Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from Breaking Through: How Ordinary Believers Experience Extraordinary Freedom by Allen Parr.
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The Enemy’s main tactic has always been to attack our minds, which is why the Bible says that the primary way to experience transformation is to renew our minds. Paul said in Romans 12:2,
Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
The mind is where spiritual warfare occurs. The Enemy cannot control your actions, so his next best option is to influence your thinking, knowing that it will impact your life and the decisions you make. Notice that Paul didn’t say the key to transformation is for us to try harder or change our behavior.
The key is to have our minds renewed!
From the very beginning, the Enemy’s tactic has been to attack our minds. Even in the garden of Eden, he planted doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve by saying, “Did God really say...?” (Genesis 3:1). With that one question, he planted doubt and distorted the truth, which led to their disobedience. Think of the mind as our internal steering wheel. It drives our actions, emotions, thoughts, and words. Proverbs 23:7 says,
As he thinks in his heart, so is he. — NKJV
We see this principle again in Numbers 13. Moses sent twelve spies to spy out the promised land before they took possession of it. When they came back, ten of them reported,
We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. — verse 33
This scripture always makes me laugh because by saying “and we looked the same to them,” they assumed they knew how others perceived them, yet they had no proof. The thoughts that dominated their minds were “We are too weak. The enemy is too strong. We cannot win.” Their insecurity and fear led to a generation of people wandering around in the wilderness for forty years. And it began with an idea that contradicted the truth. The truth was that God had already promised them the land and would fight for them, so they had nothing to fear. Had they embraced that truth, their destiny would have been different.
How to Renew Your Mind
So how exactly do we begin to renew our minds? I would like to suggest three steps that have worked for me. With that said, it’s critical to note that these steps are not a one-and-done thing but a lifelong process. This is a daily, ongoing journey that sometimes involves progress but also, at times, setbacks. But over time, transformation takes root.
Step 1: Expose the Lies
Before we can embrace God’s truth, we must be aware of the lies we’ve believed for so long. Here are some examples of lies we believe about God:
- God doesn’t really love me.
- God is angry with me.
- God can’t forgive me after what I’ve done.
- If I mess up too much, I’ll lose my salvation.
Regarding people, we embrace lies such as
- If I let people in, all they will do is hurt me.
- I’ll never be able to be happy again after what they did to me.
Common lies relating to addiction are
- I will never be free from this.
- This is just who I am.
- I need this to cope with life.
- God understands. I can’t help it.
- As long as I’m not hurting anyone, it’s fine.
- One more time won’t hurt.
- And the list goes on and on.
I’ve shared a few soul chains I’ve overcome, and I’ve also revealed some lies I believed for many years. Regarding relationships, the central lie that I embraced was, “If I don’t find the perfect woman, I’ll either be miserable or end up getting a divorce like my family members.” Or, “Other people may be able to be happy in marriage, but that’s not possible for me.” Because of the trauma, these lies, and many others, were so deeply entrenched within me that I had no idea they were controlling and dominating my actions and sabotaging all of my relationships. So I went from one relationship to another, trying to find someone who could meet the requirements of this lie. And sadly, I left behind a trail of broken hearts because no woman I met ever reached the perfect standard I was looking for.
As for the soul chain of sexual lust, the primary lie that had me bound was, “Since marriage probably won’t happen, the only safe way for me to fulfill my sexual desires is through self-pleasure, and God must be okay with it. Because if He wasn’t, He would have sent me my wife by now.” Because I believed that lie, I allowed myself to indulge for years, conditioning my conscience to no longer experience conviction. As a result, I sank deeper and deeper into sin, and the soul chain got stronger and stronger.
With the soul chain of perfectionism, it was, “I should always perform above my expectations for myself. If I don’t, I have failed.” This permeated every area of my life, including golf, pickleball, and even ministry. When I played golf and had a bad round, I felt like a failure because my self-worth was tied to my performance. It resulted in friends not wanting to play with me because I wasn’t a fun person to play with. It also resulted in extreme mood swings depending on how I played. Bottom line: I didn’t permit myself to fail—ever. Failure was unacceptable.
