← Rick Renner Podcast (Audio)
Rick Renner Podcast (Audio)
Wednesday - What’s Playing in Your Mind?
00:28:30
Whatever you replay in your mind will grow. Learn how imaginations conceive destructive paths—or God-filled victory. Tune in today!
Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:02]
A
This program is made possible by the giving of the God called partners of Renner Ministries. Get ready for a teaching that feeds your spirit and your mind where the word is the anchor in uncertain times and doctrine doesn't bend to culture. We keep it simple, but dive deep, revealing a truth that strengthens us, a love that emboldens and a mission that touches world. Let's join Rick Renner. Welcome to today's program, my friend. I'm so glad you've joined me and I want to begin today with a question. What do you allow to be played on the movie screen in your mind? When you're by yourself, you're sitting at home or you're in the shower, you're driving down the street, what are you allowing to be played and played and played and replayed in your mind again and again and again? It is so important what you allow to be played on the movie screen of your mind and what you do not allow to be played. This series is called Getting a grip on your thought Life. What you look at, what you think about. If you ponder on it long enough, as we saw in yesterday's episode, you will conceive it, you will become impregnated with it. And when you become impregnated with it, unless you repent, you're going to give birth to it and it's going to become really, really bad. I'll give you an example. I have a lot of times in my life when we're faced with financial challenges. What God has called us to do takes a lot of money. You know, the gospel is free, but preaching it is not free. Media is not free. It takes a lot of money to get the gospel to the ends of the earth. And, and we really believe Proverbs 10:21. It says, the lips of the righteous feed many. We know God has given us an assignment to take, teaching people can trust to the ends of the earth. But there are moments when we do not have enough resources to do what we need to do. And the devil loves to inject thoughts of failure and play on the movie screen of my mind. You're not going to have enough. You don't have enough. What are you going to do? And I have to make a decision. Am I going to have those thoughts? Am I going to allow the devil to work in my mind, in my imagination? Am I going to keep thinking this and looking at that and I have to make a decision to stop it and instead I decide to replace them with thoughts of God's faithfulness All the other times when we didn't know how we were going to do what we were doing. But God miraculously provided I choose to think about that and look at that rather than to ponder all that negative stuff. Now, sometimes people write to me and they say, brother Rick, can the Devil read our thoughts? You know, I really don't care if the devil reads my thoughts. What I'm concerned about is what he tries to inject into my thoughts. And when he injects a thought into your mind and you begin to focus on it until you conceive it, my friends, we saw in yesterday's episode, eventually you're going to give birth to it. And that is why James 1:16 says, do not er, my beloved brethren, know how this process works, pay attention to it and stop it so it doesn't happen to you. But today I'm really asking you, what are the images you allow to be played on the movie screen of your mind? But hey, this series is called Getting a Grip on youn Thought Life. It's a five part series, comes with a great study guide. And I'm also telling you about my book called Dress to Kill, which really deals substantially with the subject about how to take thoughts captive. You need to take your thoughts captive or your thoughts will take you captive. And I don't want that to happen to you. But to know more about this series and that book, just go online, the website address is on the screen, or give us a call. And please, friends, when you reach out to us, would you let us know how to pray for you? We want to pray with you. And if there's any thought that's trying to dominate you, we will agree in prayer and use the authoritative name of Jesus to break the power of that thought in your life. So call that number or send us an email so we can pray with you. But reach for your Bible. And today we're going to go back to our foundational verse, which is 2nd Corinthians 2:11, where Paul is talking about how the devil works. And in this verse, Paul says, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we're not ignorant of his devices. So according to this verse, the devil has some devices and we're not supposed to be ignorant of them. And the word Satan in this verse is also very insightful. It's the Greek word satanus. It describes an accuser, one who conspires. The devil loves to come with all kinds of conspiracies, to attack you and to take you down. It describes a deceiver, a manipulator, he loves to manipulate the mind, the thoughts, the emotions, a schemer or a slanderer, all of these are activities that take place in the mind. And Paul says, lest Satan the accuser, the conspirator, the deceiver, manipulator, the schemer, the slanderer should get an advantage of us. And the word advantage in Greek means to take advantage of, to defraud, to outmaneuver or outwit. So Paul is literally saying, lest the devil, the schemer, should outmaneuver us or outwit us, for we are not ignorant, ignorant, uninformed of his devices. And the word