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The War Inside

War. Take any history class and you’ll spend the majority of your time discussing it. Now with the United States at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, military conflicts, unfortunately, remain a huge reality. Images flood the evening news, showing the brutality and danger of war zones.

Another war – one we’ll likely never see on television – is taking place, too, one that touches even closer to home. And just like any war, life hangs in the balance. Many of us don’t realize it, but we’re in this war. Its battleground lies right between our ears.

Satan knows that if he captures your mind, he can completely cripple you. Creating a stronghold over your mind is his best tactic for weakening the potential power your One Word can have on your heart. Gaining such presence in your thoughts allows him to alter the lens through which you view the world and your part in it.

Instead of recognizing this as war, we instead engage in what seem like harmless head games. But if we view this as war, doesn’t it then sound insane to sit back, remain idle, or even retreat? It is crucial we fight back, first by identifying the start of our thoughts, then willfully surrendering them by declaring our trust in God as the only one who gives us the desires of our heart.

By thinking our thoughts – by taking control of our minds – we go on the offensive against the enemy. This clarifies our perspective. Remember the old sports saying – the best defense is a good offense.

Our struggles don’t come about randomly or by coincidence. There is a purpose behind it and a natural path with a definite direction. It boils down to a need we are not allowing God to fulfill and is ultimately a lack of trust in Him when He says that He will provide for our needs. We are impatient, selfish and obsessed with instant gratification. We don’t like waiting on God’s timing, so we begin to justify and rationalize our actions so we can convince ourselves that what we did wrong was actually right.

More often than not, our realizations of truth come from experiencing it  through regret rather than faith.

The thoughts that trip us into temptation don’t just randomly show up. They have points of origin. These initial stages of our thoughts usually go unnoticed until it is too late. When we allow our thoughts to stay long enough to take root, they can then lead to great physical and emotional pain. Identifying our thoughts’ origins is critical if we are to capture them before it is too late.

However, we cannot stop at just identifying the start of our thoughts. Understanding when and why they take place is drastically different from doing something about them. It will remain easy to justify and rationalize our actions, while at the same time, keeping the desire to meet our needs as the determining factor in our decision process. This leads to indifferent actions, in which we ignore the bigger audience (God) we need to answer to.

Until we take the next step in willfully surrendering and declaring our trust in God, we will remain helpless, unable to conquer our thoughts. Willful surrender involves (1) acknowledging that acting on these thoughts may lead to the satisfaction of our felt desire at that particular moment and (2) surrendering that potential satisfaction, denying ourselves that so-craved instant gratification.

Surrendering this thought is a declaration that you are seeking God as your source for life, fullness and joy. We do this through reflex thinking – when a thought creeps into our head, we capture it and surrender it over to God, regardless if it takes one time or a thousand to deal with it.

Stack each thought up against your standard.  It is not enough to eliminate your old system of thought—it must be replaced with a new system.  This is why it is so crucial to understand what it means to bring every thought into obedience to Christ.

• Identify the start of your thoughts by reading 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Reflect on the following questions: (1) Can you trace the thought path that typically leads you to a response that you know is not useful or helpful (temper, lust, gossip, etc.)?  Where do those responses come from? (2) What situations do you normally find yourself in when these thoughts begin to appear? (3) What emotions do you experience in this initial stage?

• By responding to the thought, you were hoping to have a certain need met. If ultimately every longing we have is a longing for God, what need were you looking to have met by yourself rather than God? Justification and rationalization stand as two of the greatest threats to the mind. How have these two elements of temptation wreaked havoc on your thoughts and altered the lens you use to view your circumstances?

Are you looking for a way to keep your word in front of you all year long? Register for a My One Word account! One of the key features of a MOW account is an online Word Journal that allows you to capture your thoughts to reflective questions like you see above. You can go back at any time to read your completed journals to see how God has been moving in your life through your word in 2010.  If you already have an account, the questions from this blog have been posted to your Word Journal — log in to your account to start your Word Journal today!

A Lens….Not A Promise

Your Word is not just a promise that you must keep or else you will fail.  It is more about the process of formation than a destination in which you will be “holy.”

This is an interesting word. “Holy.” It sounds like some kind of super-spiritual behavior – it sounds like finally arriving at some great spiritual finish line: “I am finally holy!  My life is all perfectly arranged! I’ve made it!”

Perhaps of all the religious and spiritual things we Christians throw around, holiness has the biggest image problem. Think of a holy person and chances are the first thing that comes to mind is someone who is stiff and never has a moment of fun.

In truth, all that is meant by holiness is that someone or something was set apart for God’s use. The Bible is filled with stories that take place on holy ground. The only reason those plots of land are special is because something special happened on them. Their holiness depends on how God used them.

So how is He going to use you?

The goal of this year is to put yourself in a position where God will use you. So your word must become a vantage point – otherwise, opportunities will be lost.  We want your One Word to become the lens through which you not only see your life and what God wants to do through you, but also how you view each passing moment.

Every day you will have an opportunity to “see” your life and your world though the lens of your One Word. If your word is compassion, it changes the way you see. You can’t simply measure your growth by whether or not you have been compassionate – you must begin to monitor how you see what is happening around you. You walk into a situation and begin to see through the lens of compassion and become available to bring God’s compassion where it might be needed. This is to be holy – you are set apart for his purposes.

If your word is love or faith, it changes the way you see your world. You are looking for opportunities. You are looking for ways for God to use what he is doing in you. You are set apart for his work – your One Word becomes a way to see things and not just a thing to do!

The first step to discovering what He has in store for you is by developing the vision of seeing what you can do for Him.  As you are thinking about your word, ask yourself what your perspective would be like through the lens of your One Word.  Then, surrender your normal, natural pace to be set apart for him – you are holy (1 Peter 1:16).

VIDEO BLOG: April’s Focus

This month on the MYONEWORD.ORG blog we have been talking about how to use your word as a catalyst for long range change by seeing it as a “lens” to look through instead of a “promise” you need to keep.  In our latest video blog, Mike Ashcraft, (pastor at Port City Community Church), reveals how seeing his word as a “lens” has been affecting how he has used his word “re:guard” throughout the month of April.

To view all of the posts from this month’s focus of “creating a lens” for your word, visit the category page here.