Part 9- When the Storm Comes Bible Study

Defense of the Mind

Do you ever have thoughts that leave you feeling overwhelmed with fear, anger, jealousy, insecurity, or lust? Are you concerned about your health, wondering what the future holds? Do you have intrusive thoughts that repeat in your mind, leaving you feeling defeated? Have you been in a conversation that left you reeling for hours after- the thoughts playing repeatedly in your mind. Do memories of past failures or fears of the future pop into your mind uninvited? When does it end? Thoughts can leave us hindered from functioning in our daily lives. One bad interaction could derail the rest of our day.

Out of all that I have written, if two points are taken away from this whole series, these are the two I would like to be remembered. First, God loves us with an eternal love that cannot be bought, but is received when we accept God’s gift. The second relates to this chapter. The kingdom of God dwells within us, where God is King, and the battle front is located within our minds.

Read Romans 7:19-25. Paul can sympathize with the battle in our minds. In what ways do you battle in your mind, doing and thinking the things that you don’t want to think or do? How does that make you feel? How did Paul think of himself in Romans 5:24?

The passage that comes right after Paul feeling this way is Romans 8. Read Romans 8:1-4. Why are we not condemned? Are we in a state of slavery when we are in Christ (Rom 8:2)? What was Christ able to accomplish that the law was powerless to do? What is put to death when we live by the Spirit? Why do we feel condemned when we are told we are not?

The victory over eternal death and the redemption we receive are freely given at salvation, when we believe and confess Jesus as Lord.  Jesus has won the war over the soul, but the battle rages on daily for our mind and body to be yielded to God as Lord of the Kingdom of our mind and heart. 

Read Romans 8:5-8. When we don’t put the flesh to death, what do we have our minds set on? What do those who live by the Spirit put their minds on? Read Galatians 5:19-21 and Philippians 4:8. Make two lists from these three passages, separate the characteristics of the flesh and thoughts of the spirit.

The reason this battle continues is that we are tied to our flesh until we depart from this earth. We still desire to be rulers of our own minds and bodies. Look at the flesh list- we are tied to this list within our nature, but there is hope. God does not call us to “just be good people.” Who delivers us? Who gives us life and the strength to live by the Spirit? When we believe in Christ, is there any condemnation in our struggle? (Review Romans 8:1)

Defense of the mind

How do we contend with our fleshly desires, but have the Spirit guide us and God dwell in us? Read Galatians 2:20.

We die to ourselves and live by faith that what Christ is saying to us is the truth. To combat the incessant thoughts of the flesh, we use prayer and scripture to renew our minds daily. We fight the battle of our flesh and Satan in our mind by defending what we have built, our relationship with God.

There are many tools to help defend our minds against the evil one, but we will focus on five.

1)        Identify- Speak or write down the thought of the flesh in your mind. There is power in words; they need to be spoken out loud or written down to help your brain derail the cyclical thought pattern. (i.e., fear, lust, anger, bitterness, etc.)

2)        Capture- Read 2 Cor 10:5. We can take the identified thought captive by praying, “Dear Jesus, please help me to take captive the thought of  _________. 

3)        Cast - Read 1 Peter 5:7. Jesus desires for us to cast our cares on him. Let us confess our sins to him. The word cast in Greek literally means to throw on a beast of burden to carry. Jesus calls us to lay our captured thoughts and our sins on him. May we not hold onto them for ourselves lest we become distracted or despondent.

4)        Remember- Read Hebrews 12:2,3. Once the thought is gone, we need to fill our minds with truth rather than the original thoughts. Remembering God allows us to fix our eyes on the one who gives truth.

5)        Renew- Read Romans 12:2 and Phil 4:8. We are to renew our minds with the truths of God. Memorizing and speaking the Bible, the truths of God, over ourselves will encourage us to persevere and be strengthened.

David was a great warrior for God, but he was also a great warrior of the mind. In the struggles and the pain of his life, he poured out his thoughts to the Lord in prayer and song.  “And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him…But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6 ESV) Even in death threats, David looked to the Lord for encouragement to battle the fear and discouragement in his mind. Let us look at two of David’s Psalms to see how he used the tools above to combat the thoughts raging within him.

Read Psalm 38 or 56: In the margins, identify the different tools David uses to bring defense to his mind. (There may be overlap, and there are no correct answers.)

Now it is your turn. Is there a thought or a sin pattern that has plagued your mind? If you don’t have one currently, make up a thought that would cause someone to struggle and practice using the five tools to defend your mind.