Friday, May 3, 24 – Apostle Billey
The mind and the Word of God. Suite 2
1 Kings 19 1-18
1 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword
2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”
3 And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
Thoughts are a blessing, because God gives them to us. God also thinks, and he made us in his image.
Thoughts are part of the Father, our Redeemer Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Thoughts play a very important role. Thoughts happen inside, in the heart.
Through thoughts, we can be strong, we can call for help from heaven.
Managing our thoughts is crucial to our relationship with God.
If I think evil of my neighbor, he can’t know it, but God knows it, he sees my thoughts and sees that I have connected my thoughts with evil.
How the Lord is able to read our minds. So it can be a point of connection with God.
Thoughts can lead us to get confused or connected with God.
Idolatry destroys families and generations.
Elijah rose up against all this – he met Ahab – he spoke to him firmly saying, you are leading the people into idolatry. Then He challenged the prophets of Baal -1 Kings 18. 19-40.
Elijah prayed and fire came down from heaven and the fire consumed the altar. When the altar caught fire-the prophets of Baal were seized and executed.
So Elijah had victory against the king’s system; religious organizations…But also against the Baal spirit, i.e. the principalities.
Jezebel was a priestess of the devil.
Through the Lord, Elijah overcame Jezebel’s master through prayer. And all Israel knew that Elijah’s God is the True God. Thus, the principality of the region, which Jezebel and Ahab served, was humiliated.
So the humiliated Jezebel also sought to humiliate Elijah and sent a message to Elijah threatening him with death.
When Elijah heard, he ran for his life.
What happened inside him?
When he heard Jezebel’s messenger, he began to think about it – to imagine. And the more he thought, the more the words took root in him.
And what was the content of these thoughts?
You will be killed as you killed my prophets…
It was a death decree against his life. He thought about it, and the more he thought about it, the more he made a film of himself thinking about this threat. So in this film, he saw himself being killed, stoned to death…
That’s what we call imagination – nothing’s happened yet, but he’s already making quite a film – seeing himself being killed, suffering, being stoned…
What created this?
Jezebel’s word he received in him.
That’s the devil’s secret to stopping heroes and heroes-to-be: Pollute the mind.
The word we stand by is what will take effect in our lives.
Whoever listens to bad words and stays with them – whatever his spiritual level – will make bad decisions, will be afraid, will lose courage…
Elijah was a man of God, but the devil was not afraid of him. He had just won a great victory, he killed hundreds of prophets. However, he let these bad words enter his heart and was afraid.
What did Elijah see? He saw death that wasn’t there yet – he was afraid and that was the connection with the devil.
The devil didn’t stop Elijah physically, he stopped him spiritually by connecting with his spirit.
It was a mismanagement of his thoughts.
Thoughts are a battleground even when we’re asleep – even in our dreams.
The day’s dreams: imaginations/films in thoughts – Elie dreamed, imagining this death threat against his life.
Night dreams: while the person is asleep, the devil puts his messages into nightmares.
All this is done to prevent doing God’s will.
A word transmits either life or death. It conveys courage or fear.
We can decide to think the way God wants us to. It’s up to us.
And as time goes by, the thoughts will become thoughts of blessings, healthy thoughts.
For many of us, thoughts are battlegrounds.
Let’s learn to submit our thoughts to Jesus at all times.
Those who close their ears to the Word of Christ are opening their ears to the word of the devil.
You must not open your ears to the devil – your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit – you belong to Jesus. Refuse the verdicts, the devil’s reports.
We must stand firm on the Word and reject the seeds of poverty, fear and disease…
You have the ability to reject, resist and destroy all that.
This is the blessing of God’s children. We are capable of destroying any spirit that seeks to challenge our lives, that seeks to stop our lives.
We mustn’t be afraid. Sometimes, God wants to raise you up and allow you to go through tests.
If you hear there’s going to be an earthquake in 5 minutes, what are you going to do? What will happen inside you?
You’ll start to think about it. You’ll be scared, you’ll panic. You’re going to start imagining things…making movies.
This fear will follow you into your dreams, day and night.
And the devil uses this system to inject fear into the human mind and into all areas of your life: projects, health, work, finance, home…
When the Christian receives fear, he will begin to think, to imagine himself without money, without work, in failure, in sickness, in problems…
And when this happens to the Christian, it means that spiritually the devil has won.
The Christian who doesn’t discern when fear enters him and what the thoughts are – he’ll start to have ups and downs in his Christian life.
He won’t be able to maintain victory, the enemy will manipulate him with his thoughts.
1 Kings 19 4 As for him, he went into the wilderness, where, after a day’s walk, he sat down under a broom tree and asked for death, saying: Enough is enough! Now, LORD, take my soul, for I am no better than my fathers.
The power of negative words/threats is really serious.
Elijah began to be in anguish and depression because he made a small mistake in accepting Jezebel’s word in him. And this corrupted everything in him to the point of forgetting his relationship with God, forgetting his ability…
If the devil knows you’re going to serve God, he’ll start polluting you early on. He’ll make you ignore yourself
You need to know how to control your thoughts, not let your thoughts control you.
When the fire came down, Elijah was able to destabilize 450 prophets of Baal – so that meant God heard him.
But in the face of the threat, Jezebel’s words became more important to him than anything else. He should have responded by saying: “You messenger, go and tell Jezebel that I give her 2 hours to live”…; or prayed: “May fire come down to consume Jezebel”…
Why didn’t he do this?
He was stopped by Jezebel’s voice – he listened to Jezebel as if it were God who had spoken.
When you listen to the devil’s voice, everything stops. When we don’t let God’s word take over, we get discouraged, depressed…
But as a leader in any spiritual or civil field, even in the home, we have to be careful what we listen to and put into ourselves.
You can’t ignore the enemy. If you accept what he says, he will manipulate your mind and push you to lose the essential.
All those who have the spirit of idolatry cannot stand up to adversity or tests.
You mustn’t let the devil manipulate you with material things. If you love money, the things of this world, the devil will manipulate you by it.
But a Christian with a heart for God must understand that the Lord is in charge of everything in his life: your home, your children, your health, your family, everything good.
1 Corinthians 6.20 For you have been bought with a great price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Remember that you have the example of Job, from whom everything was torn away, but he remained attached to God.
Be firm! You belong to God.
Beloved, the Lord is with you – He provides for all your needs.
LET US PRAY →
You spirit of idolatry attached to my life, be destroyed.
Every spirit of idolatry in my soul and thoughts be slain.
Who acts in my thoughts, I destroy you.
All invisible idolatry, I destroy you.
Lord help me to keep my thoughts in you and to keep them pure.
Help me to purify my thoughts.
I reject any suggestion of darkness coming into my head, into my thoughts.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.