devices is very important because it gives us insight to how the devil attacks. It's the word noemata. It is a derivative of the word nous. The word nous is the Greek word for the mind. But when the word nous becomes the word noemare, it's no longer just the mind, it is the schemings of the mind or a mind that's twisted, a mind that can no longer think straight. It is so confused, I say it's like scrambled brains now. You can't think right, you can't see straight. Really, it's describing mind games that the devil pulls on us. So you need to understand the mind is the central place where the devil wants to attack you. He understands that your mind is the central control center of your life. And whoever controls your mind is going to control you. Now, when we go all the way back to Genesis chapter three, we find the first time the devil began to work his devices in the human race. So let's go there. Genesis chapter three. If you have your Bible, please turn there with me. Get a pen or a pencil. Get ready to take notes and to underline things in Genesis 3, beginning in verse 1, where we read. Now, the serpent was more subtle or clever than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he that is the serpent. There's a whole teaching in that, but we don't have time to get into that today. But he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. You see, there it is. He is injecting a thought into Eve's mind. He's injecting a thought. And in verse two, and the woman said unto the serpent, or now she begins to correspond, she begins to communicate with these evil thoughts. And my friends, you need to put a halt to those thoughts. You don't need to communicate with them. That opens the door for them to be Activated. And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the tree of the Gardens, verse 3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die. Well, that's actually not what God said, but that's another entire teaching. But what I want you to see is in verse three through six. And the serpent said unto the woman, you surely shall not die. He's injecting thoughts into her mind. Verse 5. For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. Well, that was a very tempting thought. Wow. Your eyes will be opened and you shall be as gods. Wow, what a thought. My eyes will be opened. I shall be his God, knowing good and evil. Verse 6. And when the woman saw. So hearing these thoughts, Eve looked. She saw and carried in. This is the idea of observation. It's not just physically seen with the eyes, but it's contemplating, it's looking at it is observing. It is really thinking about the tree. She saw that it was good for food. That was interesting. And it was pleasant to the eyes. So she's really considering this. And a tree to be desired, to make one wise. Now this desire is being stirred inside her. It's good for food, it's pleasant to the eyes. It's desired to make one wise. And finally she took that thought so deep within her, she became impregnated with it, like we saw in the previous episode. And she reached out and she took hold of that fruit. It left the mental realm, it entered the realm. And she did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And we know the rest of the story. It gave birth to death. But what I want you to see is the devil tries to inject thoughts into your mind. And now that leads us to 1 Peter 1:13. I love this verse. In 1 Peter 1:13, Peter says, Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind and be sober? He's talking about the mind, and he says, gird up the loins of the mind. Those words, gird up are from a Greek word that pictures a runner who raises his tunic out of the way so he can freely run without his tunic getting entangled in his legs. When quick movement was required, a man could gather up the lower folds of his tunic and tuck them under a sash or a belt to free his legs from entanglement. And if the runner or the man didn't do that, then his garment was going to be entangled in his legs and it was going to hinder his ability to run his race. Well, I want to tell you, you're running a race. God has you in a race. God has a destiny for your life and you do not need to be hindered in running your race. And if you've got things that are entangling you, then you need to tuck them up and out of the way. And this verse particularly says, gird up the loins of your mind. Well, the word loins describes the area of reproduction, the seed of generative powers. And my friends, as long as your loins spiritually are in good shape, you're gonna be able to produce in the kingdom of God. But if the devil does deals a strike to your loins, even in the ancient world, that was normally a mortal blow. So you've got to pay attention and make sure that you're keeping your reproductive abilities, your generative powers to produce in the kingdom of God. And it says, gird up the loins of your mind. Mind. And the word mind here, interestingly, is the word dianoia. I thought it was the word nous, which is the word for the mind or the brain, but it's not. It's the word dianoia. And this is really important. It's a compound of two words, the word dia and the word nous. The word deia describes a back and forth motion and the word nous is the Greek word for the mind. But when you compound these two words together, dia and nus, they form the Greek word dianoia, which pictures a mind that is going back and forth, contemplating, thinking, rehearsing, going it over again and again and again and again, reasoning and thinking through