Battlefield of the Mind (5 page)

I asked the Lord, "What is this feeling I always have?"

"Evil forebodings," He answered.

I did not know what that meant, nor had I ever heard of it. Shortly thereafter, I found the phrase in Proverbs 15:15: All the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil [by anxious thoughts and forebodings], but he who has a glad heart has a continual feast
[regardless of circumstances].

I realized at that time that most of my life had been made miserable by evil thoughts and forebodings. Yes, I had circumstances that were very difficult, but even when I didn't, I was still miserable because my thoughts were poisoning my outlook and robbing me of ability to enjoy life and see good days.

KEEP YOUR TONGUE FROM EVIL!

For let him who wants to enjoy life and see good days [good
whether apparent or not] keep his tongue free from evil and his lips
from guile (treachery, deceit). 1 Peter 3:10

This verse plainly tells us that enjoying life and seeing good days, and having a positive mind and mouth, are linked together.

No matter how negative you are or how long you have been that way, I know you can change because I did. It took time and "heaping helpings" of the Holy Spirit, but it was worth it.

It will be worth it to you too.

Whatever happens, trust in the Lord—and be positive!

Chapter 6

Mind Binding Spirits

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.PHILIPPIANS 4:6,7 KJV

I once reached a place in my walk with God where I was having a hard time believing certain things that I had previously believed. I didn't understand what was wrong with me, and as a result, I got confused. The longer the predicament went on, the more confused I became. The unbelief seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. I began to question my call; I thought I was losing the vision God had given me for the ministry. I was miserable (unbelief always produces misery).

Two days in a row I heard this phrase coming up out of my spirit: "mind-binding spirits." The first day I didn't think much about it. However, the second day, as I began a time of intercession, I heard it again for about the fourth or fifth time: "mind-binding spirits."

I knew from all the people to whom I had ministered that multitudes of believers have trouble with their minds. I thought the Holy Spirit was leading me to pray for the Body of Christ against a spirit called "Mind Binding." So I began to pray and come against mind-binding spirits in Jesus' name. After only a couple of minutes of praying, I felt a tremendous deliverance come to my own mind. It was quite dramatic.

DELIVERED FROM MIND BINDING SPIRITS

Nearly every deliverance God has brought to me has been progressive and has come about by believing and confessing the Word of God. John 8:31,32 and Psalm 107:20 are my testimony. In John 8:31,32 Jesus says,
...If you abide
(continue)
in My word,...you are truly My
disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. 
Psalm 107:20 says of the Lord,
He sends forth His word and heals them
and rescues them from the pit and destruction.

But this time I felt and knew immediately that something had happened in my mind. Within minutes I was able to believe again in areas I had been struggling with just prior to my time of prayer.

I'll give you an example. Before being attacked by the mind-binding demons, I believed that according to the Word of God, the fact that I was a woman from Fenton, Missouri, whom no one knew, wouldn't make any difference in my life or ministry. (Galatians 3:28.) When God was ready,
He
would open doors that no one could close (Revelation 3:8), and I would preach all over the world the practical, liberating messages He had given me.

I believed I would have the privilege of sharing the Gospel throughout the nation by radio (not because of me, but in spite of me). I knew that, according to the Scriptures, God chooses weak and foolish things to confound the wise. (1 Corinthians 1:27.) I believed that the Lord was going to use me to heal the sick. I believed that our children would be used in ministry. I believed all sorts of wonderful things that God had placed in my heart.

However, when the mind-binding spirits attacked me, I couldn't seem to believe much of anything. I thought things like, "Well, I probably just made all that up. I just believed it because I wanted to, but it probably won't ever happen." But when the spirits left, the ability to believe came rushing back.

DECIDE TO BELIEVE

So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our
weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it
worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our
supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable ings and
groanings too deep for utterance. Romans 8:26

As Christians, we need to learn to
decide
to believe. God often gives us faith (a product of the Spirit) for things that our minds just can't always seem to come into agreement with. The mind wants to understand everything—the why, the when and the how of it all. Often, when that understanding is not given by God, the mind refuses to believe what it cannot understand.

It frequently happens that a believer
knows
something in his heart (his inner man), but his mind wars against it.

I had decided long before to believe what the Word says, and to believe the
rhema
(the revealed Word) that God gave me (the things He spoke to me or the promises He gave me personally), even if I didn't understand why, when or how it would come to pass in my life.

But this thing I had been battling was different; it was beyond decision. I was bound by these mind-binding spirits and just couldn't bring myself to believe.

Thank God that through the Holy Spirit He showed me how to pray, and His power prevailed even though I didn't know I was praying for myself when I started.

I'm sure that you are reading this book right now because you were led to it. You too may be having problems in this area. If so, I encourage you to pray in Jesus' name. By the power of His blood, come against

"mind-binding spirits." Pray this way not just one time but any time you experience difficulty in this area.

