Mental Battlefield

Winning the Spiritual War for Your Mind

Jacob Kodesh

© 2013 by Jacob Kodesh

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form electronically, mechanically, by imagery, scanning, or any other means of distribution. Very brief quotes in reviews or articles are permissible.

Scripture references given in this book are taken from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised.

Other Books by Jacob Kodesh

Hope Is On the Horizon

Journey to Heaven

The Secret to Spiritual Growth

How to Command Angels

I would like to sincerely dedicate this book to my Heavenly Father and His Holy Son Jesus Christ. I also want to thank my wife and son who show me love and support each and every day of my life.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: God Gave You a Brilliant Mind

Chapter 2: The Battlefield in Your Head

Chapter 3: What Are You Feeding Your Mind?

Chapter 4: Your Speech Is Your Reality

Chapter 5: Control Your Thoughts

Scripture References

Introduction

There are many good Christian people in the world today that deal with problems on the job, marriage issues, other relationship issues, and even low self-esteem. These dear brothers and sisters don’t understand that the genesis of all these problems start within their mind. They don’t realize the significant role of thoughts that pass through their head each and every day play and how these problematic circumstances arise in their life.

As humans, God truly has given us a brilliant mind that has the ability to create, discover, and imagine amazing things for our lives on this Earth. Now we all aren’t rocket scientist, great inventors, or even world class artists, but we each have unique abilities and gifts that we can use to make us successful.

The problem is that Satan, “our enemy” as believers, has purposed himself to make sure that the only thing we accomplish on this earth is to have a miserable and unfulfilling life, before we go on to be with the Lord for eternity. He knows that he cannot steal your soul as we have already given that over to Christ. So he uses his efforts and tricks to plague us as believers (or try to) and to make sure we don’t live victoriously while bringing others to Christ as well.

We will discuss and prove that not only is this Satan’s main goal, but also that he is winning in many instances in our own lives simply because we don’t recognize his tactics. In any sport or competitive event it’s imperative that you know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent. In sports this is called scouting your opponent. You study how your opponent acts in certain situations while they played against other teams. With that information you can build a game plan on how you can be successful against them.

That’s exactly what we will do in this book. We will “scout” how Satan acted against others in the Bible, find out the exact strategies and tactics he uses against us, and prepare ourselves to win against him when he approaches us.

We will see that our mind is the target. The very thoughts that we entertain in our heads is the “battleground” we will fight Satan on. In order for us to be prepared against our enemy you must realize that the point of attack will be your mind.

So we have two possibilities here for our lives, we can either:

Learn to live a victorious life by using our mind to put God’s Word into action.

OR…

Allow Satan to steal victory from us each day so that we live a miserable life.

Sadly, most believers tend to fall into the second category because they don’t yet realize the battle or the war that goes on in the spirit world. Whether we live victorious or we live in defeat the battle will always start in your mind.

That’s right; your mind plays a humungous part in how your reality is shaped each and every day. There is an ongoing spiritual war for your mind. God desires that we use our minds to think, focus on, and imagine His Word so that we live prosperous lives. The Bible says in Proverbs…

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

When we don’t have the right image of ourselves and what God’s Word says about us then it leaves our minds vulnerable to thoughts that cause us to feel miserable, lonely, unworthy, helpless, and even unloved.

These aren’t thoughts that God wants us to have. We must watch the thoughts we allow into our minds. We must control our surroundings and focus on the type of life we want to live. We all deserve to be successful at work, have great relationships, be healthy, have strong bonds with our families, and be a blessing to others as we are blessed.

In order for us to accomplish this in our lives we must use our minds to focus on these things constantly and implement the Word of God into action in our lives. This creates the “vision” of what God want for our lives. This is how God sees us and desires us to live.

Satan, on the other hand, constantly fights against us to make sure our minds focus on defeat, doubt, and failure so that we as Christians endure constant and unnecessary hardships. Satan will see to it that the people around you tell you that you can’t do something, or say things to you that make you feel inadequate.

Our enemy as believers has scouted us as well. He knows that if he can plant thoughts of defeat into our minds we will eventually believe in what we are thinking and ultimately act on those beliefs.

This is the Mental Battlefield; this is the war for your mind.

The principles I will lay out in this book have caused me to understand more about how I can control situations in my personal life as well as help friends and family. I will give examples from time to time of things I’ve experienced so that it will help you overcome and even prevent hardships in your life.

I pray that this book is a blessing to you, your friends, and your family. I ask that you put these principles into action in your life. God’s Word will work for you “IF” you work it. I know that you can succeed at your job, in business ventures, in marriage, and everything you put your hand to. But please understand that you must take action and apply God’s Word to your life starting today. The Book of Joshua said it best…

Joshua 1:8

8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

If you learn to constantly think, speak about, and ultimately put in action what God’s Word says in every area of our lives, we are promised that He will make our way prosperous and have good success. This is a promise from God, but it has requirements attached to it. That’s why I stress that you take action on what you read in this book. I want you to be successful so that you can help someone else learn to be just as successful as you are.

I also want to add that every reference of the Holy Bible will come from the King James Version. Throughout my life I’ve heard many Christians say that they cannot read and understand (KJV) version. I can understand that to some degree because we don’t speak in Old English anymore.

But God has given me the ability to teach His Word so that it can come alive to people in a way like they have never seen before. God has also given you a brilliant mind. So please don’t be afraid of the King James Translation.

Join me as we embark upon a journey that will end with you having the tools needed to walk victorious in Jesus name by winning the spiritual war for your mind.

Prepare yourself to engage our spiritual enemy, Satan, on the Mental Battlefield.

Chapter 1

God Gave You a Brilliant Mind

Biblical Proof Showing Your Mind’s Potential

The God of Israel, our Heavenly Father, is the creator of everything that we see and everything that we cannot see. As Christians we all know and understand that God created this Earth, the moon, stars, sun, planets, and everything living. The great part about everything is that God said, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26). He gave us intelligence like unto Himself, definitely not equal with Him but far more superior to all His other creations.

God gave us as human beings such brilliant minds that Adam, being the first human on Earth, had the God given ability to name and recall every animal on this Earth. Let’s see this Biblical account in Genesis:

Genesis 2:19-20 (KJV)

19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

We clearly see here that Adam, whom we all stem from, was able to name every single land animal and bird that God created. God didn’t name the animals of the Earth, He gave Adam the ability and intelligence to do this on his own.

This is incredible because it’s sending the message to us that the same mind that Adam used is also in us. The same mental ability that God gave to Adam as being a human is also in us.

I see so many people look at themselves as being stupid or dumb because they don’t score well on a man-made standardized test. Don’t do this! Yes, not everyone can be Albert Einstein, but know that God has given each of us gifts, an anointing, and abilities to use our minds to be great in many diverse areas.

The brilliant mind God gave you may cause you to excel in: sales, cooking, problem solving, creating art, music, entrepreneurship, making others smile, medicine, etc.

You may not ace the SAT (college entrance exam) or LSAT (law school admission test) but you could be the best auto mechanic in your county.

I have a friend that didn’t do well in school; in fact he never finished college. But he can create 5-star restaurant dishes from scratch. He has the ability to look at what’s in the fridge and create a full course meal by using his imagination. Brilliance doesn’t always mean high IQ. The IQ test is a man-made rating system that has nothing to do with what God says about you.

