EP 65: How to Overcome Wrong Thinking

Nearly everyone has to wrestle with negative or sinful or intrusive thoughts at one time or other, so in today’s episode, we’re talking strategies for overcoming bad thoughts and taking them captive to the obedience of Christ.

How to Overcome Bad Thoughts

complete transcript from Episode 65

Hello, Friend.

Welcome to Episode 65 of Loving Life at Home. Today we are talking about How to Overcome Wrong Thinking.

I received a message from a reader a while back asking if I could publish a list of verses on taking every thought captive. She wrote:

Well, I know from experience how taxing it sometimes feels to be tending to so many various needs of so many various ages all at once, and this mama is right: Memorizing and mediating on scripture does help.

It keeps us well-grounded and reminds us to focus our attention on the things that matter most and provides the steady source of wisdom a mother so deeply needs each and every moment of every day.

So, I did as she requested and compiled a list of ten verses that speak specifically to this idea of renewing our minds and focusing our hearts upon our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I formatted them into a pretty, one-page printable you can download for free (I’ll put the link in today’s show notes), and I put the same ten verses – in your choice of KJV or NASB — on some pretty little individual scripture cards you can use as bookmarks or post around the house or review daily until you have them all memorized.

The collection includes verses like…

• 2 Corinthians 10:5 – “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ….”
• Psalm 19:14 – “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
• Romans 12:2 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good & acceptable & perfect.”

However, I’d like to expand on this topic on the podcast this morning, because combating negative or sinful or intrusive thoughts is something we all have to do at one time or other. And depending on the kind of thoughts you’re dealing with, some strategies may be more helpful than others.

1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

So let’s consider what kinds of thought struggles commonly trip people up, and discuss strategies for taking those thoughts “captive to the obedience of Christ” so they won’t pull us down into a deep pit of despair or distraction or depravity.

1. Fear & Worry

This is a tendency that seems especially common to mothers. Deep-seated desire to protect our children, which is good. But can sometimes lead us to perseverate on all the horrible things that might go wrong….

….child: nightmares. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. Eventually learned to identify the fact I was having a bad dream, even in my sleep, and I would think… This is just a nightmare. I don’t want to dream about this , I’m going to dream about happy things, instead like Christmas or summer or garage sales – and I’d flip the switch and change that dream without even having to wake up.

But then I had to learn to do it again – not just in my dreams, but in real life as well – when I was a young mother and my firstborn was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes before he even turned 2.

Each time, I had to train myself to focus not on my problems, but on the problem solver. Not

That’s really the secret to overcoming fearful and anxious thoughts. When Satan tempts you to dwell on the waves that are threatening to engulf you, you shift your focus instead to the Savior who can quiet those waves with a word. Instead of focusing on your problems, you look to the problem solver. Instead of worrying about what’s going on in the world, you keep preaching  the truth to yourself and putting your faith in the One who holds the whole world in His hands.

Isaiah 26:3 – “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”

It’s not that I think bad things won’t ever happen to me – I know very bad things often do happen and have no reason to believe I won’t be affected by some of them. But I am 100% confident that I will never have to face any difficulty or hardship or tragedy alone, because I know God will never leave or forsake me. And that is sufficient to keep my heart at rest and my mind at peace.

Psalm 23:4 – “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

I memorized a poem when I was young that highlights this line of thinking:

So, those are the things I remind myself whenever Satan tries to lure me into fearful, anxious, or worried thoughts. And – if it’s any encouragement to you – he seldom even tries to trip me up that way anymore. The more you exercise those faith muscles, the stronger they get. And the more you witness God’s tender watch care over you (through good times and bad), the more confident you are that He will continue to be likewise faithful in the future.

In addition to quoting scripture to myself and meditating on God’s Word, I recommend you pray about whatever you are afraid of or worried about… take your burdens to the foot of the cross and leave them there.

Matt 11:28 – “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Philippians 4:6-7 - “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Another category of thoughts we need to take captive to the obedience of Christ is…

Anger & Resentment –

James 1:19-20 – “ let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”

The problem is, if you give place to angry and hateful thoughts, those things are eventually going to spew out of you.

Matt 12:34-35 – “For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of his good store of treasure, and the evil man brings evil things out of his evil store of treasure.”

Ways to turn those angry thoughts around: Pray for the person or the situation you’re upset with.

Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies. On the sermon on the mount, he bids us to: “

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” (Matt 5:44)

You start praying for the person you are at odds with– and really meaning it – and it has a way of softening your heart toward them. I suspect that as long as Satan can get us all riled up and angry about some past offense, he will continue to bring it to mind and tempt you to perseverate on it.

