Taking Dominion of Your Thoughts

A great lie that keeps many in mental bondage and can keep you from the doors God has opened for you is that you cannot control your thoughts or what you think. Negative and fearful thoughts will interfere with your faith, keeping you from seeing and valuing all God is doing for you. They will keep you from moving forward, as an anchor holding you in place and as a poison, corrupting the new things you seek to do. These thoughts can disrupt what God wants to do with and through you.

Satan is aware of doors that God opens for you, and he’s a master of distraction. He knows the opportunities on the other side of the door will change you and the people around you. He understands this, so he attempts to influence your thoughts by getting you to focus on negative and fearful thoughts or the one thing God seems to withhold from you, to convince you to walk away from God’s open door and blessings. He knows how to get you to focus and think on something that is not even happening as if it were, and you’ll find yourself worrying about “what if.” Visiting in your mind and thoughts the very things you do not want to happen.

What thoughts are filling your mind today? Is it fear? Past or future failures? Lack in your life? The thoughts you think will grow and be sustained by what you feed them, whether good or bad. Refuse to hold onto the thoughts that are hurting you. Your faith will manifest God’s will in your life, or your fear will manifest what you fear (Job 3:25). Your thoughts influence and control your actions and expectations.

The devil(Satan) aims to influence your thoughts to keep you distracted and convince you to go through the door he sets before you, a door leading to disappointment, offense, obstacles, and regrets instead of the door God has opened for you. When your mind is troubled by negative and harmful thoughts, you will be so focused on something else that you walk away from the opportunities available through the door God opens for you. We see an example of this in 2 Corinthians 2:12-13.

“Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.” – 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 (NIV)

I’ve emphasized two critical parts. Paul walked away because he had no peace of mind. We know this because he said “goodbye,” and you only do that when leaving. What caused a great man of God like Paul to walk away from an open door that Jesus opened for him? It is the same thing that has caused and still causes believers today to walk away from the open door God has for them. Those things are negative and fearful thoughts.

A negative mindset full of fearful thoughts will keep you from operating in the blessing God gave you. Paul was in that city, getting ready to do tremendous work, but he had no peace of mind.

Paul had been receiving letters about what was going on in the church of Corinth, information that had to hurt his heart, so in love, he wrote a stern letter of rebuke. Receiving no response, he grew concerned and sent his brother Titus to speak to them and see what was happening. Paul had no peace because he feared what was happening in Corinth and whether he would be turned on and betrayed by those with whom he had done so much good. Paul and his team had already experienced some tremendous pain, but when Corinth turned on him, in his mind, because it was only in his mind, it looked like the worst was going to happen.

Some bad experiences will shape and follow you. You will carry the baggage of your previous experience with you in your thoughts, and it will influence how you perceive things and how you respond to disappointment, offense, obstacles, and regrets in your life. Like Paul did, you will likely say, do, or believe anything if the wrong thoughts control you. He went through so much that led to him believing the negative thoughts and fearing the response from Corinth. Apostle Paul’s mind amplified everything he was dealing with, and he began to lose hope.

What you are afraid of gets bigger and bigger as you think about it, and what you are dealing with hurts more and more as you focus on it. If you keep thinking about something day and night, it will look far worse than it is, which is what happened to Paul.

“Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,” – 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 (NIV)

It got so bad it felt to him like he was going to die. Stop agreeing with your emotions because if you say, “I cannot endure this,” it will begin to become a reality to you. If Satan can get you to focus on what you’re going through instead of who is with you as you go through and what God is taking you to, you will lose hope. You need to grab hold of the word of God and begin to agree with it.

Everything that Paul went through shaped him into the Apostle he became. Paul went through some terrible difficulties in life, but he realized that God wanted him to learn to rely on Him and not on his strength. God doesn’t want you to rely on your strength, what you can do, and your resources. You must learn how to rely on God and stop relying on yourself. That begins with taking control of your thoughts.

Taking dominion over your thoughts

You can control your thoughts no matter what thoughts you’re dealing with or how long you’ve dealt with them. You have power over your thoughts, and your thoughts have great power. What you are focusing(thinking) on will be attracted to you and you to it.

