Bible says is that the spirit of your mind. Meaning your mind
can have a spirit behind it. Your mind can have
a force behind it. Your mind can
become its own master. And the Scripture tells us
not to make mind into a master. We don't worship our mind. We don't trust our thoughts,
we trust with our thoughts. We train our thoughts.
We turn our thoughts over to God. We direct them like you train a child. You don't let the child do what
they want and figure themselves out you're like, "Well, you know, I
just want them to have the freedom. No, you don't want
them to have the freedom. You want them to be cared
and have certain disciplines. Same thing with your thoughts.
It needs to be trained, directed and the Bible says he who
turns their thoughts toward God "You will keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on You." "Whose mind is stayed on You." So it's not once in a
while I direct my thoughts. I direct the flow of my
strongest thoughts on God and something begins to happen;
my life becomes spiritual. Why? Because I'm directing my mind's
attention toward the Holy Ghost. I'm directing my mind's
attention toward God. I'm directing my mind's
attention toward His promise. I'm directing my mind's attention
towards the things that are eternal. I'm directing my mind's attention
toward the things that will not die when I die but they will live
forever: it's God, it's His Word, it's His Spirit, it's His
promise, it's His glory, it's Him seated on the throne, it's Him coming back
as a reigning king, it is Him and His spirit
that dwells inside of me. When your mind
becomes spiritual, you are focusing on
the spiritual things. Somebody give God
some praise right now. [Applause] [speaking in tongues] [music] Luke 12:29 it says, "Do
not seek what you should eat or what you should drink,
nor have an anxious mind." So we talked about the
right mind, the sound mind, we talked about the sober mind, we talked about the
spiritual mind because it's focused on
the things of God, but then we're going to hit some
negative minds, anxious mind. Now, everyone has an
anxious moments and thoughts. What the enemy wants to do is he
wants to take the anxious situations and infiltrate your mind so that you will not
just have an anxious day, you will not just have a
depressing moment or week, you will become the
embodiment of that moment and you will continue
to live out that moment even if that moment
is no longer there. That's what a person has, an anxious mind. They're anxious when
they're not anxious. They're depressed when
they're not depressed. Meaning they're always like that. They're negative. Always like that. It's like a person who had this
weird cheese stuck on their forehead. Somebody put some
cheese on them. They woke up and they
said, "The car stinks." They went to the house
they said, "The house stinks." They went to the store
they said, "The store stinks." They went outside and they
said, "The whole world stinks." In reality, it was just
the cheese on their head. And that's what happens
with an anxious mind. It's the mind that's
anxious, not life. Now does life have difficult
moments? Jesus said He says, "In this world
you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer." He
didn't say but be depressed He didn't say, in this world you will
have tribulation but be anxious. He said, "Do not be afraid."
Our faith is an optimistic faith. Christianity is not a depressing
Debbie the downer faith. Christianity is not walking around
hunched back head down and constantly expecting things
to go from bad to worse. Christianity is the faith where
we square our shoulders. Lift our eyes to the hills
where our help comes from because our help comes from God. Christianity is the faith where
my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock
that is higher than I. Christianity is a faith
where you can do all things through Christ that
strengthens you. Christianity is the faith that
says that if you abide in Me and my words abide in
you, you ask for anything and I shall give it to you
and My Father will be glorified if you receive what you asked for. My friend,it's a faith of faith.
It's the faith of victory. It's the faith of glory.
It's the faith of power. It's the faith of righteousness.
