 I wanna speak today concerning mental health. I believe that one of the most crippling things a person can have is not physical crippleness. It's when the person has a mental problem. In fact, there are some of the smartest people on the earth, on the wheelchair. Because as long as the mind is free and prosperous, you're not limited by the physical restrictions. I'm not in any way downplaying paralysis or downplaying physical limitations. Like when a person don't have limbs or a person does not have particular bodily functions. But like for example, Nick who doesn't have limbs, who it seems like on the outside is supposed to be crippled. Yet he writes books, finished bachelor's degree, led presidents, I think he's led Brazilian president to the Lord without legs and makes an impact now as children and literally is changing the world. Why? Because it matters at the end of the day is what happens here, not what happens with your hands or with your feet. Also some of the smartest people in our generation are physically crippled. But because they're not mentally crippled, they're still able to make a difference in their generation and they're able to make a difference in their world. Satan is playing target practice with everyone's mind. Everyone's shooting and you do target practice where you make this target and you start trying to shoot it, see if you can hit it and you can miss few times and then you finally hit it. And that's what exactly devil does with everyone's mind. He plays target practice with your mind. Number one focus and target is not your body, it's your mind. He wants to destroy your mind. He will use the sickness in the body to inflict the mind. He will use the poverty to torture the mind. He will use relationship problems. One of the children that's not doing good, he will use that to harass the mind. Sometimes he will use the external circumstances to glitch the mind. You know when your mind is glitching, you can't get out of your own head. You're like, you're stuck in there. And the Bible says, think on these things and you feel like your thinking is doing the thinking by itself. And you can't control it, it's thinking by itself. You're like, stop it. And it's thinking, it's saying stuff in your head. It's like, it's harassing you. It's like this intrusive thoughts. And my friend, I want to tell you something that the enemy is an architect of a mental glitch. And the person sometimes has both legs, both arms, has a retirement fund, a government job, has a car and has a house, and mentally they are in prison. Mentally they can't function. Something is broken there. I remember Saul from our church, she had an iPhone that was doing functions on its own. And so she helps to manage some of my Instagram and she would write to these people, you know, like, thank you for following and everything. And then she said that the phone by itself start calling, video calling people on Instagram. By itself, randomly choosing contacts and just video chatting with them randomly. Now how many of you know that's not good? When the phone has a mind of its own, that's a mind control. And some people that's exactly what they experience with their mind, when their mind controls their life, instead of their spirit controlling their mind. And so when there is a war that's been declared on your mind, when an anxiety attacks, when depression attacks, when you feel like your mind has made you a target and harasses you and torments you and instead of you leading your mind, your mind is tormenting and torturing you. And COVID, news media, you know, what happened in our nation, the protests, the elections, everything contributed to a huge attack on the minds of people in this day. If you're watching us on live stream, you know, I want you to spam the chat if you agree that the devil really plays a target practice with your mind. And today we wanna equip you and also pray that God will begin to bring healing, not just to our body, but begin to bring healing also to our mind. Sometimes the enemy uses our past experiences to build strongholds in our mind that even if we are no longer in those situations, we're still living in the residue, in the painful consequences of being in those situations. Israel went through Egypt, but then Egypt went through them because even when they got out of Egypt, the Egypt never got out of them. Like they say, you can take a man out of a ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of a man. Once the person goes through sickness, once the person goes through rejection, through divorce, and even if they're not in that situation, the enemy's goal is to infiltrate their mind with that situation. So even if they're no longer there, there is in them. And that's what the Bible calls stronghold. And God wants us to cast down strongholds. See demons, we cast out strongholds, we cast down. Demons come and leave quickly, but strongholds are broken down slowly. Demons come out through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, but strongholds are broken down through the Holy Scriptures, through being in the community, through developing habits of worship, through training your thoughts, turning your thoughts over to God and begin to work with your mind. Mind