I have a family member that also wasn’t a genius in school. He had the ability to take things apart to learn how they work and later build another one like it from scratch. He learned to work on cars, install his own underground irrigation system, build his own beds, etc. No formal training, just his mind and trial and error. I’ll say it again; brilliance can’t always be calculated using man made tests.

God created you and gave you a brilliant mind. As a Christian you can use your mind and accomplish all things through Christ who strengthens you. (Philippians 4:13)

God uniquely created you and gave you gifts that are attached to certain interest you may have. My wife actually absorbs almost every piece of information she reads on all things related to hair. She has become an absolute expert on different styles and how to keep hair healthy. She has even created her own hair and skin moisturizing product from scratch in our kitchen. She will be the first to tell you that she graduated high school by the grace of God.

In High School and even in college it wasn’t easy for me to get straight A’s in my classes. Unlike my little brother, I had to study long hours to understand the information in order to score decently on the tests. So my point here is that I’m not a high IQ individual. But God has given me the unique ability to come up with creative solutions to problems. Around my house the motto is “there’s always an easier way.” The brilliance God blessed my mind with lies within my creative problem solving.

Let’s look at more Biblical examples to prove to you that our Father in Heaven has blessed you with greatness within your mind. Let’s look at Noah:

Genesis 6:14-16 (KJV)

14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

Here we see that God commanded Noah to build something that had never been built before that time on this Earth. God wanted Noah to invent something that would withstand a world-wide flood.

Just think about that. In order for God to expect Noah to build what he was telling him to build, Noah would first need to have the brilliance to comprehend and visualize the tasks at hand.

There wasn’t another ark for Noah to look at, the only visual he had was in his mind. There weren’t books, DVDs, or YouTube videos either. All Noah had was God’s Word and the ability to visualize in his mind what the end result would look like.

As the account of Noah continues we will see him using his mind in the same way Adam did in the beginning. In Genesis 7 it says…

Genesis 7:2-4 (KJV)

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

We saw Adam use the brilliance of the human mind to name all of the animals, and now Noah likewise was able to take all the animals and load them up on the ark within 7 days. Noah systematically gathered all the land animals and birds into this ark. I guess you could say that Noah created the first Zoo using the brilliant mind God gave him.

We are all made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).

The brilliance in Adam and Noah is also in you.

Each time we read about different accounts of people in the Bible that used their mind, it will continue to build our faith so that we can understand how to operate in the same way. What God will do for one person He will do for everyone else. So know that God has already given you a brilliant mind to excel in the natural interests you have.

No matter what situation you are in right now or any time in the future, God has given us the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and the ability to create a solution by God’s Word. It’s important here to note that we must take action in order for our minds to operate at that level.

This brings me to my next point, knowledge. When we were all children we had to learn how to read, write, spell, do math, and even things like draw. We had to acquire knowledge through grade school. I couldn’t become a corporate online marketer after the 4th grade. My mind had not acquired enough knowledge at that point to be able to handle that. It took years of school, personal experience, and hard work to allow me to excel in that field.

Yes we have brilliant minds but that is only the starting point. We must learn to gain knowledge and apply God wisdom with that knowledge to truly unlock the brilliance that is within your mind.

Knowledge isn’t wisdom. Knowledge is information that we must acquire through learning.

We’ve seen examples of how your mind can be used, but understand that knowledge must be gotten in order to achieve the type of results we saw with Noah. It took him almost 100 years to build that ark. He had to learn something new almost every day to complete his God-given task. His success didn’t happen overnight it happened through years of experience. So understand that knowledge is not given by God supernaturally.

Wisdom on the other hand is given supernaturally by God Himself to us in order to know how to apply the knowledge we have gained. Wisdom is given to man by God, so that we understand the best way to solve a problem, or realize the best possible decision for a situation.

Once you gain the necessary knowledge to exceed in any given area (or fix a problem in your life), paired with the wisdom God has given you, then you are set up for guaranteed success. Jacob in the Bible used this principle and it ultimately made him a very rich man.

To give a little backstory, Jacob worked with cattle for a man named Laban for several years to earn the right to marry his daughter Rachel. After 21 years of hard work Jacob married both of Laban’s daughters Leah and Rachel and had children by them. So Jacob had 21 years of experience working with cattle and in other areas having Laban as his employer. The key here is “years of experience” which is also known as knowledge.

Afterward, Jacob wanted to venture out on his own and move his family with him to start a new life. So he asked Laban for permission to leave, but Laban wanted him to stay because he knew through experience that God had blessed his business because of Jacob. We begin to see the story unfold here:

Genesis 30: 27-35 (KJV)

27 And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.

28 And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it.

29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me.

30 For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?

So far we are seeing Laban bargaining with Jacob. Laban asked Jacob to name his salary so that he can keep him working for his company. But in verse 30 Jacob is saying that he knows that he has made Laban wealthy, but he desires to provide wealth for his own family. The story continues…

31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock.

32 I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

33 So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

34 And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word.

They’ve struck a deal with each other. Jacob has requested that all the Grade C cattle (speckled & spotted) will be his wages from now on. So at a later date when it is time for Jacob to leave any Grade “A” cattle found with him will be counted as stolen. Laban agreed to this, but had a devious plan in mind to keep Jacob there forever…

35 And he removed that day the he goats that were ringstraked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

I’m setting the stage here for you to realize how great things can be when we use knowledge and apply it with God’s wisdom.

Bear with me; this will bless your life if you can grab ahold of this.

In the passage above we clearly see that Jacob and Laban discussed a retirement package if you will. Laban would allow Jacob to leave with his family and take all the spotted or second rate cattle with him.

The problem was that Laban stabbed Jacob in the back by taking out all the spotted cattle and gave it to his sons leaving Jacob with nothing. So now all the cattle belonged to Laban, which left Jacob to start from scratch.

But we serve a mighty God! Let’s see what happens next:

Genesis 30: 37-43 (KJV)

37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.

40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

42 But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.

Jacob used the knowledge he gained from years of working with cattle, and with divine wisdom from God accumulated a great fortune.

Even though Laban stole the spotted and speckled cattle that belong to Jacob, Jacob was able to use the knowledge he had gained from years of experience on the job and wisdom from God Himself to create a scenario that made him wealthy.

Jacob devised a way to make the cattle stare at rods of wood he made while they gave birth so their offspring would be speckled and spotted (the Grade C quality cattle that they agreed would belong to Jacob). This is a brilliant mind in action.

Understand that Jacob had knowledge of feeding cattle because he worked for Laban for over 20 years. But when God gave Him wisdom on how to apply that knowledge it blessed his life tremendously.

God’s Word says that He will give wisdom to us liberally if we ask (James 1:5). So whenever you are in a situation where you need direction or you need to make a BIG decision, ask God for wisdom (while you acquire knowledge) so that your mind can utilize the brilliance it has like Adam, Noah, and Jacob did before us.

In the introduction of this book I quoted Joshua 1:8 to show you that He will “make” our way prosperous if we take action on the Word of God. You cannot achieve success in your life if you never do anything to work towards it. Our society is use to convenience so much that we actually believe instant success is normal.

If you want to lose weight (most of us do at some point) you aren’t going to achieve those results by taking a pill every morning. We must work at it, we must take action. That includes exercise, eating well, portion control, and more exercise.

Likewise with business, you aren’t going to get a promotion at work, find a higher paying job, or even start a new business venture if you don’t work at it. Success takes acquiring knowledge through constant learning as well as trial and error.