Step 2: Embrace the Truth
Exposing the lies is just the beginning. These lies must be replaced with God’s truth. When we do this, the promise is that we will walk in God’s perfect will for our lives. Paul said in Romans 12:2 to
let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. — NLT
I love that.
It’s only when we change the way we think that we will learn to know God’s will for our lives.
An excellent parable that illustrates both how easy it is to believe a lie and the transformative power of embracing the truth is the well-known parable of the prodigal son.
In the story, the younger son initially believed a lie. The lie was that he’d be happier away from his father’s house. As a result of embracing that lie, he wasted his inheritance, lived in misery, and was left broke, broken, and starving. But then we read in Luke 15:17–18,
When he came to his senses, he said... ‘I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you.’
He almost believed another lie: that he would no longer be his father’s son, only a servant. He could have believed that because of what he had done, his father would never accept him again. He was dealing with shame, a soul chain that many people deal with. But instead, in that moment, he chose not to focus on the lie but to embrace the truth.
The truth was that he was still his father’s son, no matter how far he had fallen, and that he could return home.
What was the result? His father restored him completely, gave him a robe of honor, a ring, and sandals. The trajectory of his entire life was changed because he chose to embrace truth rather than a lie. And that truth is one you may need to embrace, my friend.
It is a fact that no matter what you’ve done, how far you’ve strayed, or how deep your sin is, God still loves you, and embracing that truth will always lead to your restoration.
The truth I had to embrace about my relationship soul chain was that marriage was designed to be highly fulfilling. What happened in my family does not have to be my reality. I can break the soul chain. As I came into contact with couples who had thriving marriages, this truth became more evident to me. I saw examples of marriages I wanted for myself. For the first time in my life, I saw that it was possible to be married and happy. I didn’t see pain, heartache, and misery. I saw happiness, bliss, and commitment. So the lie I believed for so long was slowly replaced with the truth about what God intended marriage to be.
As for the soul chain of self-pleasure, I had to accept these fundamental truths:
Jesus didn’t die on the cross for me to be bound to sin.
God intended sexual pleasure to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife, not an individual by themself.
The soul chain of perfectionism is one that I am not bound by, but I do battle it almost daily. One key truth I had to embrace was that my worth is not tied to my performance. My mistakes don’t define me. Mistakes can be beneficial if I learn from them. Done is better than perfect. People’s approval isn’t the ultimate goal; God’s is.
So as we did when we exposed the lies, write down some truths that you need to embrace about the soul chains you’re dealing with right now. What would God have you embrace that will counter the lies the Enemy wants you to believe?
Step 3: Embed the Word
Now that you’ve written down these liberating truths, it’s time to embed God’s Word deep within you. The reason this step is so important is that when you are tempted to believe lies, the Holy Spirit will remind you of biblical truth, which will help you combat those lies (John 14:26). Here are a few that I had to embrace.
First, Ecclesiastes 4:9–10:
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
Another was Genesis 2:18:
It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
While some can thrive as a single person, for me, this scripture was true. It was not good for me to be alone. I needed a helper to fulfill the purpose God had created for me.
For self-pleasure, I had to embrace Matthew 5:28, which says,
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
As much as I wanted to justify it, if I was lusting, I was sinning. Another key biblical truth for me was 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5, where Paul said,
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God.
If God commanded me to be sanctified, that meant it was possible to “learn” how to control my own body rather than be controlled by it.
Finally, for perfectionism, a good scripture is Philippians 1:6, which reminds me that
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
I have to remind myself (present tense) that God is continuing to do a work in me and that I’ll never reach a state of perfection this side of Heaven.
Take some time to identify key scriptures that God would have you meditate on that tell the truth about who you are and what you’re struggling with. Be sure to study them in the proper context. After doing so, commit them to memory and ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of them when you’re tempted to believe the lies.
Excerpted with permission from Breaking Through: How Ordinary Believers Experience Extraordinary Freedom by Allen Parr, copyright Allen G. Parr, Jr.
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Your Turn
Your mind is a battlefield, so pick up your spiritual weapons and fight against the enemy lies! It’s only when we change the way we think that we will learn to know God’s will for our lives. ~ Devotionals Daily