management is the most important thing for a believer because your success doesn't start on the outside, it starts on the inside. Your success does not start with your education, it starts with your mind. Your prosperity does not begin with how wealthy your father or your mother was, it begins with your mind. That's why Apostle John says, I pray you will be in good health and prosper as your mind prospers, as your soul prospers. That means that we cannot prosper on the outside permanently if we are broke on the inside. And today God wants to shift some things and equip us to be mentally sound. One of the reasons that I'm talking about that is because the fallacy, the faulty thinking is this. Well, Vlad, I understand, that's really cool and stuff, but if God really wants me to change my mind, he should get busy changing my circumstances. And this is our concept, is my mind will change if my life changes. But scripture flips the script. And the scripture tells us in Romans chapter 12, verse two, the opposite. It says, your mind has to change first so that your life transforms. You don't have to wait for your spouse to change before you change your mind. Don't wait for your circumstances to change before you change your mind. God says, in fact, they are waiting for you to change your mind. You have to work with your mind. And God gives us his work. God gives us the church. God gives us our friends. God gives us his spirit so that our mind changes. The real reason the Lord wants us to begin to manage our mind and wants to bring healing also to our mind is that our life currently is headed in the direction of our most dominant, strongest thoughts. Your life is currently following the direction of your most dominant, strongest thoughts. Where those thoughts are at, that's exactly where your emotions, where your body and everything is headed to. If those thoughts are, I am a failure. If those thoughts are, my life sucks. Everyone around me hates me. I'm rejected, I'm lonely. Not only you and I are in danger of letting these thoughts invite demons, but sometimes these thoughts were already sent by demons so that these thoughts can open the door to demons. Did you catch that? Sometimes these thoughts are sent by demons themselves. Why? Because if we hold on to them, it will open the door to them so that then the demons begin to torture our life. It says in Book of Acts when Peter rebukes Ananias and he says, why did you let Satan feel your heart to lie? It says in John chapter 13 that Satan put on the heart of Judas to betray him. And few verses later, the Bible says, Satan entered Judas. It's almost like he sent the thought seeing, will Judas take it? Receive it, cook with it, feed it, nurture it, adopt it. And if he does that, it will open the door for me to enter him and begin to bring havoc in his life. My friend, Satan uses thoughts to harass Christians. And if we hold on and these thoughts take root in our mind, they begin to develop life over its own in our mind. They become stronghold mindset. They go into our subconscious thinking what it thinks on its own. You can't even stop it. It's like a glitch. It just attacks you now, harasses you. It can open door to the demonic influence. And God wants to liberate us from that. Amen. The book of life shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate in it day and night. And then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. Joshua 1-8. Mind management is the priority of an overcomer because your winning starts within you, not around you. Now in the scripture, Bible talks about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven types of minds, seven minds. I'm gonna give you quickly verses and then we're gonna dive in on how to begin to see a shift in the state of our mind. Seven types of minds. The first mind is the right mind. Do you remember demon possessed man who Jesus delivered? And the scripture says in Mark chapter five verse 15, then they came to Jesus and saw a man who had been demon possessed and had a legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind. That means you can have a left mind. You can have a wrong mind. This is not just talking about a thought. This is talking about a state of a mental environment, your mental atmosphere. The right mind, this doesn't just mean that he finally had one right thought. This means that dominant thoughts were right. The strongest thoughts were now right thoughts. And this was a sign that he was delivered. It's that he was sitting, he was clothed and the Bible says, and he was in his right mind. Are you in your right mind? Is what's happening in your mind constantly, always, regularly, your strongest thoughts, are they right or are they wrong? If you take it back, take it back and take it through the scan and just become aware of what's going on in your head, is it right state of mind or is it wrong? Because when Jesus comes, he wants to bring you to a place where your mind is right. Your finances might not be right yet. Your family might not be right yet, but the first thing Jesus did to this man, he didn't give him money, he didn't brought him a wife, he didn't build him a house, he didn't give him a new car or a job, he didn't give him a degree, he