Personal Experience: My day job has always been in the ecommerce industry. It’s fast pace and relies heavily on solving problems because the way information is consumed online is always evolving. I’m constantly trying to think of solutions and creative ways to increase revenue while keeping cost low.

Using the principle we’ve discussed to unlock the brilliance of my mind (knowledge + wisdom), I will always pray and ask God to give me wisdom to bring me success in the work place. More specifically, I will structure my prayer like this:

1)       First ask God to forgive me of my sins and my unknown sins against His holy Word.

2)      Thank Him that my sins are cleansed by Jesus’ blood.

3)      Remind God of what He said in James 1:5, and ask Him to give me wisdom on my project that I can make the best decision to cause the project to be a success.

4)      Receive that wisdom by faith, and know that today will be a great day.

I pray the above prayer as often as I need to so that I know God is involved with all the decisions I make at home, at work, and in every situation. Notice I didn’t ask God to give my knowledge? This is something that I choose to acquire every day to reach the goals I have for my life.

In summary, be diligent in gaining knowledge in whatever area you have interest in through books, classes, videos, etc. Once you have the knowledge ask God for wisdom so that you can unlock the brilliance within your mind

How the Human Mind Physically Works

I want you to not only understand the spiritual implications of your mind and how to win that battle, I want you to also understand the physical workings of your brain. Understanding the physics of the brain and how we process information will give you some nuggets that you can put into action to cause you to absorb and retain more knowledge. The Word says,

2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)

7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

You should confess and recite this scripture in your prayers. God doesn’t want you to be afraid of anything in this world (this idea or feeling comes from darkness), instead He gave you power of the Holy Ghost, His love in our hearts, and a brilliant mind to operate on this Earth.

All of our minds have the ability to retain knowledge so that we can recall that information when we need it. There are several things we can do to help increase our mind’s ability to retain and recall important information. Exceptional cases of minds being able to recall a wider scope of information are called photographic memory.

We will first briefly touch on the benefits to having a photographic memory and how it can help you.

Having a photographic memory will help you:

1)       Recall images, sounds or objects with great accuracy. You’re able to picture what you are studying. We will discuss this more in another chapter.

2)      Allow you to see vivid images. You will be able to study a picture and after it is taken away be able to describe what you saw in detail.

This is obviously where we want our minds to progress towards. Being able to recall images vividly in our mind will bring you to a higher level of faith than you ever dreamed of, because you will pay attention to the Godly image in your mind and not the circumstances in your life.

Your brain is divided into several different areas that contribute to the formation and retention of data in our memory. Each area has a specific task:

a)      Hippocampus – Processor: This portion of your brain takes any information/knowledge you’re taking in and decides where it will be stored.

b)      Amygdala – Emotion: This is an almond shape portion of the brain that tells us how to process emotions. When something happens in our lives that have strong emotional attachment to, this part of the brain imprints a memory attached to that emotion and event.

c)      Cerebral Cortex – Long Term Storage: Your brain will store things like language, sensory input, or problem solving within this area.

d)      Neurons - Internet of the Brain: Communication highway of the brain.

Your brain processes more information in a day than any supercomputer on earth. Everything from images, sounds, voices, senses, etc. goes through you brain every second. Unfortunately, most of the information is discarded because the brain feels like it isn’t important to hold on to.

That’s why if you are going to learn something new (increase the ability of your mind) we have to first pay attention and concentrate on what is being processed.

We can actually improve our memory and the ability to retain information by exercising our brain.

We must first speak positively about our mind being able to improve and retain more knowledge. This is great if you are taking a class, learning a new skill, or even starting a business venture. Learn to encourage yourself through what you say out loud.

Secondly, we need to rehearse new information over and over again. Your mind works much more effectively when you study information a little bit each day over a period of time, compared with trying to cram in information overnight. This is actually a biblical principle:

Romans 10:17 (KJV)

17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

What we believe and our understanding of information comes from repetition. So repetition, especially the Word of God, brings faith in whatever you are studying or listening to. You aren’t going to retain knowledge if you only hear it once or even twice. Faith and knowledge are increased by hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing. Faith and knowledge can also be increased by seeing, and seeing, and seeing. The key here is repetitive learning.

That’s why listening to information via audio files or watching videos on a subject over and over again help you to retain that knowledge a lot longer. To this day I hum the ABC song in my head when teaching my son. Most people I know also sing the same “happy birthday” song every year. Why, because we’ve retained that knowledge permanently by repetitively hearing and seeing that information over the years.

To tie this all together, we first studied in the Bible where Adam, Noah, and Jacob all used the creativity of the mind God gave us as humans to accomplish amazing things on this earth.

Next we looked at how your brain processes information and we’ve looked at what we can do to help that information be stored so that we remember it when we need it.

This is all important because in order for us as Christians to win the spiritual war for our minds and live victorious through Jesus Christ, we need to not only know that God gave us intelligent minds (no matter what anyone says), but also understand how our mind processes and stores information.

Knowing this will allow you to detect when Satan is trying to infiltrate your mind and plant poison. We stop him by not focusing on the negative aspect of any situation, while remembering to put into action the Word of God (true knowledge).

Every aspect of your life can be solved by keeping the principles of God’s Word. Whenever you have an issue or a problem, look up scriptures on the internet about that issue to study it repetitively every day to retain that information, recite it out loud to build faith for it, and ultimately act on that principle with the wisdom of God to overcome that situation.

Personal Experience: When I graduated from college with a degree in Computer Science, I was troubled because I actually hated programming. The only reason why I finished with that degree was because I was on scholarship and I didn’t want to start over and have to pay for college out of pocket.

So I’m a recent grad not wanting to get a job doing something I detest. So I decided to venture out and learn something new that I would like to do. I choose Online Marketing and ecommerce. To give you a timeline, I graduated the first week of December many years ago; I made the decision to switch career paths December 24th before Christmas.

I knew that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13) and I knew that God had given me a brilliant sound mind. So I embarked on a 4 month long knowledge journey. I took a series of several online classes, I bought books, and I spent the money I had to learn by trial and error.

Long story short, I used my faith in God and the desire to gain knowledge correctly (repetition and experience) to get an ecommerce job by May.

Our Brain and our Health

Our minds also have the ability to affect how our body reacts and responds. The brilliance of our mind can actually dictate how we recover from sickness and how our body fights off bacteria and disease.

Numerous studies have shown over the years that our mental state of mind has a lot to do with our ability to recover from an illness. For instance, people who are depressed or upset more than usual have a harder time recovering from sicknesses or infections.

A certain study evaluated several diabetic patients with different stages of depression. They found that those with a more severe case of depression healed at a much slower rate that those with a minor case of depression.

No matter what the illness or pains that may arise, it is well known that your state of mind can accelerate or slow down your healing process. The brilliance and capabilities God gave our minds goes far beyond creativity and information. It can get right down to life and death. The Bible says in Proverbs…

Proverbs 15:13 (KJV)

13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

The cheerful and happy thoughts you entertain in your mind will absolutely have a positive effect on your body. Many times hospitals will advise patients to watch comedy shows and programs that encourage laughter. They know how powerful the mind is with respect to health and recovery.

I hope you are beginning to understand how powerful your mind is. If you train yourself continuously and acquire knowledge along with experience you are giving God something to work with. We pray and ask God to bless us with promotions and increase us, but we often don’t do our part to assist that process. It takes experience to excel at anything on this Earth. This is a principle we’ve seen throughout several accounts in the Bible in this chapter.

