 When we allow for our minds to develop a certain thought pattern, over time we create habits in the mind. And those habits in the mind are very difficult to break sometimes. Yes, the Holy Spirit will help you. Yes, God will set you free. The only issue is this. I can't cast you out of you. You're still there. And so we must learn to reprogram, if you will, the mind. Readjust the mind. God did not create you to live in torment. God did not create you to live in depression. God did not create you to live with fear and anxiety. God did not create you to be bound by intrusive thoughts. God created you to know Him and to love Him. And to walk in that perfect peace. And only when our minds are fixed on Him do we find that perfect peace. And in order to do this you must first, number one, focus the mind through worship. Isaiah chapter 26 verse 3 says this, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on thee. That means when my mind is focused on the Lord, when I give him my attention, when the Lord has caught the eye of my heart, I am looking to him. And in looking to him I'm not looking at my issues. In looking to him I'm not obsessing over my problems. If you see your problems from your perspective, they're going to be a lot bigger to you. But if you can see your problems from God's perspective, they're still there, but they're more easily overcome. It's coming from a realistic perspective I can win this victory. I can win this battle. The scripture makes it clear that you will be in perfect peace if your mind is stayed on him. Whenever you want to worry, worship instead. Worship is much better than worry. Don't worry, worship. Turn your focus to him. Fix your eyes on him. Think about his power. Think about his goodness. Think about his mercy, his love, his kindness. Think about his everlasting love. Focus your mind on the Lord. Focus the mind through worship. When you're giving praise to God and you're adoring him and you're acknowledging and thinking about just how powerful, just how wonderful, just how big your God is, there's no room for these mind battles. Every believer will be tempted with sin. Every believer will have unpleasant thoughts come through their mind. Every believer will have angry thoughts pass through their mind, prideful thoughts pass through their mind. Every believer will struggle with doubt. Some will battle OCD-like symptoms where they're obsessing, compulsively obsessing over that thing. And I'm telling you the solution to that is not to obsess more about your issue, rather it's to focus on God. Let your obsession with your issue be replaced with your obsession of God. Let your magnification of your problems be replaced by a magnification of God. Magnify the Lord, not your issues. And this is a matter of choice to focus on him, to look to Jesus. And in worshiping him, you're focusing the mind. So that's number one, focus the mind through worship. Number two, and this one is very key, renew the mind through the word. Romans chapter 12 verses one through two, say this, And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think, wow, that's ongoing. Then you will learn to know God's will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. John 17 17 says, Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. So I'm sanctified. I'm set apart. I'm made new by the truth of the word of God. The word of God will change the way you think. You see, all of us were born into circumstances that shaped our perspective. So it's important that we exchange these perspectives for what the word of God gives us. And so we carry these mindsets with us. We carry our dysfunctions. We carry our issues. We carry our problems, our ways of seeing the world. And in that, we actually can find bondage. So if we're not careful, we can try to hang on to our old way of seeing things. And when the word of God contradicts what we believe, or when the word of God contradicts how we think, then we become defensive. And what we do is we try to take that scripture and twist it into our worldview rather than correcting our worldview. These things go deep. And what we have to do is, as the word says, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world. But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. It's your programming. You need a whole new code. We're trying to function in God's kingdom under an old pattern of thinking and wondering why there's conflict and confusion. Why can't you get breakthrough? Because you keep talking yourself out of a breakthrough. Why can't you get breakthrough? Because there are things you just choose to not change. And we talk ourselves out of breakthrough because we're seeing it from a worldly perspective instead of God's. We need to allow the word to wash away those mindsets. We need to allow the word to break that bondage of thinking. Like a river cuts away at stone, so the word of God cuts away at the flesh, the mindsets. It takes time to renew the mind. The breakthrough comes when you realize the truth. The transformation comes when you live it. You see, we hear the truth and we realize things about ourselves. We realize things about the way we think. We realize things about our problems. We go, aha, that's the issue. That's what the problem was. The problem is, instead of transforming ourselves according to that truth and embracing that truth and living that truth and thinking in that truth, we go right back to our old patterns. And then what do we say? Well, I need another breakthrough. Why? Because we're not willing to break that cycle. So, number one, focus the mind through worship. Number two, renew the mind through the word. Number three, keep the mind by casting down imaginations. Watch this now, 2 Corinthians 10-5. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. That's 2 Corinthians 10-5. The scripture tells us to take those thoughts captive. You have to learn to capture those thoughts before they become a part of you. Now, this is really where it's going to be difficult for some. For so long, they've just been allowing these thoughts to come through their mind. For so long, they've just been allowing these thoughts to enter their heart that they no longer know how to identify them. They don't even realize they're being lied to anymore. They don't even realize that they're living according to an old mindset. Why? Because they've trained themselves to think under a worldly mindset. Learn to identify and defeat these unbiblical thought patterns by knowing the scripture. And the Holy Spirit will help you do this. This is the Holy Spirit's role in helping with your mind battles. John chapter 14 verse 26 says, But when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. The Holy Spirit will take the word of God and remind you what the Lord has said. And then he will reveal the truth of that word as you're faithful to remember it, as you're faithful to respond to it. So the Holy Spirit will help you to deal with these issues, but you have to be in the Word to give the Holy Spirit something to remind you of. How is he supposed to remind you of a word you've not read? How is he supposed to reveal the truth if you're not looking for the truth, if you're not reading the scripture? So the Holy Spirit plays a very important role in here in the casting down of imaginations that comes when I can identify the lies by comparing it with the truth. And the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance that truth. For every lie, there is a truth. By the way, the root of confusion, fear and torment is always from deception. If I'm tormented of the mind, it's because I lack peace. If I lack peace, it's because there's a truth I'm not aware of. There are some Christians who read the book of Romans and then they ask me, Brother David, am I one of these vessels of wrath destined for hell that can never be saved? So they believe a lie, a misinterpretation of the book of Romans and then that causes them to be tormented. Poor biblical interpretation will always lead to torment. It leads to fear when we believe the lie that God doesn't protect us. It leads to confusion when we can't identify what is worldly, what is satanic and what is of the spirit because we have no discernment to decipher between what is God and what is not. But for every lie, there is a truth. The enemy says one thing, but God says another. The enemy says, God has abandoned you, but the scripture says in John 14, 16, and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you. The enemy says you don't have anyone to guide you. But Psalm 32, 8 says I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. The enemy will tell you you're too weak to continue. But Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31 says, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. The enemy will say, God can't forgive you. But the scripture says in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. The enemy says to be afraid. The scripture says surely he will save you from the foul or snare and from the deadly pestilence. It's Psalm 91, 3. The enemy says you have no future. But Romans 8, 28 says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. The enemy says you're not really saved. But John 3, 36 says, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. For every lie there is a truth. We cast down these imaginations, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God through the tearing down of strongholds. How do we do that? Through the truth. So these mind battles we have with pride and anger and lust and doubt and fear and paranoia and superstition and depression, all of these mind battles are won through the truth. We avoid these cycles by inserting the truth. Breakthrough comes when I know the truth, but transformation comes when I live that truth. Finally, you need to learn to train the mind through choosing new thoughts. So casting down imaginations is getting rid of the bad thoughts through the Word of God. But training the mind to think new patterns or think according to new patterns is found in Philippians chapter 4 verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. I am not talking about ignoring your problems, that's not going to do anything. Okay, I'm talking about a higher way of thinking and thinking about your problems from the right perspective. So maybe you're in a circumstance where you can't pay your bills, the mind will go to, well, it's because God has abandoned me and God doesn't love me. Okay, what is true? What's true? Does God abandon you? No. Is it honest to say that God doesn't love you? No. So is it true you have trouble paying your bills? Yeah. But is the conclusion of I'm struggling to pay my bills