gave him a right mind. One of the greatest gifts, my friend, if you have a right mind, you are blessed by God. You don't realize how powerful it is to have a mind that doesn't glitch until you get one that glitches. And then you begin to look back in your life and you're like, man, nothing comes in comparison to having a right mind. When it doesn't harass you, intrude, torment, and trip you up, this is the first mind, the right mind, the second kind of mind. In Titus chapter one, verse eight, but it talks about bishops. Bishops, be hospitable. A lover of what is good, sober-minded. Somebody say sober-mind, just holy and self-controlled. Sober-mind. See, we know what it's like when a person is sober, meaning you're not intoxicated. That means that you're not normal, but there is also sober-mind. Sometimes the enemy intoxicates our mind with our problems and it becomes inflated. And we begin to exaggerate the facts. We begin to feel like my life sucks. No, you just had a bad day. You don't have a bad life. You just had a flat tire. No, you're just on your period, that's why. No, this is just, you know what? It's just Monday, all right? You just have not had coffee that kicked in and the devil wants your mind to be intoxicated, meaning that you are exaggerating and you're saying things that are not true. You're not sober. And we need to sober up in our mind. God wants His word to make us sober in our mind. That we think clearly about the situation. We look at our life and we see it could always suck more. And be grateful to God. Be thankful to God in whatever situation that we are in. And not be not sober in our mind. A lot of Christians don't drink their mind does. What liquor has devil been giving to your mind to drink? Which news medias have been intoxicating your mind and causing things to see darker than they are? Worse than they are. And make you feel terrible about your life when in reality your life is not that bad. Many people in the coma right now or on the dialysis who would trade to have your problems. There are people today that are on a death row that would love to have your problems. My friend, God wants you to have a sober mind. Come on, somebody say sober mind. The next mind in 2 Timothy 1a, it says for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. Come on, somebody shout sound mind. Somebody dropped it in the chat, sound mind. So we see a right mind. We see a sober mind and we see a sound mind. See, I want you to notice this is not just sound thought. Where once in a while you have this, even the crazy person once in a while has a sound thought. Having a sound thought does not mean you have a sound mind. Sound thought meaning once in a while something good crosses through your head. When you have a sound mind means the dominant and the strongest and perpetual thoughts are sound. Sound meaning they're not sick. They're not sick. Bitterness, envy, hatred. Just for some reason you just hate. Those are not sound thoughts. They are sick. Those thoughts got COVID. Those thoughts got arthritis. Those thoughts, they're not healthy. And maybe none of the body parts have sickness but remember one thing sooner or later. If your thoughts, dominant thoughts are not sound they will infect your organs. This is a medical fact and I'm not a doctor. You can read this on almost every health website and talk to every medical professionals and they will tell you most of our organs and our physical problems are a result of the state of our mind. Not once in a while bad thought, a state meaning perpetual, consistent, constant, continual, strongest, dominant thoughts. The Bible says that an envy spirit irratates the bone, broken spirit. When you're broken on the inside it affects your body organs. So sound mind is extremely healthy to your sound body. It's good to take vitamin D, vitamin C, A, Z, X. Every vitamin is good. It's good to eat your broccoli. It's good to eat the fish, less steak. It's good to take the whole grain. It's good to drink your smoothies. It's good to drink your water. It's good to get enough sleep. But my friend, if your mind is sick you are not treating the root of the problem. You are treating the symptoms by dealing on your body instead of your mind. One mother came in one time and took a garbage from her garbage can and dropped it on her son's plate. She says, mom, why did you put that in? He says, well, if you don't mind putting garbage in your mind you shouldn't mind putting garbage on your plate. My friend, keep your mind sound. It will do more good to your body than any vitamins that you eat. I'm not against taking care of your body. Don't hear what I'm not saying. But what I'm saying is that God wants you to have a sound mind. Not just few sound thoughts. Because even the crazy one of us among here have once in a while few sound thoughts that circulate the head. The only problem is they never land. They never stay. And it's the crazy ones that hang out over there and adopt themselves as your children. And they literally like plant themselves in your mind. You're like, man, what are you doing here? And they're like, well, I'm part of you now. God wants you to have a sound mind. Somebody shout, sound mind. Romans chapter eight verse six. We're gonna