It's the faith of love. It's the faith of peace, my friend. [Music] If you have an anxious mind,
God wants to destroy it today. God wants to remove that
and renew that and remodel that and give you a new mind. I'm not just talking about
give you once in a while a few little cool thoughts. See, that's a problem
with an anxious mind. If somebody gives
you a very precious gift, you will have a positive
happy thought for a moment. But somebody has to
keep on giving you gifts every single four, five, six hours
for you to think positive thoughts because your default thinking is
anxious and those gifts were off. But when you have a right mind,
the mind does the positive thinking. The mind does the sound thinking because it's anchored
in the Word of God. Romans 1:28 the next mind "And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, "God gave them over
to a debased mind, to do those things
which are not fitting." The word debased
there in original is rejected cast away, not standing
a test, not approved, that which does not
prove itself as such is odd. Meaning it's a mind
that failed the test. And this mind is different
than the rest of them because in this one,
God throws you into it. The enemy doesn't
give you this one, you didn't pick up going through
very difficult season of your life this is when you
willfully and ignorantly when you begin to
ignore not ignorantly but when you begin to ignore
God on purpose, not put God's word and God honestly, has it enough. And He gives you up,
He doesn't give up on you. He just honestly takes His
protection and your mind goes glitch. And your mind is failed. Your mind has not been
approved, it's rejected. And guess what that
mind does to you? It does the same thing to
you. It makes you a failure. It makes you feel like a failure. And the person with this state of
mind has to start with repentance. You can't just go back
and rebuke the devil because the devil is
not the problem here. God lifted His hand of protection
and your mind went bananas. And you need to
experience first repentance, putting God back in your mind. And the last mind, Romans 8:6,
and that is the carnal mind. "For to be carnally
minded is death, "but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. "Because the carnal mind
is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the
law of God, nor indeed can be." What is this mind? It's the mind-- a spiritual
mind is focused on the spirit. The carnal mind is focused
on the pleasures of life, cares of this world, success.
It's focused on the physical realm. It's not as sinful
per se, it's just carnal. It's just not spiritual. It's focus is on entertainment, it focuses on the
pleasures of life, it makes the idol
out of pleasures, and it becomes the
state of somebody's being. The person can for a moment.
15 minutes, they can focus on God but the rest of their
life is consumed with the things of this world. And the Bible says
this kind of mind, it fights against
the things of God. This kind of a person
cannot fully walk with the Lord because this person lives
in the flesh, walks in the flesh, sets their mind on the flesh
and therefore they have a mindset. Perpetual, continuous, non-stop,
dominant, most powerful thoughts are focused on
the earthly things. To them giving is dumb,
praying is a waste of time, going to church- why
would you want to do that? I can do so many other things. For them reading the
Bible- that's an old book, what can that teach me? What, you want me
to serve at the church? I don't have time for that.
Why? Because a carnal mind fights against the
spiritual things. It looks at spiritual things and says,
you guys are a bunch of crazies. You guys are a bunch
of just religious people. Because it's a carnal
mind that has that and even Christians can have
the potential of having a carnal mind But God wants us to
have a spiritual mind. Amen. In the conclusion, I want to just
give you very simple practical steps on how to begin
to shift your mind. Please understand, you
can't change your mind until you take responsibility
for your thoughts. You can't change
your mind in an instant. That's like going in and
changing your whole house in five minutes. There is no prayer that can
turn your shack into a mansion. There is no prayer that
can take your bicycle and turn it into an airplane. There's no anointing oil, there
is no casting out of demons, we can bring a fire
hose to spray on you but if your mind's been like this,
it does not change overnight. You can get delivered quickly,
you can get healed quickly, you can get married quickly,
you can get a lot of stuff quickly, but one thing you cannot get
quickly is change your mind. And it first starts, first it
starts with taking responsibility for your thoughts. The moment we shift
the responsibility on God or the moment we
just opt out and say, you know what I can't
control my thoughts, this is where the problem begins. We have to take
responsibility for our thoughts. And so, let's just dive in. The first thing
that I mentioned is take responsibility
for your thoughts. The second thing that I
want you to do and this is huge take care of your
physical brain. Your brain is like the piano your mind is like the pianist. Now, he plays piano,
piano doesn't play him, right? But if there is no piano,
pianist cannot play piano. A lot of people do not take
care of their physical brain. When you consume drugs,
you're damaging your brain. When you consume alcohol
you're damaging your brain. When you're not eating properly
you are damaging your brain. Now, there are accidents that
could happen to each one of us. Car accidents, you can fall
somewhere and have a concussion or damage your brain.
We're not talking about that. We can't control that. But there are things that we can
do that could really hurt our brain. Through drugs, through
alcohol, through sleep deprivation, through not eating properly,
through not hanging out in the society and being in the community,
what we do is we damaged certain chemicals begin
to be missing in our brain and after that our mind can't play full melody
because the keys are broken. [Music] You know, sometimes in a
piano certain keys just don't work. And so you can't play
what you want to play because keys are broken. And
many people don't realize how important that is to begin
to take care of your brain. Your brain is an organ but
your mind is a spiritual you spiritual part of you. And your spiritual part of
you cannot do the thinking if your brain has
been jeopardized. We have to take care of the
brain. We have to eat the broccoli. We have to eat more
fish and less steak. We have to sleep more.