As Believers we also have the distinct privilege to request wisdom from God so that he can guide us on how to utilize the knowledge and experience we’ve worked so hard to obtain over months and years. The Wisdom of God is what made Solomon such a great man on this Earth. The understanding he had in judgment was so far above anyone else on this Earth, people would come from all over the world to bring him gifts and inquire of him. This wisdom was not Solomon’s but God’s.

So many times Christians want to do something new and great in their lives, but doubt, uncertainty, and circumstances hold them back. God has given us the tools we need to create and be successful, but we neutralize everything when our thoughts of doubt hold us back.

In actuality, they’ve allowed Satan to steal from them. Our mind is where we battle Satan, that’s where everything plays out. We choose to entertain visions of success or visions of defeat. We choose that. But you need to understand that Satan has the ability to suggest those thoughts of defeat to your mind. This is his declaration of war against you.

In the next chapter I will discuss and explain the war that is for your mind and how you can recognize the tricks that Satan uses against you. The first rule of war is to know your enemy and understand how they fight. Without this knowledge you’ve lost before you’ve even started.

Chapter 2

The Battlefield in Your Head

Understanding Satan’s Weapons against Your Mind

We know by scripture that our Heavenly Father, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is a Spirit (John 4:24), and He being the all-powerful and all-knowing creator lives within the spirit realm or the real world.

The Bible talks about God and His holy Angels that live in the 3rd Heaven far above us on Earth. In Jeremiah 1:5 God is showing us that He knew each of us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. We are also spirit being trapped within these bodies called flesh.

When we pass away and go on to be with the Lord in Heaven, our spirit or soul in our body returns back to the spirit realm in which it came from. We are in this world but we aren’t of this World. As Believers we belong to our Heavenly Father and we will spend Eternity with Him someday.

The spirit realm where God, His Angels

and Satan live, is the REAL WORLD

Please understand that what we see on this Earth isn’t the real world, it’s a temporary world that we pass through for about 70-80 years before we return to the world we came from. Everything first must happen in the real world, or spirit realm, before it can happen here on Earth.

When Daniel prayed to the Lord to request something of him the Bible tells us that the Angel that came to answer his prayer was held up for three weeks by the powers of darkness (Daniel 10-14). This shows us that there are battles in the heavens on our behalf that go on every day before things play out here in our world. Understand that this is real and not someone’s imagination or superstition.

Problems you may face on the job, with your marriage, with neighbors, or even with your health are the results of spiritual battles that are constantly going on whether we know it or not.

Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

This scripture is telling us that our struggle isn’t against people; our battle is against “spiritual wickedness”. Just like in Daniel’s case, he needed answers to some questions he had. When he prayed the Lord heard his prayer the first day, but Satan battled that Angel that was sent to deliver the message for twenty one days.

Our problems aren’t with people our problems are with Satan. The scripture above in Ephesians is clear about who our enemy is and that they battle with us from the spirit world.

My mentor told me a story about a problem he had on his job. He was a boilermaker at that time and had several guys that he worked closely with each day. One particular co-worker didn’t like him and made it clear through comments and actions over a period of time that he didn’t like my mentor.

He went home and prayed about it. The Lord reminded him that he needed to bind up the powers of darkness (Matthew 16:19) around that co-worker and fast for three days. He also prayed that the Lord would bless that co-worker and his family and protect them. This is known as true love shown spiritually.

After the three day fast was over the guy walked up to my mentor at work and told him that he didn’t know why he didn’t like him before. He said that everything between them was behind them and that they could hang around each other from then on without any problems.

Understand that my mentor would have still been hated by his co-worker if he had not recognized that there was a spiritual battle going on, that caused that person to hate him for no reason at all. Satan was planting thoughts of hate against my mentor in that co-worker’s mind. Needless to say that co-worker was losing on his own Mental Battlefield because he didn’t have the required knowledge he needed to fight back.

God in His infinite wisdom has given to us His Holy Word and the authority of His Son Jesus Christ to live out the principles in the Bible on this Earth so that we can be healthy, wealthy, and wise. God wants to bless us as His children.

Satan on the other hand has a mission to make sure that those things listed above won’t happen. Satan, along with his evil cohorts, is set to do everything that they can to keep us separated from God as much as possible. John 10 explains this scenario perfectly:

John 10:10 (KJV)

10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

The thief, or Satan and his cohorts, are around you and I to steal from us, to destroy us, and ultimately kill us if they can. When people’s lives get so down and out you can bet that the enemy is stealing from them and trying to destroy them. I should say that people allow Satan to steal from them, mostly because they don’t realize what that stealing process looks like. They don’t understand that Satan must first steal before he can destroy and kill opportunities and blessings in our lives.

Satan first steals from our minds before he can

destroy and kill

When I gave the example of my mentor’s co-worker all those years ago, Satan was stealing joy and happiness by planting thoughts in his mind. He caused that man to visualize others in a way that would make him envy and hate them. Satan didn’t force him to say things, he didn’t force him into any actions, he simply planted thoughts in his mind and watch those thoughts grow into hate.

So now we are beginning to see how the enemy wars against us. We can defeat them and overcome the powers of darkness through the power of the Holy Ghost and the Word of God. We can actually control the outcome of our lives. Our lives don’t have to be out of control. One may ask, “How can I control my life, how can I make sure I live a blessed and prosperous life?”

Let’s do an exercise.

* BIG MAC, FRIES, AND A COKE.

* REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS

* DARK CHOCOLATE CAKE

When you read the words above what do you see? You visualize what these foods look like. You were able to use your mind to recall the images associated with those words. This simple ability is essential to winning the war for your mind and living a successful happy life on this Earth.

God has given us the power to visualize with this great mind he gave to us all. If we use that ability to visualize things within the Word of God we can beat Satan over the head, win the battle of our minds, and control the outcomes of our lives. We can control what we choose to visualize. Let’s try the exercise again using more practical examples:

* A PROMOTION AND RAISE AT YOUR JOB

* YOU MARRYING THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

* YOU IN THE BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE

I hope you are beginning to see the power of our imagination. If you are going to control the outcome of your life you must learn to visualize on the goals you have for your life. If you don’t have goals make some now. You should always be moving towards and thinking about what you want to accomplish.

What also helps is to have a “dream board”. If you want to start a new business, pay off debt, or break a bad habit you must first see yourself as already achieving that goal in your mind. What you can do is cut out pictures of things that represent your goals and hang them up on your wall or a board on your wall. This makes you visualize the positive things instead of negative things.

To make the dream board exercise even more powerful you can write down scriptures that pertain to your goals on note cards and hang them around the house as well. This ensures that you are visualizing the right things and reinforcing those thoughts with what God says about it. This is a great defense against Satan when he comes to plant thoughts of defeat and sorrow in your mind.

So understand that John 10:10 is real, Satan wants to steal from our mind. Thinking things like “I’ll never have a good job” is the Devil stealing from you because the Spirit of God would never tell you something like that. God wants you to have a good job as His child, any thought contrary to that need to be replaced.

Have you ever been around people that always speak negative things? People that seem to complain about things they don’t like in their life instead of focusing on what they do have? Sure we all have. Sometimes we all act like that. Remember in the last chapter when we talked about speaking positively to encourage yourself? That was because negative thoughts are a ploy of Satan. Satan knows that if he can constantly plant what he wants you to visualize in your mind he’s already won.