look at the fourth mind. To be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Somebody say spiritual mind. Or spiritually minded. So this is the mind that focuses on the spiritual things. This is the mind that focuses on the things of God. God wants you to have not only a spirit, but your mind focused on your spirit. Because the problem with many of us is that the Bible says is that the spirit of your mind, meaning your mind can have a spirit behind it. Your mind can have a force behind it. Your mind can become its own master. And the scripture tells us not to make mind into a master. We don't worship our mind. We don't trust our thoughts. We trust with our thoughts. We train our thoughts. We turn our thoughts over to God. We direct them, like you train a child. You don't let the child do what they want and figure themselves out. You're like, well, you know, I just want them to have the freedom. No, you don't want them to have the freedom. You want them to be cared and have certain disciplines. Same thing with your thoughts. It needs to be trained, directed. And the Bible says he who turns their thoughts toward God, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. Whose mind is stayed on you. So it's not once in a while I direct my thoughts. I direct the flow of my strongest thoughts on God. And something begins to happen. My life becomes spiritual. Why? Because I'm directing my mind's attention toward the Holy Ghost. I'm directing my mind's attention toward God. I'm directing my mind's attention toward his promise. I'm directing my mind's attention toward the things that are eternal. I'm directing my mind's attention toward the things that will not die when I die, but they will live forever. It's God. It's his word. It's his spirit. It's his promise. It's his glory. It's him seated on the throne. It's him coming back as a reigning king. It is him and his spirit that dwells inside of me. When your mind becomes spiritual, you are focusing on the spiritual things. Somebody give God some praise right now. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Look chapter 12 verse 29. It says, do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. So we talked about the right mind, the sound mind. We talked about the sober mind. We talked about the spiritual mind because it's focused on the things of God. But then we're gonna hit some negative minds. Anxious mind. Now everyone has an anxious moments and thoughts. What the enemy wants to do is he wants to take the anxious situations and infiltrate your mind so that you will not just have an anxious day. You will not just have a depressing moment or week. You will become the embodiment of that moment. And you will continue to live out that moment even if that moment is no longer there. That's what a person has, an anxious mind. They're anxious when they're not anxious. They're depressed when they're not depressed. Meaning they're always like that. They're negative, always like that. It's like a person who had this weird cheese stuck on their forehead. Somebody put some cheese on them. They woke up and they said, the car stinks. They went to the house. They said the house stinks. They went to the store. They said the store stinks. They went outside and they said the whole world stinks. In reality, it was just the cheese on the head. And that's what happens with an anxious mind. It's the mind that's anxious, not life. Now does life have difficult moments, Jesus said? He says, in this world you'll have tribulation. But be of good cheer. He didn't say, but be depressed. He didn't say in this world you will have tribulation, but be anxious. He said, do not be afraid. Our faith is an optimistic faith. Christianity is not a depressing debbie the downer faith. Christianity is not walking around, hunched back, head down, and constantly expecting things to go from bad to worse. Christianity is a faith where we square our shoulders, lift our eyes to the hills where our help comes from. Because our help comes from God. Christianity is a faith where my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Christianity is a faith where you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. Christianity is a faith that says that if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you ask for anything. And I shall give it to you and my Father will be glorified. If you receive what you ask for, my friend, it's a faith of faith. It's the faith of victory. It's the faith of glory. It's the faith of power. It's the faith of righteousness. It's the faith of love. It's the faith of peace, my friend. If you have an anxious mind, God wants to disrupt it today. God wants to remove that and renew that and remodel that and give you a new mind. I'm not just talking about give you once in a while a few little cool thoughts. See, that's a problem with an anxious mind. If somebody gives you a very precious gift, you will have a positive, happy thought for a moment. But somebody has to keep on giving you gifts every single four, five, six hours for you to think positive thoughts because your default thinking is anxious. And those gifts were off. But when you have a right mind, the mind does the positive thinking. The mind does the sound thinking because