When you begin to dwell on the Word of God, the first thing you discover is that the Word goes absolutely contrary to the way you’re accustomed to thinking. But the only way for the Word to abide in you is to choose it over your old, worldly thoughts.

Second Corinthians 10:4-6 calls those old thought patterns “strongholds” and lets us know we have to overthrow them with the Word of God.

How do you take your old thoughts captive and bring them into obedience to Jesus? By replacing them with His thoughts and His Words.

Once you understand that, you can see how we can have untroubled hearts…and think on the things of Philippians 4:8.

Think about this: God isn’t worried, is He? He isn’t afraid He’ll run out of money. He’s not filled with anxiety about your problems. No! He has the supply. He has more than enough power to get you through every circumstance in victory. So when you think His thoughts, you won’t be afraid either. You’ll be full of the peace of God Himself.

If you’re going to abide in the peace of God, if His Word is going to abide in you, you have to close the door to all other kinds of thought. You have to cast down every thought that disagrees with the Word and choose to think God’s thoughts instead. You literally have to select what your mind thinks.

You have to be like my daughter Kellie was years ago when she was a little girl. One day I took her by the hand, led her into her room, opened the door of her closet (which was piled full of junk) and said, “Kellie Dee Copeland, this closet of yours is a mess! Now you’re going to get in there and clean it up.”

She just looked up at me and said, “That’s not my thought.”

She resisted that thought. She wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t figure out how to get that thought into her either. Even when she went ahead and cleaned up the closet, it wasn’t her thought. The only reason she did it is because her mother and dad made her.

That’s the way we need to treat the devil. When he comes around with a thought of anxiety or disaster, we just need to tell him, “That’s not my thought. I’m not touching that with my thought life.” Then we need to immediately replace that thought with a thought from the Word of God. We need to think on things that are just, pure, lovely, of good report, of virtue and praise.

Speak the Word

I think only on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report. I think on virtuous and praiseworthy things. (Philippians 4:8)