John D. Rockefeller was one of the most successful business men ever. He said that he didn’t allow negative people to be around him because he didn’t want them to

plant the idea of failure into his mind.

Understand that this is the main way Satan beats us in the war for our mind. He plants ideas in your mind that are contrary to the Word of God.

There was a great movie that came out some time ago called “Inception”. In this movie Cobb, the main character, specialized in corporate espionage. He was tasked with influencing a business man to make a decision not by convincing him verbally, but by planting an idea into his mind. By planting a simple thought into someone’s mind Cobb was able to absolutely change the very actions of others without them knowing.

This is exactly how things work with us. We are tasked by God to make sure we study His Word so that we can plant His thoughts into our minds, and by doing this it helps us act like Him. But Satan wishes to plant thoughts in our minds that cause us to sin or to make decisions in our life that lead to sorrow and regret.

Is this a new concept? Not at all, in fact the first humans on Earth dealt with that very temptation in their mind. Below we will look at that very tactic in action.

Genesis 3:1-3 (KJV)

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Here we have Eve in the Garden of Eden being tempted by Satan over the forbidden fruit. Before this we know God instructed both Adam and Eve to not eat of that tree. As we’ve discussed before, the first step Satan takes is to steal from our minds.

The image or visualization Eve has in her mind is that if she eats the forbidden fruit she will die. That’s her Big Mac, fries, and soda image we used in the example earlier. God has already planted the thought of what He wants, let’s watch as Satan continues:

Genesis 3:4 (KJV)

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Bingo! Now we are seeing Satan in action attempting to steal from Eve by planting an alternative thought in her mind contrary to the Word of God.

Up until the time Satan came to plant that garbage in her mind Eve didn’t have a problem. She fully understood what God expected from them and what the consequences would be if she disobeyed. But the battle in her mind is now underway now that Satan has come to steal from her by suggesting a conflicting thought.

Christians don’t understand that the main reason why their lives are in such a mess is because they are making bad judgment calls in their mind every day. They are allowing themselves to use their imagination to focus on things God hasn’t told us to do. That in turn encourages them to make decisions that go against what God says in His Word.

We all know that Adam and Eve lost this particular battle with Satan and fell into his trap by partaking of the forbidden fruit. Satan stole from their mind; they sinned against God, and brought natural death into this world for all mankind.

Many of us fall prey to this trap every day. But we don’t have to. The Lord Jesus was tempted by Satan the same way, but Jesus won that battle in His mind by fighting back with spiritual weaponry. As Christians we are to be Christ-like, that’s actually what Christian means. This account happens after Jesus’ baptism.

Matthew 4: 1-4 (KJV)

1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Notice here that the Devil is trying to get Jesus to do things contrary to what God said in His Word by planting an idea in His mind. Just as he did with Eve, Satan has come to Jesus to attempt to play with His mind.

Satan is a spirit. When spirits come to plant thoughts in your mind we understand them as thoughts or ideas.

Satan didn’t appear to Jesus in bodily form and speak to him face to face. Jesus at this time was in flesh and Satan is a spirit. So as we continue to read note that what Satan is saying is coming to Jesus as thoughts.

Matthew 4: 5-7 (KJV)

5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

The Devil came to Jesus a second time trying to steal from His mind by trying plant thoughts contrary to God’s Word in the Lord’s mind. How does Jesus fight back? Jesus combats Satan by using the Word of God back at Him. We see the Lord rebuking the enemy by reminding Him what God said. This is how we win against the Devil in the war for our mind. We must combat contrary thoughts with God’s Word. How do we know if a thought or idea is from Satan?

If we don’t have knowledge of God’s Word for different situations in our lives then we cannot defeat Satan when he comes to war with us in our mind. Without knowing the Bible we cannot recognize when Satan is trying to steal from our minds. The Word is our weapon. (Hebrews 4:12)

Matthew 4: 8-11 (KJV)

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Three times Satan came to tempt Jesus by trying to plant an evil thought in his mind to get him to act upon it. This is the Mental Battlefield; this is the war that goes on in our minds every day.

How did Jesus win the war in this instance? He verbally recited what the Bible says in respect to what Satan was telling Him. Jesus didn’t allow the suggestions to take root in His mind like Eve did. He rebuked the Devil as soon as the thought was suggested.

Jesus fought back and stood His ground against the enemy and the end result was much different that Adam and Eve’s account. Jesus gave us the formula for success in our minds.

When Satan realized he wasn’t getting anywhere he left and the heavenly angels ministered to Jesus.

When we resist the Devil by the Word of God he absolutely must flee from us. (James 4:7)

Please take these examples to heart. If you are to live a victorious life through Jesus then you must understand the weaponry God has given us to fight Satan.

When we think things like; “I can’t do it…”, or “I’ll never have that…”, or even when we look down upon ourselves because we don’t feel we are good enough (self-pity). This is how Satan works.

These are the kinds of thoughts he comes to plant in our minds to make sure we have bad relationships, perform poorly on the job, make our businesses fail, destroy our finances, etc.

It’s absolutely important to get a list of scriptures for any area you may have trouble with so that you can have the knowledge of the Word to win the war in your mind.

Personal Experience: My wife used to battle with having bad dreams and even dealt with horrible thoughts about something tragic possibly happening to a friend or family member. Many people deal with this and think nothing of it.

My wife understands that these thoughts aren’t of God and that they are being fed to her by Satan to instill fear in her heart about what “could” happen.

Being fed up with the whole thing, she verbally took authority over the enemy in the name of Jesus and demanded that those thoughts be cast out of her mind because God has not given her the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

After doing this about two or three more times as those thoughts would come up the problem stopped. Now she will tell me that the enemy will come back every now and then to try and plant those ideas again, but the formula works as long as she works it.

In the next chapter I will discuss how Satan uses what we watch and listen to as fire power against our minds. This is VERY important because what we watch and see helps form our imagination or the images in our mind.

But first I want you to understand all parties that play a role in the thoughts that are fed to your mind. I definitely don’t want you to think most of your thoughts are from the enemy, because that’s not the case.

Where are Your Thoughts Coming From?

As we’ve discussed thus far we understand now that the battle between us and Satan happens in our mind every day. But all of our thoughts obviously don’t come from the enemy.

Thoughts that come into our mind originate from three sources:

1)       Your own mind – we all have a will, emotions, and experiences that contribute to how we think and view certain situations. This foundation contributes to our thoughts.

2)      The Spirit of God – believe it or not God is talking to you every day, mostly about how we need to line up our lifestyle with His Word. God cares about you and He communes with you through your knowledge of the scriptures.

3)      Satan – we’ve seen previous examples of how Satan comes to plant alternative thoughts in your mind to get us to sin.

After seeing the above list a natural question would be, “how can we tell the difference between the three”?  Great question; the answer has already been shown to you with previous examples.

The Holy Word of God is our answer to all things. Please get that down because it’s the truth.

When a thought or image arises in our minds we can quickly see if that thought is in line with God’s Word. That is the only to know if Satan is trying to get you to do something that will hurt you in the end.

I want to quickly look at a couple of scripture references to drive this point home.

Hebrews 4:12 (KJV)

12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So we see here that the scriptures discern the difference between our thoughts and the Spirit of God that lives in our heart. The Bible erases any gray areas between what we think we should do or say and how God wants us to react.