But when he sees that you use that same remembrance as a cue to fervently pray on behalf of that person instead of inwardly fuming at him, the devil is going to leave off even trying.  Plus, of course, God gives an extra measure of grace to those who obey Him, even when they don’t feel like it, which may be true of you in the beginning…

So, we’ve talked about fear and worry. And anger and resentment. Another example of bad thinking we need to cut out is lustful thoughts and uncontrolled appetites….

Lust & Perverted Appetites

Galatians 5:24 – “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Matthew 5 27-28 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

1 Cor 618 – “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.”

2 Tim 2:22 – “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

Strategies to combat lusts & sinful cravings:

• Change location.
• Avoid isolation.
• Get an accountability partner – ideally as spouse or a parent, but if that won’t work for whatever reason, then find a fellow believer who will hold you accountable and ask tough questions.
• Also, follow advice given in Romans 13:14, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” Other versions: “And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge  or gratify your evil desires.”

By the way, we tend to think of lust as being sexual in nature, but there are other kinds of sinful cravings that can sidetrack us: food addiction. Social media addiction. Drugs and alcohol or cigarettes. Or shopping or gambling.

So when Scripture tells us to make no provision for the flesh, it means we need to set up roadblocks and safeguards to protect ourselves from making poor choices in any of these areas. Because stumbling in any of these areas rarely starts with the act itself, but with thinking about the act. Which, again, is why it is so important we take all such thoughts captive instead of letting them control us.

I don’t normally wake up in the morning to find a pound of fantasy fudge in my mouth, just waiting to be swallowed. No, in order for me to eat that much fudge, I’m gonna first have to think about how good it would taste, and then decide to eat some – maybe just a small piece.

Then I’d have to procure it. If I’d truly “made no provision for the flesh” that means I would have stocked fudge in my pantry, so I’d have to go to the store to buy some, or at least buy the ingredients to make some…

And them bring them home. Then whip it up. Then wait for it to set. Then cut it into squares. Then eat first one piece, then another, then another, then another, until I’d ingested an entire pan of it, and then I’d probably feel sick and regret it….

But none of that began with the eating. it all started with that initial craving  and my decision to indulge the craving.

The same pattern holds for any temptation you act on. First, it enters your mind, and later – often much later – you act on it.

I don’t believe that initial temptation, the moment some wild thought  first occurs to us, is a sin. When we first notice it flit into our stream of consciousness, we should reject it completely. We could say “Whoa, I don’t know where that thought came from, but it is not reflective of my heart and I’m going to jettison it immediately – just like I used to do with those bad dreams – and think about something just, pure, lovely, right, true, virtuous and praiseworthy  instead (Phil 4:8)

It’s not until we make a willful decision to entertain the thought – when we invite it draw up a chair and stay awhile – that there’s a problem.  As Martin Luther once said, “we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our head, but there is no need to let them nest in our hair.”

Another category of thoughts that we need to clear away are those that spring from…

Arrogance & Pride

Scripture makes it clear that our pride is so offensive to God. 1 Peter 5:5 commands us to “dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before fall.” Prov 16:18

To combat pride: Be mindful of the fact that everything you have came from God. Your looks. Your brains. Your talents. Your abilities. Your possessions. All of it.

1 Corinthians 4:7 – “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Important that we recognize the difference between pride and confidence. Pride is the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance – it craves recognition and honor.

Confidence—at least for the believer–is an acknowledgement that God has specially gifted you in a particular area and a willingness to use that gifting in service to others and to the glory of God.

This definition of confidence goes hand-in-hand with the humility we’re told in Philippians 2:3-5 to cultivate:

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves;  do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.  Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus”

I love what C.S. Lewis wrote about pride in the Screwtape Letters: The senior demon Screwtape was giving advice to his nephew Wormwood, a junior demon, on how to trip humans up in the area of pride:

And that sums up the problem succinctly. Pride keeps our attention focused on ourselves.

Turning our focus outward (on how can I serve others?) instead of inward (what do others think about ME?)  is one of the best ways I know to combat pride and arrogance.

I’ve found that two tell-tale signs that there is still some pride to be rooted out of my heart?

FIRST – If I’m over-sensitive to pride in other people. It takes one to know one! True humility lets you stop the comparison game altogether.

Most likely, you’ll still be able to recognize prideful behavior in somebody else, but it won’t get under your skin the way it does when you feel like that person is jockeying for the attention YOU want and deserve for yourself.

SECOND – When I’m overly concerned that somebody might think I’m being prideful, I’m probably being prideful. Being humble means being okay if others have a low opinion of you, provided your heart is right before God.

(Story about head covering)

Same with pride. I know people sometimes mistake my confidence for pride. God made me really good at a lot of things, and I want to use all the gifts He’s given me for the good of others and for His glory. But If I let my concern that others might think I’m being prideful cause me to shrink back from doing something God has called me to do, then that in itself is an act of pride. False humility is not humility at all—it is just pride pretending to be humble.