because God doesn't love me? Is that true? No. And we know it's not true because the scripture tells us, so that's the Philippians filter. It's not true. Don't obsess about or exaggerate your problems by giving into deception. Now this tells us that we can choose our thoughts. And I think this is one of the big breakthrough truths that I can give to you, is that you're actually in charge of your thoughts. Now intrusive thoughts don't feel like that. We have to be very careful with how we label these things. So imagine a Christian with anxiety and OCD-like thought patterns, they hear a sermon on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. What are they going to do? They're going to start worrying that maybe they've committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So then what's going to start coming to their mind? They're going to be saying to themselves, don't think blasphemous thoughts. And then they're going to ask themselves, like what? What blasphemous thoughts? And then they're going to think that thought. And then they're going to say, well, there it is. That was the blasphemous thought and now I committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And then you get someone coming along and telling them, oh, that's a demon and we've got to get it out of you. What do you think that's going to do for their mental health? That's going to torment them even more. And it's not even the truth. They need the Philippians filter. What does the Bible actually say? So all of that inner chaos can be avoided. Whatever intrusive thoughts you're dealing with, whatever issues you're dealing with in the mind, whatever your mind battle, these principles will work. You must learn to discipline the mind. You must learn to think under a new pattern. It's a process. And God is gracious and patient with you. See, even as I'm talking to you, I can sense the anointing. And it's possible that as you're hearing this message, you're sensing this weight come off of you. That's liberty. The anointing breaks the yolks. The anointing breaks that bondage. The truth sets you free. Now walk in that truth. You can discipline your pattern of thinking. Well, that's not going to work for me. What was that? That was a negative thought pattern that's self-defeating and keeping you from stepping into a new one. Well, I've tried that before. This time it's not going to work. What was that? That was another lie that you told yourself. People lie to themselves all the time. We lie to ourselves about how well we're doing in these areas because we don't want to do the work. We'd rather someone just come lay hands, tell us it's just some curse that needs to be broken over us. Okay, that might work for a few days because now we believe that we're free. But then what happens when the patterns begin to return? We obsess about them again. The only way for the believer to stop these thought patterns is to practice what the scripture says. So that Philippians filter helps, but you have to realize that you control your thoughts. You control what you think. You decide what your thoughts are. It may not feel that way because sometimes they come at you so fast, but positive biblical thinking is like a muscle. You have to exercise it. You have to use it. Sometimes you'll get exhausted. When you first start to do this, it will be exhausting for the first few months that you try it. But then after a while, it becomes a natural pattern. Discipline the mind. It's a discipline of the mind, people of God. So much is lacking in the area of discipline. We don't hear about discipline because it's not an exciting topic, but it really is the way to freedom. To discipline yourself to obey the word, not just in action, but also in thought, that is the true breakthrough. Discipline the mind. Godly meditation. Worldly meditation says empty your mind. Godly meditation says to fill your mind. Psalm one, one, two, three says, Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join in with bonkers. But they delight in the law of the Lord meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do. Meditate on the word. Fill your mind with the word. So for breakthrough in the area of mind battles, number one, focus the mind through worship. Number two, renew your mind through the word. Number three, keep the mind by casting down imaginations. And number four, train the mind through choosing new thoughts. You have to choose your thoughts. To walk according to the truth is not just to act according to the truth. It's to think according to the truth. Obey God, not just indeed, but in thought. Amen. That will change your life. I promise you this works. I promise you, I promise you, I promise you this works. I rebuke the lies of the enemy that tell you that it's not going to work for you. I rebuke you lying to yourself saying you've already tried it. This works. People of God, this is the way to freedom. God wants to give you breakthrough in the area of mind battles. He'll do it. He'll do it for you. Listen to me. I know it's been tough. I know you've been struggling. I know that it seems like it's never going to end. And sometimes it feels like nobody cares. But I want you to know that the Lord loves you with an everlasting love. The Lord loves you. I love you. The people of God love you. You're not alone. And you're going to make it.