What does this mean? Simple, when any thought comes into our mind the only way you can know if it is what God wants us to do is if it is in compliance with the Bible. If you find yourself being afraid of a situation, know that the Bible tells us we don’t have a spirit of fear. If you feel alone and lost certain times in life, know that God says He won’t leave us or forsake us. God’s word is a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our life journey.

As a Believer what we think doesn’t matter if it’s not lining up with the Word. Remember God as your Heavenly Father wants us happy and blessed, but we must comply with His Word in order to put ourselves in a position to be blessed.

Obviously what Satan says definitely doesn’t matter, because he only wants to destroy you and me. Studying the Bible and memorizing scripture is our best defense against the attacks of Satan against our minds.

This is exactly what we discussed in Chapter 1, use the brilliant mind God gave you to gain knowledge about the Word of God and ask God for wisdom on how to act on that knowledge.

The Bible says that we need to live by the Word of God like it is our food…

Matthew 4:4 (KJV)

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

If you want to truly defeat the Devil in all areas of your life so you can live healthy, wealthy, and wise, then you must make all life decisions based on God’s Holy Word. I can’t say it any plainer than that.

That’s powerful. We are to live by “every word” that comes out of God’s mouth (Bible). This is how you know if it’s God trying to commune with you to bring you closer to Him, or if it’s the Devil wanting to pull you away from God to make your life miserable.

Chapter 3

What Are You Feeding Your Mind?

Faith and the Imagination

Our minds have the unique God given ability to imagine. God is the creator of all things on this Earth and in Heaven itself. He had to first picture in His mind what the end result would be before he created everything. The Bible tells us that God knew the end before the beginning.

When God created the Earth, moon, stars, seas, and animals He first saw what the end result would look like within His imagination before He spoke it into existence.

We are made in His image and in His likeness. With that blessing came the same ability to picture things in our mind and help make them a reality by acting on what we see. We have the ability to use our imagination to create and accomplish great things in our life.

In the Book of Genesis humanity used their imagination to create a tower and a city so amazing that God Himself came down to stop them.

Genesis 11:6

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

This is famously known as the “Tower of Babel”. If the people at that time continued to create the things they imagined they would no longer look to God for guidance. They would in fact have become their own God. The key in that scripture is that God said nothing we imagined would be impossible for us. So please understand the potential of your imagination.

This is the very essence of what faith is. We cannot please God except we walk and live by faith in Him. Faith and our imagination go hand and hand.

Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The fact that we cannot physically see with our eyes what we believe in God for is the prerequisite to faith. If you expect to see something before you believe God for it, that’s not faith at all. Seeing things with our imagination before it physically arrives in our lives is what faith really is.

In order for us to please God by living by faith we must take His Word and place that reality within the imagination of our minds until it becomes so real to us that it overrides what we physically see.

That is true faith, and that is the way God wants us to utilize the ability to imagine with our minds.

Personal Experience: The night my son was born I can remember me and my wife being in that room holding him and spending precious moments with him for the first hours of his life.

A nurse walked in with a hearing machine to do a routine test with his ears to make sure everything was normal.

She ran the test the first time and he wasn’t responding to the machine so he “failed” as they told us.

She ran the test the second time and he also “failed” to respond to that test. The nurse told me and my wife that he may need to be referred to a hearing specialist if he doesn’t respond to the last test to be conducted by this machine.

She scheduled an appointment with us for the following day in the hospital to run the test again. My wife was nearly heartbroken. I remember telling her that “I see my son whole” and “I see him as being perfect”.

I had an immovable image in my mind of my son passing that hearing test because of the faith I have in God’s Word. By Jesus’ stripes he is healed (1 Peter 2:24). So I prayed with my wife and waited for God to move.

Thankfully when the next day came our infant son passed that hearing test and everything was alright.

I wanted to share that with you to give you a picture of what faith is and how the imagination plays an integral part in our lives.

No matter what the circumstances seemed to be I had an image of my son’s hearing being whole based on God’s Word. I didn’t speak or act in any way against the image I had in my mind.

You and I as Christians use the same faith and imagination principles towards our salvation. We know the Bible says that if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus rose from the dead, we shall be saved.

Now you and I can’t see God in Heaven being human on Earth, we’ve never physically met Jesus Christ as humans on Earth, and we can’t see our spirit in us that will one day go on to be with the Lord. We can’t physically see these things.

But we read what the scriptures say about God in Heaven, and Jesus being Christ, and about us being saved and spending eternity with the Lord and we have faith towards that. When we read the Word of God about these things we use our imagination to picture what they look like and use that as fuel to believe.

We use our imagination to make those scriptures come alive to us, to the point where we override what the world tells us about the Bible. We even fashion our lifestyles to mirror what God’s Word says (you reading this book and my other books for example). This is evidence of faith working in our lives.

Now our imagination plays a big part in how we perceive ourselves in our own minds. We all have a self-image. What we physically look like plays a part in how we form our self-image, but there are many other factors that deal with our emotions and past experiences.

Proverbs 23:7 (KJV)

7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.

The Bible tells us here that the way you think about yourself, the way you imagine yourself dictates what you will become. Your self-image forms how you act and the things you say on a daily basis. This all stems from how you imagine yourself.

That’s why it’s so important to understand and guard against the thoughts you entertain in your mind. How you visualize yourself and your life will eventually become a reality, because of that unique ability to create from our imagination that God gave us.

The things that you continue to think about and dwell on as it pertains to your life, you will have faith for. You could have faith for what God’s Word says about you, or you could have faith for the lies that Satan brings to your mind.

Do you realize that everything in your life is determined by what you choose to think about?

If you see yourself prosperous, having a great marriage, doing well at work, being healthy then that will eventually work itself into your life.

If you dwell on those things you will begin to talk about it and act upon it. You will see to it that you make those things happen because it’s all you think about.

Now on the flip side if you think about being sick, lonely, and broke, not having friends, and depressed then that will happen in your life as well.

Satan will continue to plant those suggestions so that you constantly thinking about having a miserable life and act upon those thoughts to make it a reality.

This is how the game is played. This is how the war for you mind takes place day in and day out. Unfortunately most Christians don’t even have a clue of how this all works. Thus their lives are a mess.

But if people grab ahold to the principles in this book, which originate from God’s Word, they can turn their life around dramatically.

Personal Experience: When I first started practicing placing the image of God’s Word for my life in my mind, I would write down scriptures on note cards and tack them up on my office wall.

There would be dozens of notecards around with scriptures on guidance, health, having a clear mind, having self-control, etc.

As I got more computer savvy I would just look up scriptures online as my reference. Check the resources section at the end of this book for scriptures that you can memorize about winning the battle in your mind.

Feeding the Mind Junk vs. God’s Word

I now want to add to the foundation we’ve built upon having faith in what we choose to use our imagination for.

Our mind is essentially a filter that is used all the time. As we saw earlier with how the brain operates, your mind takes in information every second and processes it accordingly. Whether you are reading a book or working out, your mind is always processing images, sounds, and other sensory items.

What we feed our mind through the information we consume formulates our imagination and thus faith for what our lives will become. So what are you feeding your mind? What information are you allowing your mind and imagination to dwell upon?

Are you feeding your mind junk? Most of us are. What do I mean by junk? The movies, TV shows, music, books, friends, and even family that bring an influence that are against God’s Word are junk.