it's anchored in the word of God. Romans chapter one verse 28, the next mind. And even when they did not retain, did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do things which are not fitting. The word debased there in original is rejected, cast away, not standing a test, not approved. Which does not prove itself as such is art. Meaning it's a mind that failed the test. And this mind is different than the rest of them because in this one, God throws you into it. The enemy doesn't give you this one. You didn't pick up going through very difficult season of your life. This is when you willfully and ignorantly, when you begin to ignore, not ignorantly, but when you begin to ignore God on purpose, does not put God's word and God honestly has it enough. And he gives you up. He doesn't give up on you. He just honestly takes his protection and your mind goes glitch. And your mind is failed. Your mind has not been approved. It's rejected. And guess what that mind does to you? It does the same thing to you. It makes you a failure. It makes you feel like a failure. And the person with this state of mind has to start with repentance. You can't just go back and rebuke in the devil because the devil is not a problem here. God lifted his hand of protection and your mind went bananas. And you need to experience first repentance putting God back in your mind. And the last mind, Romans chapter eight verse six, and that is the carnal mind. For to be carnal and minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. What is this mind? It's the mind. A spiritual mind is focused on the spirit. The carnal mind is focused on the pleasures of life, cares of this world, success. It's focused on the physical realm. It's not a sinful per se. It's just carnal. It's just not spiritual. It's focused on entertainment. It focuses on the pleasures of life. It makes the idol out of pleasures and it becomes the state of somebody's being. The person can, for a moment, 15 minutes, they can focus on God, but the rest of their life is consumed with the things of this world. And the Bible says this kind of mind, it fights against the things of God. This kind of a person cannot fully walk with the Lord because this person lives in the flesh, walks in the flesh, sets their mind on the flesh and therefore they have a mindset, perpetual, continuous, non-stop, dominant. Most powerful thoughts are focused on the earthly things. To them, giving is dumb. Praying is a waste of time. Go into church, why would you wanna do that? I can do so many other things. For them, reading the Bible, that's an old book. What can that teach me? Well, you want me to serve at the church? I don't have time for that. Why? Because a carnal mind fights against the spiritual things. It looks at spiritual things and says, you guys are a bunch of crazies. You guys are bunch of just religious people because it's a carnal mind that has that. And even Christians can have the potential of having a carnal mind. But God wants us to have a spiritual mind, amen. In the conclusion, I wanna just give you very simple practical steps on how to begin to shift your mind. Please understand, you can't change your mind until you take responsibility for your thoughts. You can't change your mind in an instant. That's like going in and changing your whole house in five minutes. There is no prayer that can turn your shack into a mansion. There is no prayer that can take your bicycle and turn it into an airplane. There's no anointing oil. There is no casting out of demons. We can bring a fire hose to spray on you. But if your mind's been like this, it does not change overnight. You can get delivered quickly. You can get healed quickly. You can get married quickly. You can get a lot of stuff quickly, but one thing you cannot get quickly is change your mind. And it first starts, first it starts with taking responsibility for your thoughts. The moment we shift the responsibility on God, or the moment we just hopped out and saying, you know what, I can't control my thoughts. This is where the problem begins. We have to take responsibility for our thoughts. And so let's just dive in. The first thing that I mentioned is take responsibility for your thoughts. The second thing that I want you to do, and this is huge, take care of your physical brain. Your brain is like the piano. Your mind is like the pianist. Now, he plays piano. Piano doesn't play him, right? But if there is no piano, pianist cannot play piano. A lot of people do not take care of their physical brain. When you consume drugs, you're damaging your brain. When you consume alcohol, you're damaging your brain. When you're not eating properly, you are damaging your brain. Now there are accidents that could happen to each one of us. Car accidents, you can fall somewhere and have a concussion or damage your brain. We're not talking about that, we can't control that. But there are things that we can do that could really hurt our brain through drugs, through alcohol, through sleep deprivation, through not eating properly, through not hanging out in the society and being in the community. What we do is we damage, certain chemicals begin to be missing in our brain. And after that, our mind can't play full melody