It is believed that about seventy to eighty thousand thoughts come to the mind of an average person and four out of five thoughts are about evil only. Satan and his demonic forces keep on attacking us in this manner, to break us and force us to submit to his will and live under his control. The key to living a life of righteousness is to resist these thoughts and walk in obedience to the Word of God.
Why and from where do evil thoughts come? Unwanted thoughts invade our minds in the form of images, ideas or impulsive urges. Since these are disturbing to most of the people, they are not in light with our moral or natural impulses. These surround and attack those ideas that are precious to us to cause deviation from that into the unhealthy state. These disrupt normal life by putting in the fear of probable harm to self and family members, financial difficulties, religious or moral violations, unwanted sexual imagery or violence. New parents and especially the mother of a new-born child fears for her child’s safety and health.
The most disturbing thoughts are about whatever you care about protecting the most. God cares about us and desires a close relationship with all of mankind. Many times, this closeness and being chosen by God fills us with pride over our uniqueness. We start forgetting the basic fact that we did not choose Him to be our Saviour but He in His mercy and love did. God has shown His love for us, in and through His Son, ‘in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). We are God’s chosen ones and when we compare our sinful state and even now, the desire to make wrong choices, we should be filled with humility. We feel pride to be close to someone influential here on earth and our photos with them adorn our houses.
Being close to God, the Creator of the universe, demands self-examination and self-improvement, not pride. He made us in His image to reflect His love and grace to others. Lucifer was the closest to God, and was ‘seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty’ (Ezekiel 28:12-17). But this caused his ego to be bloated and his ‘heart was lifted up’ because of his beauty and with that he ‘corrupted’ his wisdom. His perfection was for praising God but he attempted to be like God, above every other angel in heaven. When I fail to recognise the source of my true goodness and value, from and as a reflection of God’s greatness, I draw away from Him into my own self. This battle of lies of self- importance and the truth of God’s grace working in me, keeps on bringing thoughts to justify myself. Since Satan was moved out of heaven, from God’s presence, he keeps on charging us with thoughts that draw us to him and away from God. But can he directly afflict us in this manner?
Our Lord taught the Pharisees about cleanliness within as compared to physical cleanliness of hands before eating (Mark 7:20-23). He told the disciples, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man’ and not what he eats, for food goes into the stomach only. Then He told the source of evil thoughts, ‘For from within the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts’, leading to evil actions. Thus, this whole process does not start from outside but on the inside, in the mind and heart. Dr C.S Lewis, a great preacher wrote about the way a senior demon trains and guides a junior spirit in afflicting the man under his charge in his very short book ‘The Screwtape Letters’. He observes us minutely and keeps on drawing our attention to those things that would defile our thoughts. When we keep at it long enough, those thoughts turn into our desires. Then we want to have or do what we have allowed our minds to dwell upon. Without any physical action from him, we turn and do wrong.
We can see that the choice remains ours, to reject or accept and meditate on that and develop it further, while enjoying the action being committed in imagination and then proceed to plan and act. There is no one who will not be tempted in the world and even Lord Jesus was subjected to temptation by the devil. Our thoughts are like birds in the sky, who will try and land but it is up to us not to let the birds make their nests on our heads. A farmer plants a crop and uses good seed but from the ground itself, unknown to him, weeds also come up. He diligently pulls out these weeds from the root, one by one, to ensure no damage to his crop. We also must identify each such thought and counter it by the Word of God
It is not that only the devil is the cause of all evil, our sinful nature keeps our minds directed towards it. And then even the goodness of somebody is viewed with suspicion and hidden motives are searched. A believer is blessed with the indwelling Holy Spirit to develop self-control and discipline. For a believer the real problems come when his thoughts impact his prayers and the answers from God. A prayer of faith, with no doubt, brings an answer from God (James 1:6-8). But a doubter is ‘like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord’. The Pharisees during Lord Jesus’ time lived life, following various rituals, which took priority over all else. Prayer is not a ritual of pressing the right keys and the answer will come. God searches the heart and tests the mind, ‘even to give man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings’ (Jeremiah 17:10). The desires of the heart and the accompanying thoughts of the mind are open before the Lord. The direction our life takes is all dependent on our way of thinking and living, for it is inter-linked.
Effect of our thoughts on our prayers – What Apostle James said about a man being like the waves of the sea, is one who swings like a pendulum from one side to the other. Sometimes he believes the answer to prayer is definite but the next moment he is filled with doubt and starts making alternate plans to handle his problem by himself. This brings two types of attitudes in a man; ‘Yetzer hara’ and ‘yetzer tov’. Yetzer means instinct or impulse and ‘ra means bad or an instinct for self-gratification or an evil life-style. The opposing force is ‘yetzer tov’ to move towards heavenly and righteous life.
There are two ways to handle the thoughts bringing ‘yetzer hara’. First is the ‘quick fix or just stop it method’ using guts, self-control and discipline, saying to oneself, ‘I will not do it’. This has short-term results and finally fails when the storm of evil is strong. The second is, shine a bright light, which is already inside us as the ‘breath of God’. The glory that Lord Jesus has given to all believers (John 17:22). A believer has this, like money in his bank account, but if I do not know the presence of this money in my account, I will keep on living a life of poverty and lack. So, how do we awaken that source in us? We must ‘not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12:2). In our own strength and our own efforts, we cannot do this. It is only the light of God’s glory that can prevail over our inner darkness, forcing it to flee.
