The antidote to negative and destruction thoughts is a combination of prayer and focusing on that which is brought to your mind by God by HIS Spirit after you ask HIM for help.
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Many people hunt a scripture and try to cling to a scripture without prayer and without the Holy Spirit. Sometimes they try to be their own God by hunting a scripture to “stand on” in order to get what they want in this life.
As a young Christian I made this mistake.
I wanted to marry. I certainly expected to marry.
I never considered the will of God. That was my own will for myself.
In the prayer group I was attending at one point, all the women were praying for me to find a husband.
But my best friend heard something as she prayed for me on this matter. She heard,
“MY grace is sufficient for her.”
Donna told me what she had heard. But I didn’t want to hear this!
Another woman in the prayer group made the following statement one day. “Of course she will marry …” Then this woman added, “If it is the will of God …” But then she went on to say, “But of course it is the will of God for her to marry.”
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So we continued to pray, except for my best friend. I think Donna likely stopped praying about this after she felt she had heard from God.
I began to have serious “Satanic attacks” … depression … and such.
One day, I had the following scripture brought to my attention.
I Peter 2:20 (NIV) …
But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it?
I saw immediately the source of my problem was my own desire of my flesh to have what other people have.
So our problem may not be thoughts from the devil. It may be desire from our own flesh.
The source of problems could be desire for fame or recognition. Often people desire money or riches.
There are many sources of problems.
Sometimes thoughts are brought by spirits of antichrist who try to get us to reject the way of God … saying to us, “It’s too hard … The cost to you would be too great … God wants you to be happy on this earth so of course God would want you to do this thing (often when it is opposite to instruction given in Bible) …
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Concerning the thoughts from the devil …
James 4:7 … Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
We "resist" the devil with that word brought to us by the Spirit of God after we submit ourselves to God in prayer. Usually that word will be a scripture brought to our mind by the Holy Spirit and we stand on that scripture to build our faith and to give us strength to resist devil. Sometimes Holy Spirit will remind us of a dream to show us truth and way we are to go. Sometimes Holy Spirit will bring to our mind a thought, giving us a concept concerning the issue at hand. Regardless, our strength to resist devil is through God and not by our own will. Only through God will we have the power needed.
Eph. 6:10 ... Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of HIS might.
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This is exactly what God has taught me about TAKING THOUGHTS CAPTIVE …
Submit yourselves to God … Pray, taking the problem to God in prayer. Seeking the help of God.
Resist the devil with that given to you after prayer...
The apostle Paul spoke of breaking down “strongholds” …
II Cor. 10 … For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
God knows exactly where those “strongholds” lie in our lives and God knows exactly how to tear down those “strongholds”.
And the methods we use are mighty through God, not through worldly ways of man.
We do not clean out closets to get our flesh to forget.
We do not go shopping to change our moods as many of the world do.
Our weapons of our warfare are not “carnal” (fleshly, worldly), but are mighty “through God".
And as we go in the way of God we will end up like Job … whose end was better than his beginning!
Job 42:12 … So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning:
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And so it is with all people of God who deliberately choose to go in the way of God as they live on this present earth.
Our end is better than our beginning!
There is a labor involved in applying the Word of God and choosing to go in HIS way.