because the keys are broken. You know, sometimes in a piano, certain keys just don't work. And so you can't play what you wanna play because keys are broken. And many people don't realize how important that is to begin to take care of your brain. Your brain is an organ. But your mind is a spiritual you. Your spiritual part of you and your spiritual part of you cannot do the thinking if your brain has been jeopardized. We have to take care of the brain. We have to eat the broccoli. We have to eat more fish and less steak. We have to sleep more. We have to take vitamins. We have to do everything we can so that our brain is healthy. Come on somebody. And some people, they need to see the doctor. Some people need to see and supplement certain missing chemicals there. And we have to do whatever it takes that our brain is protected. Brain is a physical organ that needs to be well taken care of. And if it's not well taken care of, you're not taking care of your mind because your mind cannot do its work without its brain. And brain needs to be taken care of. Come on somebody. Help me, help my brain, Lord, help my brain. Amen. Number three, and I think the points that are a little bit different. Number three is get out of your head. So first I can't change my mind if I don't take responsibility for my thoughts. Secondly is I have to take care of my brain. And number three, I have to get out from my head. What does that mean? As a Christian you must understand, you have thoughts, you are not your thoughts. This is a huge revelation. The scripture tells us, think on these things. The scripture doesn't say that thinking does the thinking. You're doing the thinking. The thinking is not doing you. So we have to draw the line in the sand. And when you notice your mind is doing its own thinking, making its own calls, sending its own message, you say, whoa, stop, stop, why? Because the Bible says as a man thinks, so is he. It doesn't say as things think, so is the man. Meaning you're doing the thinking. The thinking should not be doing you. The thinking should not be thinking on its own. And when it does, then you have to put in the break since the stop. Why? Because I am a spirit. I am not a mind. I'm a spirit and I can tell my mind, shut up, stop. Don't go there. You can't cross there. And so you are not your thoughts. You have thoughts but you are not your thoughts. And therefore when you notice that you are living in your head, get out of your head. Open that prison door and say, I'm coming out of this. Why? And I'm gonna tell my mind what to do. My mind is not gonna dictate my emotions, my mood and my life. Come on somebody, are you with me? Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praise worthy, meditate on these things. So Paul is telling us to think on these things. Therefore we gotta remove this lie. I can't control my thoughts. You cannot control your mind until you first take responsibility for your thoughts. But you can control your thoughts. Otherwise Bible will never tell you to think on these things. You can dictate your thoughts. Otherwise the Bible will not say, as a man thinks so is he. You can control your thoughts and it starts with you announcing to yourself, to your thoughts and to your mind and to every minion running in your mind and controlling your mind and causing a glitch to hey, there's a boss, there's a sheriff in town and that's not you, you, you, it's me. My spirit is gonna come make the shots. My spirit is gonna make the shots in this mind and not you, you, you. So you listen, you listen, you listen and you're fired. You're fired and you're fired. Why? Because you're misbehaving. Come on somebody. Number three or number four. Capture thoughts before you can make them captive. You can't make thoughts captive until you capture them. Capture them meaning becoming aware of them. It says in Ephesians chapter six verse 16 and 17 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Before we can take our thoughts captive, we first have to become aware of them. And the best way to do that is to stop for a moment, take a pause and breathe and just observe what's cooking there and just observe why are these thoughts thinking on their own like that always without your permission? Where did it start? Who planted this? Who injected this into my head? Where's the basis for that? Where's this going? Why is this happening? And when you observe, you become aware. What you just did, you just captured them. Before they were just thinking on their own. Now the boss saw somebody trespassing. Somebody misbehaving. And only then you can captivate what you captured. But if you're not aware that there's lonely thoughts running rampant in your mind, you can't subdue them because you don't even know their name. When you notice rejection, it's constant. Like smallest little thing happens and you overthink that somebody rejected you. Where did it start from? Why has this been in my life? It's always on default, on the background. Like a screensaver. Five minutes and it just shows up on its own. And then you're like, no wonder. And people reject me all the time. Is this because people reject me or do people reject me because I have this thought running on the background? You observe, you