I’ve had to make peace with the fact that people won’t ever fully understand my heart or my motives. Jeremiah 17:9 indicates that I don’t even understand it myself: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”

All I can do is to align my thoughts and actions with Christ’s as best I can, to be more concerned with what God thinks than with the opinion of man, and trust the LORD  to conform me to the image of His dear Son, thus completing the good work He began in me.  

Another category of bad thoughts we must guard against is closely related to pride, and that is…

Gossip & Slander

2 Cor 12: 20 – “For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I wish, and you may not find me as you wish. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, rage, rivalry, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.”

He warns in 1 Tim 5:13 – “Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.”

Combat it with old adage, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

 Put a guard on your mouth.

Prov. 21:23 - "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.” -

Slander appears in multiple lists of things the Bible tells us to put away: Eph 4:31, Col 3:8; 1 Peter 2:1.

Eph 4:29 – “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Another category of wrong thoughts we must combat includes…                

Jealousy, Envy, & Discontentment

James 3:14-17 – “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, free of hypocrisy.”

To combat jealous, envious thoughts:

1. Stop comparing – 2 Cor 10:12 warns against measuring ourselves against ourselves and comparing ourselves with ourselves. When you catch yourself doing this, STOP and instead
2. Count your blessings and start thanking God for them.
3. Also thank God for blessing the person you’re envious of and pray that He would continue to do so

Another kind of bad thinking we must guard against is…

Bitterness & Unforgiveness

I’ve posted an entire episode on forgiveness in the past—I think it’s Episode 11—which I’ll link in the show notes, so I hope you’ll tune in if this kind of wrong thinking is a problem for you. But if I were struggling with such thoughts, this is the truth I’d be preaching to myself:

Col. 3:13 – “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Eph. 4:32 – “ Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Heb. 12:15 – “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Matt 6:14-15 – “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.”

Yet another category of intrusive thoughts we must guard against are those centered on…

Self-Loathing or Self-Harm

Just as we should not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, we must also resist the urge to demean ourselves

Rom. 12:3 – “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”

Sober judgement means we have a proper understanding of our worth in Christ – which is significant.

• Jesus loved us enough to die for us. (John 3:16)
• Psalm 139:14 tells us we were fearfully and wonderfully made.
• Genesis 1:27 tells us God created us in His own image: “in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
• Psalm 8:5 says God made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor.

There is no room for self-loathing when you have an accurate view of the crowning jewel of God’s creation, which is humankind.

And as for self-harm, 1 Corinthians 6:19 commands us:

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

2 Corinthians 5:15 - "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

Romans 14:7 reminds us that “none of us lives for himself and no man dies for himself.” So let us say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

If this latter kind of wrong thinking is a persistent problem, I recommend you talk to a trustworthy fellow believer about it – preferably a parent or spouse – who can hold you hold you accountable, check up on you regularly, and help you find professional help if you need it.

Also, do your best to identify triggers and avoid them. If reading certain books, watching certain shows, or consuming certain media make thoughts of self-loathing or self-harm more frequent, then avoid those books, shows, and media!

I have a very empathetic daughter who, many years ago, spent a lot of time researching suicide prevention. But she eventually realized she was sacrificing her own mental health by spending so much time focused on the terribly sad stories, so she stopped doing that.

I remember coming to a similar conclusion back in the early years of marriage when I was at home alone with two little babies all day long and used to watch a very popular talk show every afternoon. At the time, it seemed like that show featured all sorts of guests who came from the most dysfunctional families you could imagine – and being very empathetic myself, just like my daughter, those stories would get inside my head and color the way I saw my own life circumstances – and not in a good way.

Thankfully, God took care of that situation pretty quickly by allowing our television set to blow up – with smoke and sparks and everything – and I noticed such a vast improvement with my own thought life in the absence of those talk shows and new programs that we ended up never replacing the TV. Which is one of the best marital decisions my husband and I ever made.

I’m sure there are a lot of categories of wrong thinking I haven’t covered, but I’m going to lump those all together in an umbrella group called…

Faulty, Unbiblical thinking

Anytime you entertain thoughts that run contrary to God’s Word, you are heading for trouble. This, again, is why we need to be well grounded in Scripture – reading it, memorizing it, and meditating on it daily, so we can easily recognize thoughts that don’t line up with it, reject them, and replace them with the truth.

I hope you’ll commit to living like the Bereans, who examined the scriptures daily. And I hope the tips and verses I’ve shared today will help you rise above any wrong thoughts that have attempted to drag you down and walk in victory over them. If you can win this battle of the mind, the rest of your Christian walk will be just that much easier.