The devil never runs out of fiery darts to throw against us when we are trying to go forward. Lift up your shield of faith and remember lames 1:2-8 which teaches us that we can ask God for wisdom in trials and He will give it to us and will show us what to do.

I had a problem, a fiery dart I had not encountered before. But God showed me how to pray, and I was set free.

You will be too.

Chapter 7

Think About What You're Thinking About

I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways [the paths of life marked out by Your law].

PSALM 119:15

The Word of God teaches us what we should spend our time thinking about.

The psalmist said that he thought about or meditated on the precepts of God. That means that he spent a lot of time pondering and thinking on the ways of God, His instructions and His teachings. Psalm 1:3 says that the person who does this ...shall be like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].

It is very beneficial to think about God's Word. The more time a person spends meditating on the Word, the more he will reap from the Word.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU THINK!

...Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and
study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue
and knowledge] that comes back to you—and more [besides] will be
given to you who hear. Mark 4:24

What a great Scripture! It tells us that the more time we spend thinking about the Word we read and hear, the more power and ability we will have to do it—the more revelation knowledge we will have about what we have read or heard. Basically this tells us that we will get from the Word of God what we put into it.

Notice especially the promise that the amount of thought and study we devote to the Word will determine the amount of virtue and knowledge that will come back to us.

Vine's
An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
says that in certain Scriptures of the
King James Version
the Greek word
dunamis
meaning "power" is translated "virtue."1 According to
The New Strong's
Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,
another translation of
dunamis
is "ability."2 Most people do not delve into the Word of God very deeply. As a result, they get confused about why they are not powerful Christians living victorious lives.

The truth is that most of them really don't put much effort of their own into the study of the Word. They may go out and hear others teach and preach the Word. They may listen to sermon tapes or read the Bible occasionally, but they are not really dedicated to making the Word a major part of their lives, including spending time thinking about it.

The flesh is basically lazy, and many people want to get something for nothing (with no effort on their part); however, that really is not the way it works. I will say it again,
a person will get out of the Word what he is
willing
to put into it.

MEDITATE ON THE WORD

Blessed (happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man
who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their
advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive]

in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where
the scornful [and the mockers] gather.

But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His
law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually
meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night. Psalm 1:1,2

According to Webster, the word
meditate
means "1. To reflect on:
PONDER.
2. To plan or intend in the mind. .To engage in contemplation."3

Vine's
An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
says that
meditate
means ". .primarily, to care for,. .to attend to, practise,. .be diligent in,.. to practise is the prevalent sense of the word,.. to ponder, imagine,. . to premeditate."4

Proverbs 4:20 says, My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. If we put Proverbs 4:20 together with these definitions of the word "meditate," we see that we attend to God's Word by meditating on it, by pondering on it, by contemplating it, by rehearsing or practicing it in our thinking. The basic idea is that if we want to do what the Word of God says, we must spend time thinking about it.

Remember the old saying, "Practice makes perfect"? We really do not expect to be experts at anything in life without a lot of practice, so why would we expect Christianity to be any different?

MEDITATION PRODUCES SUCCESS

This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you
shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do
according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way
prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success. Joshua 1:8

If you want to be a success and prosper in all your dealings, the Bible says you must meditate on the Word of God day and night.

How much time do you spend thinking about the Word of God? If you are having problems in any area of your life, an honest answer to this question may disclose the reason why.

For most of my life, I didn't think about what I was thinking about. I simply thought whatever fell into my head. I had no revelation that Satan could inject thoughts into my mind. Much of what was in my head was either lies that Satan was telling me or just plain nonsense—things that really were not worth spending my time thinking about. The devil was controlling my life because he was controlling my thoughts.

THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT!

Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted
ourselves in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by our
corrupt and sensual nature], obeying the impulses of the flesh and the
thoughts of the mind.... Ephesians 2:3

Paul warns us here that we are not to be governed by our sensual nature or to obey the impulses of our flesh, the thoughts of our carnal mind.

Although I was a Christian, I was having trouble because I had not learned to control my thoughts. I thought about things that kept my mind busy but were not productive in a positive way.

I needed to change my thinking!

One thing the Lord told me when He began to teach me about the battlefield of the mind became a major turning point for me. He said,

"Think about what you're thinking about." As I began to do so, it was not long before I began to see why I was having so much trouble in my life.

My mind was a mess!

I was thinking all the wrong things.

I went to church, and had done so for years, but I never actually thought about what I heard. It went in one ear and out the other, so to speak. I read some Scriptures in the Bible every day, but never thought about what I was reading. I was not
attending
to the Word. I was not giving any thought and study to what I was hearing. Therefore, no virtue or knowledge was coming back to me.