Life follows thoughts, and your focus determines direction. It does not follow wishes but whatever you consistently think about and focus on. What you focus on will be magnetically attracted to you and you to it, so grab hold of the word of God and agree with it! What you focus on gets amplified.

Paul’s problem was his thought life, his negative thought life. He expected things to get worse, and they got worse. His thought life was influencing his perspective and outlook, making things seem worse than they were. Take dominion over your thoughts and keep your hope and focus on God.

What is “dominion?”

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” – Genesis 1:26 (KJV)

Here, God says, “let them have dominion…” and has given us dominion. What is dominion? The dictionary defines dominion as “power, authority, jurisdiction, control, the right to govern, rule, or determine,” but what does that mean for us as believers? God is in control and will help you, but He will not override your will. He leaves it up to you and me to take dominion, or control, over our thoughts. God will not do it for us because He has given us authority over our thoughts. We have this illusion that God is going to interrupt our will. God will tell you His will, but it is up to you and me to agree and obey it. God agrees with what you will, but you must enforce it.

He has already made up his mind about what he wants to do for you. He said, “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of good and not of evil…” in Jeremiah 29:11. It isn’t what God thinks will happen for you; it is what you think. God tells us what His thoughts are so we can start thinking His thoughts and align our thoughts with His. He asks if you will line your thoughts and will with His. If not, you won’t experience the good things He has for you.

God says we are made to be like Him. You can use your will to do like God or do what you want to do. God will fight for you to do what you said as long as it is faithful to what you said. He will not stop you if you decide to partner with the devil.

How do you take dominion of your thoughts?

God says, “let them have dominion.” To “have” something means you have permission to get it or use it. You have permission to authorize or utilize it. God has given us power and authority over our thoughts. The thoughts we allow ourselves to keep thinking and how long we give space to them.

You must choose to be what God has determined you be. You have to change your mind! To stop being a victim and decide to be a victor. You’ve been given the authority to resist the devil and the power to run him off. The ability to pray for something and the authority to receive it, but your mind and thoughts determine it!

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:” – Philippians 2:5 (KJV)

You have to allow the mind of Christ to be in you. To allow the mindset of pleasing God to be in you. It is not just going to show up and do its thing. You determine what thoughts you allow and what thoughts you take in.

“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” – Matthew 6:31(KJV)

Notice what Jesus says, “take no thought,” which means you don’t have to receive worrying thoughts, you don’t have to receive fearful thoughts, and you don’t have to receive satanically inspired thoughts. Do not take for yourself or develop a mindset of worry, anxiety, or fear.

You have jurisdiction over your thoughts. Jurisdiction means you have a legal right to rule in or control an area. You have the power and authority to control your thoughts, your reactions, and how you respond. Be proactive and not reactive when negative and fearful thoughts present themselves.

God already knows what He wants to do. Whatever God doesn’t deliver you from, He’ll deliver you into something better. What you want and what God has for you are different. God wants for you to have better. What He wants for you is more significant than anything you can ask or think. Your mindset must be, “God, this is my heart’s desire, but let your will be done. God, I’m telling you what I want, but I want what you want for me, and I stand in faith to receive what you want for me.”

Regardless of what you want, pray for the will of God to be done. Be like Jesus and say, “nevertheless, your will be done.” Submit to His plan for your life; things will always work out for you. It will sometimes be painful and difficult, but God’s plan is the best.

This is why the devil is trying to keep you out of the open door because he knows the opportunities on the other side of the door will change you. It will change people and things; if you can stay in faith, you’ll see God do something in your family. If you stay in faith, you’ll see God do something in your health and life. You’ll see God do some miraculous thing.

God has you in His hands and is working all things out for your good, so you can spend all your time worrying or trust God and His plan for your life. Align your thoughts with God’s by studying the word of God and confess God’s will and word over your life and walk through the doors and opportunities He makes available to you.

 

 

Writing this article and listening to this sermon has helped me understand that I have authority and power over my thoughts, and it is up to me to align my thoughts with what God says. I pray that it also helped to encourage you. Keep an eye out for my next article, where I discuss “Knowing Your Why.”

 

The information expressed above is excerpted from the sermon “An Open Door, Taking Dominion” preached by Dr. Lee A. Simpson.