become aware. Because when you become aware, Paul says fiery darts. These are not just thoughts. These are not just you. This is not just the world is crazy, nobody likes you. What if this is a fiery dart that is flying in and you're seeing it, you captured it. You caught that. Say, okay, nope, you're not going any further. You stop right here. You abort that. You remove that. And you say, no, this doesn't go any further. You can't captive something. Take captive until you capture it. Until you are aware of that. Come on somebody, are you with me? Number five, don't focus on emptying your mind. It will lead to Eastern meditation. Fill it. Emptying your mind is passive. Filling your mind is active. Emptying your mind makes you susceptible to demonic infiltration. Filling your mind makes you powerful because you can push away every demonic infiltration. Emptying your mind is really, can lead to demonization. But filling your mind can lead you to the filling of the Holy Spirit. And so Bible never gives us this passive kind of like, just relax. Just breathe, just kind of, just think about nothing. That's very dangerous. You don't wanna do that. You wanna fill your mind intentionally and actively, aggressively and purposefully. It's a war over there. You can't walk around over there without a weapon. You're coming to a war in your mind. You're not coming for a vacation. This is not a Hawaii trip. This is a war zone. And you gotta begin to feel active, be active. Many people cannot change their mind because simply they're lazy. They're just lazy. They're not active with their thoughts. They're not active with what's happening there. They're just playing passive and then they come and say, I'm like, hey, man of God, deliver me. Hey, man of God, pray for me. But my friend, God wants to make you active. He wants to train your hands for war and your fingers for battle. He wants you to train your thoughts. He wants you to raise your thoughts. He wants you to direct your thoughts. Come on, get busy. You gotta pull away the weeds and plant the seeds and water the seeds. You gotta get active in your mind. You can't just let it think on its own. You gotta pull back, press the brakes, replace the brakes, replace the engine, replace the transmission if you need to. You gotta work on this, baby. You gotta work on this thing. Read, study, listen, meditate, memorize, confess scriptures. And the last one is take every thought captive like a prisoner of war. Thoughts are transgressors sometimes. They need to be treated as such. They need to be enslaved. Thoughts, if you don't enslave them, if you don't make them into captives, you will become a captive of them. You either take your thoughts captive or you are a captive of your thoughts. You either turn your thoughts to God or your thoughts will rule your life. You either trust God with your thoughts or your thoughts will dictate the direction of your life. And they're completely unpredictable. They're crazy. We see this in the scripture and this in the last verse, for the weapons of a warfare are not carnal but mighty in God. For pulling down strongholds and casting out arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Bringing every thought into captivity to obedience of Christ. Have you noticed there is no passivity here? Have you noticed there is no, I'm gonna sit on the back seat and let Jesus take the wheel. Jesus ain't taking no wheels today. In this area, Jesus says, if you don't get behind the wheel and hit the brake, you're gonna crash. A lot of us, what we do, there are areas we have to surrender. This, we don't surrender, we subdue. We fight here. This is the weapons over warfare. That means your thoughts, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight. You gotta bring God's weapon. You gotta bring the scripture. The latest quote on Pinterest will not do. Come on, the latest quote on Twitter will not do. You gotta bring a weapon. And the weapon is the sword of this period. You gotta put God's word inside and you gotta come arms ready, full with the armor of God. And then it says you turn your thoughts into captivity. You gotta get aggressive. There's fantasies in our mind. There's attitudes that rise against the knowledge of God and the truth of who God says about you. You gotta capture that and you gotta bend them. You gotta cuff them up. And if they give you things, taser them. And if that thought comes at you, you pull up, and you shoot. That's the only thing Christians can shoot is bad thoughts. Everything else we love. But bad thoughts, you take them captive. If they resist, taser them, handcuff them, shoot. Put that weapon to use. You gotta go to war. People are like, man, I want my mind to be relaxing. I just wanna, after a long day of work, I just wanna still and chill and Netflix, my friend. If you're gonna chill and Netflix in your mind, your life will be nothing good for life to be good. We have to do the war here. And after you win the wars, you'll enjoy the peace. But if there is no peace in your life and there's no peace in your mind, my friend, I wanna tell you something. There is no prayer. There is no rebuking and commanding that will fix laziness and being inactive with our thoughts and with our mind.