"You Are What You Think"

" We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 

2 Corinthians 10:4

We've all heard the saying: "you are what you eat!" After going through my early teen years I can tell you that statement is true. I used to drink sodas all day, feast on school lunches (until senior year when we went out for lunch...whohooo!) and indulge in whatever sweets came my way. Well, that was twelve years ago when my metabolism hadn't quite caught up with my appetite. Nowadays, if I were to eat that way, you'd have to have a forklift to get me out of bed. In my "adult" years, I've chosen to eat healthy and make it a way of life. The healthier I eat, the better my body looks and feels over time. 

I've been on both sides of the pendulum. On one side, my desire to eat any and everything overtook me. On the other side, my desire for my body to look perfect overwhelmed me, resulting in me eating foods with no flavor or enjoyment. Somewhere in between was a balance that was only going to be achieved by re-training my mind. Over-indulgence was a sin, and terrible for my body, but so was obsessing over every morsel of food I ate.

Our toughest battles will start and end on the battlefield of our minds. Satan first tempted Eve through her mind. She knew what was right. She knew what God had told her. But, if Satan could enter her thoughts and mix them around a bit, he could get her to fall. He may be cunning, but he's not very smart. He still uses the same tricks he's used since the beginning of time. He even used the same plan to try and tempt Jesus in the dessert: through His thoughts. "If I can get him to doubt who God is, then I'd have him right where I want him...same old dog, same old tricks. I've learned over my twenty-six years of life to keep my mind strong. I know that if I leave my thought-life unguarded for even a second, it will cause chaos in my life. 

God has given us some pretty powerful weapons, ones we tend to underestimate. For example, prayer. If we are ever going to be able to get control over our thought life, it's going to have to begin and end with prayer. Every pit I've fallen into has first began as a thought. If I can turn that thought into a prayer, I'm waging war on Satan. Another powerful weapon is the Word. It's living and breathing. Put those two together (prayer + Word), you've got a recipe for success. It's the same concoction Jesus used in the dessert: he spent forty days with no food or water, all that time in prayer. Then when Satan came to Him, he was prepared with the Word in His heart to defeat him.

 It's time to stop allowing Satan control over our lives. If we are ever going to be successful in the calling God has for us, we've got to tear down these thoughts that are meant to tear us down, and make them obedient to the thoughts God intended for us.

"If constructive thoughts are planted positive outcomes will be the result. Plant the seeds of failure and failure will follow."