Catching Thoughts

One valuable lesson that I’ve learned my Salvation is I that I am under no obligation to keep anyone in my life. Anyone that doesn’t love & respect me, value their time with me, or share my vision in life will not have the privilege of being a part of it.

Its great strategy because you are in complete control of who you associate with, and by raising the standards of who you allow into your life you automatically raise the standards for yourself.

Don’t let yourself get dragged down by others. You are worth so much more than that.

How many of us should start by going through our contacts with that “swipe left, delete” move…?

Every time we are around them, or we scroll through social media its like we catch something.

We get in a certain mood, and can’t figure out, “How was I so happy three minutes ago, and now…?”

Have you ever had it switch that quickly?

It starts with a thought. Before you had that feeling you had a thought.

Sometimes that thought is just you going through your feed, and you’ll see something that won’t register.
Here’s the thing – you don’t feel it right away. Its later, after you’ve stopped.

Its like eating a whole bag of Oreos – you don’t feel sick while eating them, only after you’ve stopped.

Sometimes you are mad or upset about something that you saw 10 minutes ago on your phone… because you were in everybody else’s life but your own, trying to figure out, “Am I better than them? Are they better than me?”

Like the time I was scrolling and saw so and so having a cocktail party by the pool, and I know they’re in deep debt and can barely afford their lifestyle, so I caught a thought of judgment.

“Why should they live this fantasy life when I know they can barely pay their bills”

Now I feel sick 10 minutes later because of a thought I caught while I scrolled through somebody else’s situation that has nothing to do with my responsibility.

I’ll say that part again – somebody else’s situation that has nothing to do with my responsibility.

What happened to me was I caught a thought of offense, and then I reaped an attitude of frustration.

Or maybe I got offended the other day because I saw God blessing somebody he wasn’t supposed to bless.

Did you ever watch God just do something awesome for the wrong person?

And… He didn’t consult you!

Now here’s what happens: You become a victim of your own judgment. When you judge others that way, you judge yourself that way. So, when you catch a thought of judging others, don’t be surprised when the judgment comes upon you.

You can catch a cold, but you can also catch a thought. And it’s important where it came from, because where it comes from determines where it leads to.

For most people, we don’t hear God out loud, so we connect with God not on an auditory or sensory level; but we connect with Him at the level of thought. And that’d be great if He were the only one who spoke that way.

But we have this other one. They call him the Devil.

I’m not talking about a guy in a Halloween costume that he got on clearance at Target, walking up with a pitchfork and a cape and some horns.

The devil is not like that.

I’d just put him off my shoulder if he were. But he’s not on my shoulder.

When he comes to you or me, he comes through a thought.

So, we have God speaking to us through our thoughts AND we have the enemy trying to speak against what God spoke to us through our thoughts.

We have two voices inside of us, and sometimes we’re caught between a thought.

One is telling me, “Your greatest years are ahead of you.”

The other is telling me, “It’s over. You’ve amounted to nothing in life.”

One is telling me, “Go ahead and speak it and say it and do it and step into it and believe in it.“

The other is telling me, “Well, you can’t pull this off. No one believes in you, you’re just a fraud who’s going to be embarrassed. If you climb high, they can pull you down.”

You see I got caught by a thought.

All the time I have this thought that goes through my mind that says, “It doesn’t matter.” I could be doing anything, and it will be like… “Who cares? It doesn’t matter. You don’t matter“

Have you ever had that thought catch you while trying to do something?

“You’re not enough.”

I’ll bet you’ve probably felt that way more often than you’d like.

I even have a t-shirt that says, “You are Enough”

Because its true. Don’t ever forget that.

You matter. You are enough.

I think a lot of this is going around so much more now than it used to because now we don’t judge ourselves or measure ourselves according to the calling God has given us; we compare ourselves to a fictionalized account of somebody else’s life, their highlight reel on social media.

That’s where you always get into trouble.

And I’ve seen this happen too in my group – You always get in trouble when you start comparing your calling to somebody else’s.

When you compare callings, you catch insecurity.

When you compare callings, you catch insufficiency.

When you think, “I’m not enough…”

How many times have I sent away something God put in my life because I caught a thought – that I’m not enough?

Even sometimes when things are going great, you have this thought.

“It won’t last.”

“They’ll leave you too.”

“You can’t count on them.”

Then you sabotage the gift because you’re not secure in it, because even while it’s happening you don’t believe it’s real.

You know the verse:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (PHIL 4:4 NIV)

“Rejoice in the Lord always.” Then Paul says, “I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Well, you can say it as many times as you want to, Paul. But I’m sad & depressed right now, and I can’t find my way out.

So we end up in those situations. Fighting on the level of our feelings, but before it became a feeling…

It was a thought.

Even Paul had to fight against opposing voices that undermined the grace of God in the gospel, even in the churches he started, like the church at Corinth.

He would write to that church, telling them that they were being led astray. The word he likes to use is ‘deceived’. He says, “I fear that you’re being deceived by the power of suggestion.” He uses the example… He says, “Like Eve was deceived by the Serpent.”

Do you remember that story?

When God said, “You can eat any of this,” and then she caught a thought from a snake. She allowed something that was beneath her to speak to her.

She caught a thought.

The Serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say that…?”

He introduces a doubt into the possibility and potential of faith, causing her to focus on what is not available, rather than what is.

Paul says, “I’m afraid that you will be deceived.” There are these spies in the church at Corinth, and they’re leading the Christians astray.

How are they doing it? By the power of thought.

They are introducing the thought into the church that you need something other than Christ to justify your life. That same thing goes on today.

What happens is the Enemy deceives you. He can’t take what God gave you… The devil has no power to take away anything that God gave you.

Make sure you know that.

So he can’t take what God gave you, but if he can get you to catch a thought that opposes it, he can keep you so weak, so doubting you will not walk into it.

Or he’ll use his favorite tactic nowadays – distraction. If he can keep you so distracted that you never hear God’s calling, then those seeds God planted in you will never grow, never produce fruit. Think the parable of the Sower, in Matthew 13.

The spiritual battleground is your mind. And the front line is your thoughts.

I wrote this in my notes back in January. Its very relevant here:

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Jan 23 2022

Most of life‘s battles are either won or lost in the mind.

You cannot have a positive life if you have a negative mind. Why? Because your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts.

Victory isn’t what’s happening around you it’s what’s happening in your mind. It doesn’t matter about your situation around you, it doesn’t matter about your past, your family matters, your genetics, what’s been done to you, what’s been spoken to you, what you’ve done, what you haven’t done.

Victory is about the state of your mind and the enemy knows this so his main focus in your life is to attack your thoughts.

And if he can win the battle of your mind he can win the battle of your life.

You don’t need this situation to improve – you don’t need circumstances to change – you can step in to victory tonight by changing the way you think right now.

Pay attention to your thoughts!