You Are Not Given a Spirit of Fearنموونە

Day 5: Your Brains Are Saved

The last thing 2 Timothy 1:7 mentions in place of fear is a sound mind, and this one is really practical because it means you have saved brains! Ephesians chapter 6 tells us about the armor of God, and the helmet of salvation that goes on our heads, because when you are born again, you receive the power for your brain to work for you and think right, and when we think right, we overcome fear.

The Bible says that we have the power to demolish the strongholds that fear has set up in our minds, and we have to take all our thoughts captive. Now, I don't know about you, but there have been times when thoughts have come against my mind that I didn't want to stay there.

But who's going to bring them down? Not your husband, not your wife, not your child, not your preacher, not your pastor, not your best friend.

No, you’re going to bring them down.

Your enemy is trying to tell you what you are going to think, what you are going to believe, what you are going to be or not be, but you have a spear by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you're poking that spear right in the back of that enemy, saying, “Nope, you're not telling me what to do. You're not keeping me from my dream. I'm not bowing to you.” When the enemy comes in with some foreign agent—fear, anxiety, or confusion—we must bring it down.

How to Fight Back

You might be in a place where you've listened to those thoughts so much that it's almost habitual. Maybe your mind just thinks about all the bad that's happening in the world or all your problems, but you can break that habit. You've got the power to start pulling those unsound thoughts down, one by one, and replacing them with something else.

To cast out fear, we need to meditate on what God's given us. You can't watch the news for eight hours a day and expect to have a sound mind, because there's enough to see on there that will bring fear. You can't just meditate on fearful things and expect fear to just subside because you said something.

Joshua 1:8 says that we are to meditate day and night in the Word of God. If you do that, it says you will have good success. Do you want to have good success? Then you're going to have to turn off things that bring fear to your heart and turn on things that bring peace to your mind.

Sometimes, even when you are meditating on God’s Word, fear still creeps in from the world around you, but you can pull down those sneaky thoughts too. You can replace your fearful thoughts the way the apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:8, by thinking on whatever is true, noble, or just, like the story of Jesus’ birth and death for us. Or whatever is pure or lovely, something as simple as a little baby, a beautiful sunset, or a flower.

When we do that, we're casting our thoughts upward. By our own choice, we're casting down thoughts that are trying to attack and bring down our lives. The Bible goes on to say that if there's any praise about it, think on these things.

This is going to bring down those other thoughts that are bringing you down. If you say you can't, then you allow yourself to stay in that place. But if you say, “No, I can,” then you become responsible for your thoughts, and you can do something about them, and then you become free.

That's the power that you have—to use your saved brains.

Discussion Questions:

1. Our first responsibility in taking care of our saved brains is keeping them away from unsound thoughts. What are some things in your life that might be putting fear, confusion, or anxiety in your mind? How can you cut down on your exposure to these things?
2. Sometimes, we can’t completely stop unsound thoughts from appearing, but we can control how we respond to them. Make a list of things that fit the descriptions in Philippians 4:8. Keep this list nearby so that, when unsound thoughts sneak into your mind, you have an arsenal of pure thoughts to quickly replace them with.