Conquering Inferiority
There seems to be no realm in our lives Satan does not attempt to control. He even infiltrates how we think about ourselves. He knows if he can diminish our sense of self-worth, we will not accomplish much for the kingdom of God or be of service to mankind. Jesus said in John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy..." Through a wrong view of ourselves the enemy negatively influences our lives. Ultimately, his strategy is thwarting us to never accomplish the good plans God has for us. Satan's ultimate weapon is to establish patterns of how we think about ourselves.
The enemy sends thoughts to degrade us. Thoughts such as, "You are not handsome, pretty or smart." He demoralizes us to think thoughts of inferiority about our height, weight, education, popularity and competence. When we try to step out he criticizes our abilities, skills, talents so we shrink from using them and quit. He puts people in our paths who criticize, judge and complain about our performance and actions. He trains us to minimize our accomplishments whether it be cooking a new recipe or giving a report to a corporate board. Satan wants us to believe we are not good enough. The enemy's goal is to destroy our self-esteem, so we never rise to the powerful being God created us to be.
Satan knows the power in Proverbs 23:7, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he...." He uses this knowledge as a springboard to plant detrimental thoughts in our minds. He knows if he can teach us to think negatively, he can eventually leave us alone and our repetitive negative thoughts will destroy our life. The enemy deceives us so we resign ourselves to having a poor self-concept opposed to who we really are and what we can do in Christ. It's a trap devised to control us.
Terms such as low self-esteem, poor self image, feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, shyness come from thoughts based in fear. It is fear controlling us, holding us back, diminishing our worth. Fear is evil (2 Timothy 1:7). Fear destroys lives. The graveyards are full of people with great potential, fabulous ideas, God assignments and callings, terrific business concepts and more which never materialized because people bought into Satan's thoughts of fear.
Once you are born again your spirit is infilled with the Spirit of God! The Holy Spirit is in you. You have no limitations because God has no limitations and He is in you and for you. The enemy being aware of this knows if you are uninformed of these truths, he can mold you into an insecure, self-conscious, inadequate-feeling, shy person, immobilized against acting. The enemy's plan is to get you to think wrongly about yourself, so a mental program is established. From here Satan leaves you on "automatic pilot" heading down the highway to unhappiness and lack of fulfillment. Just like a continuous loop tape, you'll play the program over and over stagnating in a false self-concept.
The Truth on the Matter
There is a way out! God has given us the Bible as our life manual. His Word is our source of truth not our thoughts or what people have told us. Jesus revealed to us, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). We are told in John 1:1 that Jesus is the Word. If Jesus is the truth and the Word then we can deduce the Word of God is truth. If we are not thinking what the Word says about us we are being deceived. God wants us to know the truth because the truth will set us free (John 8:31-32). Free from the devices of the enemy.
God gave us the Holy Spirit to be our Helper (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit will come alongside and help us to supplant Satan's strategies against our mind and bring us into the actualization of who we are in Christ. This change inevitably brings confidence, stability, security and a whole new outlook on life. God desires us to shed fear-based thoughts and become who He says we are in His Word.
Romans 13:14 says, "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." This means fighting the enemy. In Exodus is the story of God leading the Israelites out of Egypt to bring them into the Promised Land. God purposely takes them the long way rather than the short route. What could have taken a little more than a few weeks took 40 years. God brought the Israelites the long way because the Israelites did not know how to fight, they had been in bondage as slaves all their lives. The long way was a way to teach them (Exodus 13:17-18).
Fear-based Thoughts
It turned out that a whole generation was not teachable but instead controlled by fear. The people feared nearly immediately while enroute. For example, Moses took too long on Mount Sinai talking to God and the people began to fear and build an idol god to guide them. Additionally, several times the Israelites feared they would die in the wilderness and wanted to go back to Egypt. Lastly, when they finally arrived to enter their Promised Land they recoiled in fear because they saw giants in the land. Their refusal to go up, fight and possess the land caused a whole generation to lose out on God's blessings. That generation died in the wilderness. It was under the fearless leadership of Joshua, who eventually led the next generation in, they fought their enemies and entered the Promised Land.
This is an important analogy for us to heed. God has many blessings in store. He has given us covenants, promises, and His Word to let us know we have "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). God also reveals we have an enemy who holds us back. It's paramount we learn to recognize the enemy and fight back, if we are to possess our inheritance. Our enemy's main weapon against us is fear-based thoughts! Although the devil has been rendered powerless by Jesus (Colossians 2:15; 1 John 3:8), Satan's only power is what we entrust to him. If we give him control of our minds, the enemy will use it for our destruction. This is why we must learn to fight by recognizing demonic thoughts and replace them with new ones.
At War for Our Thoughts
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; 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;" (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
This scripture makes it clear we are at war for possession of our thoughts. It reveals thoughts and imaginations are used against us. It also provides our countermeasures or weapons. In conclusion the verses tell us we are to bring every thought into obedience to what the Word of God says.
Thoughts and imaginations are mental and spiritual. Researchers can identify the mechanisms at work in our brains to produce thoughts, but thoughts themselves cannot be seen, just as imaginations can't be seen. Satan operates in the spiritual realm. Since thoughts are spiritual the devil uses them to rage spiritual warfare against our minds. We can counter Satan's use of spiritual weapons against us, by likewise using our spiritual weapons against him. Natural or real weapons won't work when it comes to overriding thoughts and imaginations.
The enemy uses negative, degrading, fear-filled thoughts and imaginations to oppose us. Our best stratagem is recognizing and aggressively fighting against his tactics by fighting against thoughts that put us down and degrade. Our weapon, the Word of God, is more powerful than Satan's negative input. As revealed in John 1:1, the Word of God is God. Our spiritual weapon against Satan's abusive thoughts is to use God against them. There is no higher weapon against our enemy than the Word of God.
When we learn to turn aside Satan's thoughts and replace with God's Word we are "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). The way we change our thinking is to capture and stop every thought that contradicts what the Word says about us, and replace it by speaking the Word of God instead. We supplant the destructive thought by immediately turning the thought aside and speaking a scripture such as, "God always causes me to triumph in Christ Jesus" (2 Corinthians 2:14). "I am the righteousness of God in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:21). "I can do all things through Jesus Christ Who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). "No weapon formed against me will prosper" (Isaiah 54:17). "God loves me" (1 John 4:10). We do this until new thoughts, are well established.
This is how we get control of our minds. Since Satan is after our thoughts, he will continuously attempt to influence our thinking throughout our lives. He is at war with us. In light of this, it is critical that we as Christians become experts at countering his maneuvers by deflecting every thought not of God and overriding it with the integrity of the Word of God.
It is imperative to speak out of your mouth the new thought when replacing the old thought. This is key since change comes faster this way. As we start to replace the destructive thoughts in our mind, at first you may not believe what you are saying is true. Your mind may want to reject the Word you're speaking over yourself. For example, you may speak the new thought and your mind might counter with, "That's not true. You're not that way. You're wrong." This often happens because you've been thinking one way for years and the mind resists change. Keep being persistent. After a while your mind will submit to the new thoughts and a new perspective of who you are will emerge bringing greater expectations of yourself. You will start to see yourself as God sees you, as an amazing, valuable, worthy person ready to experience a victorious life!