Ruminate – Declarations of Truth

Winning the War In Your Minds – chapter 6
Rumination and Renewal

Robin and I have been going through the book “Winning the War in Your Minds by Craig Groeschel with our coworkers. It has been a very good, thought provoking study. Each time we meet we each walk away being challenged to be more intentional in the battle for our minds. This chapter was particularly challenging, so I thought I would take today to share a few thoughts from our conversation.

Groechel said this, “Satan is not very creative. He is very repetitive. He knows that if he tells you a lie often enough, you will eventually believe it.”

Increasingly research proves that the way to get someone to believe a lie is to simply repeat the lie. Psychologists call this the illusory truth effect. It’s been called a glitch in the human psyche.

So, what are the lies that I listen to? I don’t think I would go as far to say that these are “voices in my head,” but they are certainly thoughts that come into my mind.

Here are some of the lies that go through my head:

• You’re not enough for this job. You’ll never be good enough.
• You’ve never planted a church, you can’t train church planters.
• Here’s one that often gets me when facing temptation… “Well, you’ve done that in the past, so you’re going to do it again, so why are you trying so hard to resist.” Then of course, if I give in, immediately the devil beats me up about it.
• You had a late night, stay in bed a little longer. You need the sleep.

Groechel goes on to say, “So how will you overcome his lies? How will you replace the old rut with a new pathway? The answer is repetition. You are going to write it, think it, and confess it until you believe it.

“Do this as early as possible each morning. What we are thinking about now influences what we think about next. So what you think about first thing in the morning is the first domino to fall, impacting your thoughts for the rest of the day.

“What does that mean? You should start your day in God’s Word, digging trenches of truth and finding your declarations. Then write it, think it, confess it until you believe it.

So, what are the truths that I need to declare to overcome the lies I so often listen to?

1. You’re not enough…
   1. Eph 1:3,6 I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. I am accepted in Christ.
   2. Eph 1:4 God chose me, In Christ, before the foundation of the world.
   3. Col 2:10 I am COMPLETE In Christ. I have everything I need, because this work is not me, it’s Christ through me. (Gal 2:20)
2. You can’t train people to do something you have never done..
   1. 2 Cor 3:4-6 I can be confident because of Christ in me. It’s not that I am sufficient in myself to claim anything as coming from me, but my sufficiency is from God, who has made me sufficient to be a minister of his new covenant
   2. 2 Cor 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to me, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, I am able to abound in every good work
3. You can’t overcome temptation, once you’ve done it, you will always do it…
   1. John 8:44 That’s just a lie straight from the father of lies himself. He’s a liar, all he can do is lie because that is his native tongue. I am not going to listen to that lie any more.
   2. 1 John 1:9; Psalm 103:12 When I confess my sin (when I agree with God that I have sinned) I am confident that he has forgiven me. He has placed that sin as far as the east is from the west.
   3. Eph 1:7-8 In Christ I am redeemed through his blood and completely forgiven, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on me.
4. I have a right to be lazy because of my long day / late night etc.
   1. Mark 1:32-35 Jesus had a long day, and a late night, and still he rose very early, while it was still dark, and made time with His Father.
   2. Eph 5:18 Don’t be controlled by cravings of the body, instead be controlled by the Spirit.
   3. 1 John 2:15-16 Don’t love the world, nor the things in the world… the world is passing away. Whoever does the will of God abides forever. Live for eternal things, not temporal comfort.

Anyway, I am writing the lies I listen to, and the truths I need to write, think, confess until I believe them. Groechel said in an earlier chapter that a lie that we listen to often enough will begin to affect our lives as though it were true. So, instead of living according to these lies, we need to be telling ourselves the truth until the truth affects our lives and we start living by the truth.

As I think about these devotionals I would like to start incorporating truth declarations in the prayer points.