We have to take vitamins. We have to do everything we
can so that our brain is healthy. Come on somebody! And some people they
need to see the doctor some people need to see and
supplement certain missing chemicals there and we have to do whatever it
takes that our brain is protected. Brain is a physical organ that
needs to be well taken care. And if it's not well taken care of
you're not taking care of your mind. Because your mind cannot
do its work without its brain. And brain needs to be taken
care of. Come on somebody! Help my brain, Lord. Help my brain. Amen. Number three, and I think the points
they're a little bit different. Number three is,
get out of your head. So first is, I can't
change my mind if I don't take responsibility
for my thoughts. Secondly, is I have to
take care of my brain. And number three, I have to get out
from my head. What does that mean? As a Christian, you must
understand you have thoughts you are not your thoughts. This is a huge revelation. The Scripture tells us,
think on these things. The Scripture doesn't say
that thinking does the thinking. You're doing the thinking,
the thinking is not doing you. So we have to draw
the line in the sand and when you notice your
mind is doing its own thinking, making its own calls,
sending its own message, you say, "Whoa, stop! Stop!" Why? Because the Bible says
as the man thinks so is he. It doesn't say as things
think so is the man. Meaning, you're doing the thinking,
the thinking should not be doing you. The thinking should
not be thinking on its own and when it does that, you have
to put in the brakes and say, "Stop!" Why? Because I am a spirit.
I am not a mind, I'm a spirit and I can tell my mind, "shut
up!" "stop!" "Don't go there!" "You cannot cross there!" And
so, you are not your thoughts. You have thoughts but
you are not your thoughts. And therefore when you notice
that you are living in your head, get out of your head. Open that prison door and
say, I'm coming out of this. Why? And I'm going to tell
my mind what to do. My mind is not going to dictate
my emotions, my mood and my life. Come on somebody!
Are you with me? [Music] "Finally, brethren,
whatever things are true, "whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure, "whatever things are lovely,
whatever things are of good report, "if there is any virtue and if
there is anything praiseworthy— meditate on these things." So Paul is telling us
to think on these things. Therefore, we got to remove
this lie, I can't control my thoughts. You cannot control your mind until you first take
responsibility for your thoughts. But you can control your thoughts otherwise Bible will never
tell you to think on these things. You can dictate your thoughts otherwise the Bible will not
say as a man thinks so is he. You can control your
thoughts and it starts with you announcing to yourself, to
your thoughts, and to your mind, and to every minion running in
your mind and controlling your mind and causing a glitch.
Say, "Hey there's a boss. "There's a sheriff in town. And
that's not you, you, you, you, "it's me. My spirit is
going to make the shots. "My spirit is going to make
the shots in this mind. "And not you, you, you. So
you listen you listen, you listen. "And you're fired, you're
fired and you're fired." Why? Because you're misbehaving. [Music] Come on somebody! [Applause] Number three or number four, capture thoughts before
you can make them captive. You can't make thoughts
captive until you capture them. Capture them meaning,
becoming aware of them. It says in Ephesians 6:16-17
"above all, taking the shield of faith "with which you will be able
to quench all the fiery darts "of the wicked one. And
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God;" Before we can take
our thoughts captive, we first have to
become aware of them. And the best way to do
that is to stop for a moment, take a pause and breathe. And just observe,
what's cooking there? And just observe, why are these
thoughts thinking on their own like that always
without your permission? Where did it start? Who planted this? Who injected this into my head? Where is the basis for that? Where is this going? Why is this happening? And when you observe,
you become aware. What you just did,
you just captured them. Before, they were just
thinking on their own. Now, the boss saw
somebody trespassing, somebody misbehaving. And only then you can
captivate what you captured. But if you're not aware
that there's lonely thoughts running rampant in your mind, you can't subdue them because
you don't even know their name. When you notice
rejection, it's constant, and the smallest
little thing happens, and you overthink that
somebody rejected you, where did it start from? Why has this been in my life? It's always on default,
on the background like a screensaver, five minutes
and it just shows up on its own. And then you're like, "No wonder
and people reject me all the time." "Is this because people reject
me or do people reject me because I have this thought
running on the background?" You observe, you become aware. Because when you become
aware, Paul says, fiery darts these are not just thoughts, this is not just you, this is not just the world
is crazy nobody likes you; what if this is a fiery dart that is flying in and you're
seeing it, you captured it. You caught that. You say, "Okay, nope,
you're not going any further. You stop right here."