Now I realize that’s probably 99% of everything that’s around us in this world. Now I’m not suggesting that we all lock ourselves in a room and act like hermits. God doesn’t have that in mind for us at all.

But rather we need to screen the messages that these forms of media send to our minds. Realize that Satan is very good at his job, the same suggestions he gave to Eve and even Jesus are being suggested to us via more advanced technology. Let’s look at some examples of junk that we all come across every day.

Horror Movies

I have no idea in this world why any Christian should be watching the types of horror movies that are out today. I’ve seen advertisements for everything from down and out witchcraft, to demon possession, to torture, etc. in these movies.

Knowing what you know now about how Satan works, you need to ask yourself, “Is this just harmless entertainment?” Are there any consequences to Christians putting these types of images in our minds? I’ll answer that with some simple examples from my personal life.

Personal Experience: When my wife and I were much younger, I distinctly remember being absolutely terrified of the Chucky movies, “Candyman”, Tales from the Crypt, and numerous other TV shows and movies in the Horror genre.

These shows scared me so bad I would have nightmares, I would be afraid to sleep in the dark at night, and yes because of Candyman I was even afraid at one point to look in a mirror.

Some people may laugh at that and think its harmless, but I’ll tell you as we got older that fear implanted into us made us always think about possible car wrecks, break-ins, ghost in the house, etc. Those seeds planted from the things we watched as kids grew to the point where we lived in constant fear as adults. Is Satan in that? You better believe that’s his doing.

Personal Experience: I know of a lady that is always worried about things that have a very low probability of ever happening. She refuses to go anywhere by herself because “someone might do something to her”. She doesn’t go into the city alone or even to a simple matinee.

She’s always feeling like something is in the house with her when she is alone. Almost every time she hears about someone driving she worries about their safety.  This is called a spirit of Fear.

We’ve seen in 2 Timothy 1:7 that God didn’t give us that fear. So if God didn’t plant that in her mind, then by default Satan did because it contradicts the Word.

Years ago I decided that I, nor my family for that matter, would ever watch demonic Horror movies.

Sitcom Shows

I want to preface this by saying my wife and I have several shows that we love and enjoy watching together. She has several shows that I would never watch simply because I think they are boring, but nevertheless she loves them.

So please don’t think that I’m suggesting staying away for TV shows. This is not my intent.

However, I do want Christians to be conscious of the messages that are propagated on these shows. The Biblical values of marriage, family, honesty, trust, and honor are constantly crushed on these shows that impact our minds.

So many times when my wife and I counsel with people about relationships we hear things like, “I don’t tell my husband everything.” I’ve been with my wife faithfully since I was 17 (she was obviously my girlfriend in high school).

I can absolutely tell you that keeping secrets and lying to your significant other WILL ALWAYS lead to relationship problems that require counseling. This is a 100% tried true fact. Sooner or later lies will catch up with you and bite you.

Where does thinking like this come from? Well I see it every day on TV. In fact there are entire shows where groups of men/women see how many people they can date and hop in bed with to make them happy.

As Christians we know this is wrong in God’s eyes, but since we have been desensitize to these types of lifestyles over the years, our minds no longer tell us it’s wrong. In fact we will justify it in our minds because we’ve feed it that junk for years.

The same thing can be said about being disrespectful to parents, being greedy, stealing, and the list goes on.

Nothing wrong with watching TV shows but please be conscious of what is right and what is wrong by always studying the Bible. Only God’s Word can make the call on what is sin and what isn’t sin. If we dwell on the types of lifestyles portrayed on TV we will act that out in our lives whether it is positive or negative.

Satan has a hand in what is played on TV. This book was written to bring awareness to the fact that Satan needs alternatives to God’s Word (remember Eve in the Garden), to be presented to you as often as possible so that he can defeat you in your mind first, and ultimately in your life.

Music

This one is a biggie. It’s well known that scientifically music can alter the mood of humans by affecting our emotional state.

Smooth Jazz relaxes, Rock & Roll stirs us up, and for me Country Western puts me to sleep (and I’m born and raised in Texas).

When our mood or emotional state is changed we are more receptive to messages being sung or said over the music. In fact you can learn information easier if you associate it with music or incorporate the information as lyrics to a song.

Satan has used music for a long time to change the culture of this world. Rock & Roll in the 60’s inspired an entire generation to practice drugs and open fornication. It was accepted and even deemed nonchalant at that time.

In the early 90’s gansta’ rap took this nation by storm and caused my generation to be more violent, degrade women, and use drugs as well. This is still the case today.

On the flip side, as my wife and I started to shy away from that type of music and listen to more gospel music we found that our lifestyle changed. The songs we listened to promoted Christian values and helped us memorize scriptures being quoted in the lyrics.

This is another live example of your mind being a battlefield. This is the spiritual war in action right now in our lives.

We are constantly being inundated with messages from Satan in heavy metal music for example, but also God has messages for us as well in Christian music. We must choose what music we listen to.

We must choose what we are feeding to our minds. God cannot and will not make you do anything. Satan cannot make you do anything either. YOU must choose what goes into your mind. And it’s a choice we make daily.

Our defense system becomes weaker when we aren’t feeding our minds the Truth of God’s Word. If we don’t know that Jesus said its adultery to lust after someone in our thoughts (Matthew 5:28), then you don’t realize what Satan is doing to you when you watch the types of movies suggesting those exact scenarios.

I could name dozens of examples like this. We must feed God’s Word into our minds. It’s the only way we can fight back.

When Satan came to tempt Jesus with alternative thoughts what did the Lord do? He rebuked those thoughts by quoting what God said about that particular issue.

We must use the same tactics. If we don’t then we will succumb to the very things Satan is tempting us with. When we fall into those sins, then it makes our life miserable and puts us in a state of despair after a period of time.

This is how Christians develop a low self-esteem, or feel inadequate, or believe that they can’t be happy.

Fight back with God’s Word!

Chapter 4

Your Speech Is Your Reality

We first had to talk about how the brain works to understand what you feed your mind affects your imagination. Then we saw how our imagination, our thoughts about our lives, will cause us to have faith for whatever that is.

For example, if you see yourself healthy and intelligent then you will act that way. But if you see yourself sick and inadequate that will play out in your life as well.

Why is that? What causes our thoughts to create the reality in our life? It’s simple, your thoughts begat your speech. In other words,

What you say out of your mouth is what you will become.

This can be a tremendous blessing to us as well as get us into a heap of trouble if we aren’t careful.

Proverbs 18:21 (KJV)

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

This is an amazing scripture. Please highlight this, jot it down on a note card somewhere, or mark it in your Bible.

God is literally telling us that we can speak life and we can speak death. Either way we will live out what we are speaking.

Every single day of your life you have the opportunity to speak blessing and positive affirmations about you and your family.

Just as God said “Let there be light” and there was light, we have that same authority to cause things to happen in our lives to a certain extent. If you are always saying “I’ll die old and along” (I’ve heard that more than once from women) then you will have what you are confessing with your mouth.

God’s Word has more to say about our speech and the power it has over our own lives.

James 3:5-8 (KJV)

5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:

8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

Don’t be frightened by this scripture if you haven’t seen it before (or if you have). This does sound a little tough, and it is, but if we learn to harness the power of what we say we will have another weapon to fight Satan with and cause us to live victoriously.

Untrained speech by Christians (anyone really) will cause harm to themselves and anyone around them. We’ve all heard the term “tongue lashing”. Hurtful words to other people or even ourselves tend to scar and cut deep down to the soul.

