I find people all the time who tell me that "I can't control how I feel." But, according to the Word of God, this isn't true. We do have something to say about how we feel and what we think. In Proverbs 22:17-19 (Amplified) we read, "Listen (consent and submit) to the words of the wise, and apply your mind to My knowledge." Verse 18 goes on, "for it will be pleasant if you keep them in your mind (believing them) your lips will become accustomed to (confessing) them." Verse 19 says, "so that your trust (belief, reliance, support and confidence) may be in the Lord, I have made known these things to you today, even to you."
According to just these few scriptures in His Word, what you think about you say. And, what you say will determine what you feel. How you feel will determine what you do. It all begins on what you spend time thinking about. Your body (the flesh) can only do what your mind tells it to do. People with anorexia have trained their bodies to stop eating to the point where many have died from it. You do have control over what you think and that will determine how you feel. People who are always depressed spend their time in a sense of melancholy and depressed thinking. No matter what medicine you put them on, until they think differently, they will never do differently. No matter how badly they want to change the way they think will always determine how they will feel.
Philippians 4:8 (Amplified) says," the Holy Spirit gives wisdom for all that will hear Him. For the rest brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious. If there be any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things (fix your minds on them)."
If God said to think on and to fix our minds on these things, then it must be possible to do so. We too often turn our minds on automatic pilot and let it determine what it wants to think. This is the greatest enemy the church has to deal with in this world. A mind that's just left uncontrolled is the main problem with God's children. We have had very little teaching about controlling the soulish part of our being. Man, made in the image and likeness of God, is a three-fold being. You are a spirit, you have a soul (the mind, the will and the emotions), and you live in a body. This body only does what the soul tells it to do.
We have always been told what to do and what not to do, but not so much how to control what or what not to do. Anyone (saved or unsaved) has the ability to know what's right. Even before you knew God, you knew that the problem was how to prevent it from happening. Even after we were born again, we now have the Holy Spirit and our spirit man was born of God, but our soulish man wasn't. We still thought the same way, we still talked the same way and many still lived the same way. We always thought that they must not have believed in Jesus when they prayed or that they just really never were saved to begin with. I believe that mostly they never got into the Word of God enough to renew the way they thought.
James 1:5-8 (Amplified) talks about people (Christian people) who ask and get nothing because of the way they think. God said that "if you lack the wisdom you need, then ask God and He will give it." So, it's not a matter of God giving it, but a matter of believing it after it comes. Verse 8 says that, "(For being as he is) a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute) (he is) unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything (he thinks, feels and decides)." It wasn't that God didn't give wisdom when the man prayed, but a matter of a mind that didn't trust the Word and always was questioning, "I wonder, was that God?"
A mind that isn't trained by the Christian will continue to think just like it always has. Your conscience will always be under condemnation because of wrong doings because the undisciplined mind will always walk in the path of least resistance. If it walked pretty much unchecked before you were saved, then it will continue to walk unchecked after you're saved. If you don't renew your mind with the Word, then it will convince you that salvation didn't work because if it did work then you wouldn't still say these words or you wouldn't still look at certain things. So many times Christians give up in condemnation because it seems like it's hopeless.
In the body of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit to show us how to walk and to show us how to think. Because we weren't taught what we should do to still the voice of the enemy in our minds, we still aren't walking in a righteousness conscience but a sin conscience. We have the mind of Christ so as not to be double minded as James says, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because we haven't used the Word to renew our minds, we have placed ourselves in a position that the enemy has run rough-shod over us. Our unrenewed mind is still telling us that we should be ashamed in God's presence when all along the Holy Spirit says we should "have boldness to come before the throne of grace" in Hebrews 4:16 (Amplified). You can't come boldly with a sin conscience instead of a righteousness conscience. Jesus' sacrifice was all that was needed to make you righteous. You now need to let that Word dwell in your mind and in your heart. Because of Jesus, you are righteous in God's sight. You need to use the Word of God to silence the accuser of the brethren who accuse us day and night and make your mind come under control of your born again spirit instead of making your born again spirit subject to their carnal mind. This double minded man that James spoke of isn't someone who has two separate minds, but one mind that's still drawn in two separate thoughts: to walk in the new or to walk after the old, to believe that you are righteous in Him or that you're still the same old sinner you were before, to believe that Jesus bore your sin and punishment or listen to the old sin conscience that lets the enemy still torture you and punish you unjustly.
Your mind must be centered on what Jesus did and not what you did. This is the first and greatest step towards being able to control the negative and depressed feelings that try to control you. Your body only reacts to what your mind will transfer to it. It can't be joyous as long as your mind tells it to be depressed. The prison that locks up God's people whom Jesus has set free, is the prison that's still in his mind. He still believes he should be punished for his wrongdoing, so when the accuser brings the accusation, he accepts it without a struggle and the enemy still holds captive, a people held in a prison that has no lock on the door. Jesus unlocked it and set the captives free; He has the keys.
Take the truth of the Word, push against the bars and you'll see the door swing open and find that you've been set free all along. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (Amplified) says that, "(In as much as we ) refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the (true) knowledge of God, and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
2 Corinthians 5:17 (Amplified) says, "Therefore if any person is (ingrafted) in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether) the old (previous moral and spiritual condition) has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come."
Think on this and quiet the lie of the enemy that's had you in the stronghold of depression and darkness. Enter into the light of your deliverance by letting your mind think on what He's done and not on what you've done. Don't dwell on your failures, but on His success. Don't dwell on your past, but now more than ever, on the new life He has set before you.
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