You abort that. You remove that and you say,
"No, this doesn't go any further." You can't captive something,
take captive until you capture it until you are aware of that. Come on somebody! Are you with me? Number five, don't focus
on emptying your mind. It will lead to eastern
meditation. Fill it. Emptying your mind is passive. Filling your mind is active. Emptying your mind makes you
susceptible to demonic infiltration. Filling your mind makes you powerful because you can push away
every demonic infiltration. Emptying your mind
can lead to demonization but filling your mind can lead
you to the filling of the Holy Spirit. And so, Bible never gives
us this passive kind of like, just relax, just breathe, just
kind of just think about nothing that's very dangerous,
you don't want to do that. You want to fill your mind
intentionally and actively, aggressively and purposefully.
It's a war over there. You can't walk around
over there without a weapon. You're coming to
war in your mind. You're not coming for a
vacation. This is not a Hawaii trip, this is a war zone. And you have got to begin to
feel active, be active. Many people can't change their
mind because simply they're lazy. They're just lazy. They're
not active with their thoughts. They're not active with
what's happening there. They're just playing passive
and then they commence them like "Hey man of God, deliver me.
Hey, man of God pray for me." But my friend, God
wants to make you active. He wants to train your hands
for war and your fingers for battle. He wants you to train your thoughts. He wants you to raise your thoughts. He wants you to direct your
thoughts. Come on, get busy You got to pull away the
weeds and plant the seeds, and water the seeds. You have got to get
active in your mind you can't just let
it think on its own. You have got to pull back; press
the brakes, replace the brakes, replace the engine, replace
the transmission if you need to. You have got to work on this baby.
You have got to work on this thing. [Music] Read, study, list and meditate,
memorize, confess Scriptures. And the last one is,
take every thought captive. like a prisoner of war. Thoughts
are transgressors sometimes. They need to be treated as such. They need to be enslaved. Thoughts, if you
don't enslave them, if you don't make
them into captives, you will become
a captive of them. You either take
your thoughts captive or you are a captive
of your thoughts. You either turn your
thoughts to God, or your thoughts
will rule your life. You either trust God
with your thoughts or your thoughts will dictate
the direction of your life. And they're completely
unpredictable, they're crazy. We see this in the
Scripture and this last verse. "For the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal "but mighty in God for
pulling down strongholds, "casting down arguments
and every high thing "that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God, "bringing every thought into
captivity to the obedience of Christ." Have you noticed there
is no passivity here? Have you noticed there's no
I'm going to sit on the back seat and let Jesus take the wheel?
Jesus ain't taking no wheels today. In this area, Jesus says if
you don't get behind the wheel and hit the brake,
you're going to crash. A lot of us what we do, there
are areas we have to surrender this, we don't
surrender we subdue. We fight here. He says, "The weapons of our
warfare." That means your thoughts you don't bring a
knife to a gunfight. You got to bring God's weapon. You got to bring the Scripture. The latest quote on
Pinterest will not do. Come on! The latest
quote on Twitter will not do. You got to bring a weapon. And the weapon is
the sword of the spirit. You got to put God's word inside and you got to come arms
ready, full with the armor of God. And then it says you turn
your thoughts into captivity. You have got to get aggressive. There's fantasies in our mind. There's attitudes that rise
against the knowledge of God and the truth of who
God says about you. You have got to capture that
and you have got to bend them. You have got to cuff them up and
if they give thing, you taser them. And if that thought comes at
you, you pull up and you shoot. That's the only thing Christians
can shoot, is bad thoughts. Everything else we love but bad thoughts,
you take them captive. If they resist, taser them
handcuff them, shoot. Put that weapon to use. You have got to go to war. People are like, man, I
want my mind to be relaxing. After a long day of work I
just want to still and chill, chill and Netflix. My friend, if
you're going to chill and Netflix in your mind, your
life will be nothing good. For life to be good, we
have to do the war here. And after you win the
wars, you'll enjoy the peace. But if there is no
peace in your life and there's no
peace in your mind, my friend I want to tell you
something: there is no prayer there is no rebuking and
commanding that will fix laziness and being inactive with our
thoughts and with our mind.