This can cause a number of issues down the line. At the same time encouraging and uplifting words from someone we respect and trust lay the foundation for good things to those that receive it.

Do you from time to time hurt others with your speech? Do you constantly speak negatively about your life and your situation?

A Horse and Ship

Throughout James chapter 3 in the Bible there are examples of comparing the tongue to a horse and even a ship.

A rudder helps to steer a ship. The direction of the rudder determines where the ship will ultimately go. A guide if you will.

Likewise, the head of a horse determines where it will go. When someone riding a horse yanks the bridle to the left that’s where the horse will go.

Our tongue, what we say, is like the rudder on the ship and the bridle on the horse. It is the guide to our life. It dictates our actions and changes our course.

Isn’t it amazing how the things we speak everyday guide us like the rudder of a ship? Knowing this fact what would you say differently about yourself and your current situation?

Better yet, how would your life be different now if all you spoke was God’s Word? I’ll answer it for you, if everything you said lined up with the Bible you would be the most joyous person you’ve ever met. Because God is love and His Word brings life.

Now image what a person’s life would be like if everything they said was in direct contradiction with the Bible. That person would be very difficult to be around. And yet most people on Earth live that way.

Proverbs 21:23 (KJV)

23 Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.

Want to keep trouble out of your life? Watch what comes out of your mouth. Yes this sounds simplistic and easy but it’s very hard in practice.

I had an old co-worker that always said negative things about his employment status. For months he would tell me, “I going to get fired”. He literally told me that for almost a year.

Sure enough layoffs came and his position was eliminated. This is God’s Word in action. I truly believed that if he changed his confession it would have affected his actions and his situation would be different.

What you feed your mind = Your imagination = What you have faith for = What you say = The reality in your life

This all keeps going back to the Mental Battlefield. Your thoughts will eventually come out of your mouth, and that will either bless your life or cause serious problems.

Matthew 12:34 (KJV)

34 … for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

The overflows from our minds happen to roll off the tongue.

And what we say will cause us to fashion our actions to reflect that. I don’t think we ever realize that’s what happens in our lives. If we did we would probably say a lot less in many situations.

Chapter 5

Control Your Thoughts

I want to tie everything together here and make sure I drive this home with you.

We started out learning about the brilliant mind that God placed in each of our heads as humans. So many times people think that just because they didn’t score at the top of their classes in school that they aren’t as mentally capable to do great things.

This isn’t true. Over a period of time we saw Adam learn to name all the animals. We also saw that with time Noah learned to build the biggest boat known to man in biblical history. Through a certain sequence of time we saw that Jacob invented a way to make cattle be born speckled to accumulate a great fortune.

The key here is that “over a period of time” our minds have the ability to retain knowledge on any given subject. We can use that knowledge acquired over time to be successful at anything.

You aren’t going to be CEO of a fortune 500 company instantly. But gathering knowledge and experience over a period of time, will set you on the right path to where you need to be. I believe you can do anything you set your mind to.

We then saw how the spirit world where God lives is real and how that world affects our minds. Satan approached Eve in the Garden of Eden to plant an idea in her head that caused her to question what God said.

This is how Satan comes to steal blessings from us by presenting garbage to our minds.

We also saw how Jesus was tempted by Satan in the same way but overcame that mental battle by reciting God’s Word.

Each and every day we are being tempted exactly like this. Satan and his cohorts haven’t changed their game plan for thousands of years. They persistently suggest ideas and doubts to our minds and sit back and wait for us to act on them.

Later we looked at how Satan uses media such as movies and music as a tool to funnel those sinful thoughts and ideas into our minds at a rapid pace.

Simultaneously we saw that God also has his message being available over those same mediums. And if we chose gospel music over rock and roll, or God’s Word over messages from TV sitcoms we can set ourselves up for success.

As hard and unpopular as that may sound, those are the types of choices you will have to make if you want to win the war for your mind.

Last but not least we looked at how your thoughts eventually roll out of your mouth. We even saw a great example from the Bible about how our tongue guides our life much like the rudder on a ship or a bridle on a horse.

Controlling your speech is essential to beating the devil at his mind games. The Bible tells us to cast down evil thoughts that contradict God’s Word:

2 Corinthians 10:5 (KJV)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

We must reach the point where we can cause every thought to line up with scripture. If you get a thought that you know isn’t Godly you must quickly meditate on the truth of God’s Word in that area, because as we’ve seen already this is how Satan plays the game.

I wrote this book to educate and encourage you as much as possible. The things that go on in our heads have very much to do with how well our lives are going.

My wife and I have seen great improvements in our quality of life on this Earth through Jesus Christ by learning to win on the Mental Battlefield.

I encourage you to put into action some of the things presented in this book in your life.

Please leave a review and let me know your honest thoughts on what I’ve presented to you by the Word of God. You can also connect with me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JacobKodesh

Philippians 4:8 (KJV)

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Reference Scriptures

Scriptures on the Mind

1 Corinthians 2:11-16

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

1 John 1:8

1 John 4:4

1 John 4:8

1 Peter 3:8-11

1 Peter 4:1-2

1 Thessalonians 5:15-22

1 Timothy 6:17

2 Corinthians 10:3-6

2 Corinthians 11:3

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

2 Corinthians 4:4

2 Corinthians 7:7

2 Peter 1:3

2 Peter 3:1-2

2 Peter 5:2

2 Timothy 1:4-8

Colossians 2:16

Colossians 3:12

Colossians 3:1-5

Ephesians 4:22-29

Galatians 5:1

Hebrews 10:22-23

Hebrews 10:35

Hebrews 11:15-16

Hebrews 2:1

Hebrews 8:10

Isaiah 1:1-31

Isaiah 11:3

Isaiah 26:3

Isaiah 43:18-19

Isaiah 58:1-4

James 1:8

James 4:7-8

Jeremiah 29:11

Jeremiah 33:3

John 13:34-35

John 16:1-33

John 3:1-36

Luke 12: 22-38

Luke 21:34

Luke 9:1-62

Matthew 10:1-6

Matthew 12:31-33

Matthew 15:11

Matthew 21:22

Matthew 22:37

Matthew 5:28

Matthew 7:7

Matthew 9:20-22

Philemon 1:13-14

Philippians 2:13

Philippians 2:5

Philippians 4:13

Philippians 4:4-9

Philippians 1:27

Philippians 2:3-8

Philippians 3:12-16

Proverbs 10:27

Proverbs 16:3

Proverbs 17:22

Proverbs 23:7

Proverbs 3:5

Proverbs 4:23

Psalm 119:1-176

Psalm 121:1-8

Psalm 131:1-3

Psalm 139:17

Psalm 23:1-6

Psalm 27:13

Psalm 37:23

Psalm 68:1-35

Psalm 90:12

Romans 1:28

Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1-21

Romans 15:2-6

Romans 4:18

Romans 6:12

Romans 7:23

Romans 7:25

Song of Solomon 1:1-17

Titus 2:2

Titus 2:6

Titus 3:1-2

Table of Contents

Copyright

Other Books by Jacob Kodesh

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1 God Gave You a Brilliant Mind

Chapter 2 The Battlefield in Your Head

Chapter 3 What Are You Feeding Your Mind?

Chapter 4 Your Speech Is Your Reality

Chapter 5 Control Your Thoughts

Reference Scriptures