![]() By cutting those out, I virtually stopped all my nightmares. I feel God showed me that I needed to stop watching violent movies. They would wake me up with a start and my heart would be pounding. Find Out What Is Encouraging Your Negative Imaginations This new focus of your thinking can actually improve your prayer as you increase your faith in what God may do. Think how you would live if you truly believed them to be true. Remind yourself of those things God has shown you in prayer. Tell yourself the truths of Scripture about yourself, about God, about your situation. I have found declarations help reset my mind on the things I want to think about. It’s not that we really want to stop our imaginations we just want them to start working for us. We fight off those vain imaginations by working with God to imagine the good He can bring about ( Romans 8:28). However, our negative thinking can also lead us to sin or fall into deep despair and depression. It is using our imagination that we think of new solutions to problems and we gain new hope for our current situations. Our minds are made to think and imagine things. Overcome Negative Thoughts With Goodįinally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. If God can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine ( Ephesians 3:20), then let’s get God to help us to imagine more. Allow God to lead and guide your imaginations. Therefore allow your mind to linger on things above. The things you let your mind dwell on are the things you train your heart to want. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Find out what is encouraging the evil imaginations.Realize not all imaginations are leading you from God.There are three steps to gain control of thoughts. Seeing how our vain imaginations can hinder our relationship with God, the next question is how to get yourself to stop. If you want to explore this topic more, check out these two books: Victorious Mindsets by Steve Backlund and Dreaming with God by Bill Johnson. If you want to live in purity, stop evil at the source – control your mind from unwanted thoughts. If we let our thoughts linger on evil, we will train our hearts to want it. While the implications of this passage is weighty, it is not intended to create greater guilt, but to highlight the dangers of our imaginations. This verse and the corresponding passage about murder are instructions on how to find greater freedom. But, if Jesus came to bring freedom, why would He make things harder? “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. James says we need to avoid negative thoughts because dwelling on them creates space for them to grow and becomes our temptations… and eventually our sin. As I was imagining things, I wasn’t acting out on them. I used to think that my obsessive thinking was not a problem because it was just thoughts in my head. ![]() There may be some outwards forces that lure us to consider sin, but those temptations that find fertile ground in our negative thinking are those that grow and motivate our actions. Temptations are not some outward force being pushed onto us, but they are birthed from something within us – our negative thoughts. James shows us in this passage how to fight sin. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ![]()
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