The Word of God is Living and God breathed and is good for correction, for doctrine, and for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). A Holy Bible kept in a beautiful cupboard but never read is of least benefit. Teaching about deliverance from an evil spirit, Lord Jesus taught that the spirit comes back (Luke 11:24-26). And if the inside of the individual is empty of any spiritual light, it comes back ‘with seven other spirits more wicked than himself’. The first step of renewal is to fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God, and when evil thoughts try to come, they will and must not find any empty space. The advice of Apostle Paul is clear, ‘whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, 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’ (Philippians 4:8). It is about study, understanding through mediation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, receiving in fullness and being transformed in this manner
The second step is action oriented, for we are to ‘Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). The evil thoughts are immediately discarded and focus shifted to holy and just words. We reject evil thoughts while receiving the light of God’s word to dispel that darkness.
The third step is to reclaim the lost ground of our hearts and minds by turning away to set our minds ‘on things above, not on things on the earth’ (Colossians 3:2). This is about turning fully towards God and seeking His help in transformation. Renewal and submission is a daily effort of feeding on God’s Word and rejecting the wrong thoughts. After his sin with Bathsheba, King David repented, turned to the LORD and prayed with confidence, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me’ (Psalm 51:10). God listens to the heartfelt repentant cry of a sinner to forgive and restore him to fellowship.
The Hebrew word for repentance is ‘teshuva’ which is seen as regret, guilt, shame and repentance. But its actual meaning is return, for a sinner has lost contact with the essence of his soul, which is filled with God’s glory. He had turned to submit to the darkness of evil and now returns by turning to obedience to God’s commands and away from his negative inclinations. This is about refusing to accept evil thoughts by reconnecting to the inherent goodness within. On our own we cannot do this and only with the help of God it is possible. He renews our hearts and from that the thoughts are shifted from darkness to light.
Receiving God’s help for renewal of the mind – The promise is clear, ‘You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because his trust in You’ (Isaiah 26:3-4). Finding perfect peace is by trusting in God and retaining focus and fixed on Him and His Word. The Prophet further said, ‘Trust in the LORD forever, for in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength’. Perfect peace is freedom to do the right things in love, the acts that do not cause disturbance or guilt or shame in the mind.
Lord Jesus taught Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council (John 3:3). He told him, ‘Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’. To be born again is to be freed from the slavery to earthly desires and away from the heavenly ways. The earthly part, the physical body of an individual is attracted to that while the soul and the spirit to the heavenly. Whichever inclination dominates in us, that rules over our lives. A ‘born again’ believer’s soul is fully activated and to avoid its fall, which happened earlier, God gave the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. This God-given Spirit is God in us to fill us with ‘power, love and self-control (sound mind)’ (2 Timothy 1:7). In this manner, God empowers us to turn our minds to Him and exercise control over evil thoughts.
Job, despite his sufferings and immense grief could say, ‘I have made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman?’ (Job 31:2). In like manner when we make a commitment with our Saviour Lord to follow Him, it is a decision to walk as per His commandments.
Answering a Scribe, an expert in Moses’ Law, Lord Jesus listed the two basic commandments, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:36-40). With that He told the second command, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. Loving God is to be with ‘all’ and not a part of the mind, heart and the soul. It means that He must rule our thoughts, desires and deep longings, thus guiding and controlling our way of life. He becomes the Lord and King of our lives, with no one else taking any place of importance.
It is not that God will work it out and we remain passive but we become active and He helps as a Partner. His light helps in self-control and away from unwanted thoughts and desires. God appeared to Moses from within the Burning Bush and commanded him the first thing, ‘Take your sandals off your feet’. Lord Jesus in His preincarnate status visited Joshua, as ‘Commander of the LORD’s army, and told him the same thing (Joshua 5:15). Both were commanded to surrender all rights to their own self to God. Once they could fully submit, miraculous things started happening through them.
Every believer in Lord Jesus ‘is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Apostle Paul then, revealed the way it happens, ‘Now all things are of God’. This transformation brings in a renewed mind and heart that is dedicated to God.
This results in, first, freedom from slavery to sin and the devil, from guilt, shame and hiding from God. The second is, peace of and in the Saviour Lord for He has given us His peace which is beyond our understanding. We have peace with God as His redeemed and sanctified children, with ourselves, having been freed from sin and with others. It is like full immersion during baptism, to be overwhelmed by the light of His glory and presence. In this state His love, mercy and grace so overwhelm us that it flows on to others to be at peace with them. The third is, His power and authority working in and through us to face the forces of evil and darkness. This is through His Word and the presence of His Spirit in us.
Many people teach us to empty our minds of all thoughts first and then fill with the Word and light of God. An empty space is open to both the darkness and light to enter. Our work is to continue to fill our minds and the weight of His Kabod, His glory will force out the darkness. We cannot keep trying harder and harder but we need and seek God’s help for this renewal, right from the root upward. Then just like the root’s work is invisible in a tree, God will work in us from within to equip and change us.
God first night and then earmarked the seventh day as Sabbath to enable all created beings to get adequate rest from the labour of the day. In this manner we get charged to start afresh. In this He created a right balance between work and rest and growth. Spiritual, mental and physical strength comes by listening to and receiving words of good report and for this there is nothing better than the Word of God. Through submission, we receive, meditate upon and are filled to the fullness in our mind, heart and soul!