a matter. And now Peter says when your mind is caught up in a thought and you find that your life is being entangled in that thought, that's time for you to take action. And that's what you have to do. That's what you have to do. That's why you've got to take action. Your thoughts captive. And this is what we're going to be seeing in tomorrow's episode, how to take your thoughts captive. My friends, your thoughts and your emotions will entangle you, I'm telling you, they will paralyze you. You'll end up saying, I just don't know what to do. Of course you know what to do. You've even been told what to do. The Bible tells you what to do. But now you're so entangled in your thinking and in your thoughts What? That you're paralyzed, you're entrapped, you don't know how to take action. If you're in that position, my friends, that your race is not going to be run well, you're going to be hindered and hindered and hindered and hindered. You've got to reach up, grab hold of the dangling loose ends of your mind. You've got to say, I'm going to pull them out of the way. I'm taking charge. I'm going to tuck them under my belt or under my sash so my legs are free. I'm going to run this race without incentive. Entanglement. And then Peter adds this word and be sober. The word sober is the Greek word nepho, at least it's a form of it. And it means to be sober, to think straight, not like a silly drunk. It means don't drop your guard. Or it depicts clear thinking, clear thinking. Well, when you're drunk, you don't think clearly. When you're drunk, you make commitments you would never normally make. When you're drunk, you say things you would not normally say. And now we find that when you become intoxicated with wrong thoughts, you end up doing wrong things, thinking wrong things, saying wrong things that later you're very regretful about, but it's because you become intoxicated with wrong thoughts. So Peter says, be sober. Think straight. Don't be like a silly drunk. Don't drop your guard. Maintain clear thinking. And my friends, in all of these verses, we're seeing over and over and over again the power of what goes on inside your mind. What goes on inside your mind. And it makes me think back to Matthew 5:27, where Jesus was talking about getting a grip on your thoughts. And Jesus said in this verse, you've heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. He was talking about the physical act of adultery. Well, we know that that is wrong. But in verse 28, Jesus says, but I say and you the word but the Greek word day, it means however, and here it's used as an mark of exclamation. He's really wanting people to hear him. But I say. Now he uses his own voice to make a very clear point. But I say unto you that whosoever looks on a woman. And the word looketh upon means to consistently, persistently look at. This is not an accidental or casual look, but this is someone who's really looking, really observing, really focusing. This is not a passing, accidental glance, but this is a gaze that continues until that person has stirred up fleshly desire whoso looketh on her to lust. And that word lust describes a real hankering, a passionate, raw desire after her. The word after in Greek is the word prose. It means for the purpose of adultery. Has already committed adultery with her in his heart, which means the physical act doesn't come first, the thought comes first. The word already in Greek is the word ide. In Greek, he means already by this time, picturing it as already being a done deal. Once it's done in the head and it's conceived mentally, then it's very easy to carry it out. That's why you need to pay attention to what's going on inside your head. If you've got real anger that is just nurturing and boiling and simmering inside your mind, if you don't stop it, it's going to manifest as rage. If you've got temptation to overeat, if you don't do something to stop it, you're going to end up gorging yourself and being very regretful for what you did. My friends, what goes on inside the head determines what goes on inside your life. And that is why I want to review one more time First Corinthians 10:13, which says, no temptation has taken you, but such as is common to man. These temptations, they're just common now. When you're under the assault of a temptation, you. It feels very extraordinary. It feels overpowering, like you cannot resist it. The word temptation is a form of the Greek word peirasmos, which describes a calculated task that is designed to entrap you or to take you down. It's the devil trying to take you down by seeding you with thoughts. The word overtaken means to be taken or to be seized. And the word common to man, the Greek word anthropinos. This is really important. It means common demand. Not exceptional, ordinary, purely human. And it means that when you're under assault, rather than say, oh, this is the worst thing I've ever been under. I don't know how I can control my thoughts. Instead you need to say, wait a minute, this is nothing that no one else has not already faced in life. They overcame it. Others have overcome it. I can overcome it. This is not exceptional. Others have already overcome that. This is purely human, small, mundane. It's common to man. And the verse goes on to say that God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond. And the word beyond in Greek is the word huper. It means above, beyond, and over. The Top beyond what you are able but will, with a temptation, provide the way of escape. And the word provide the Greek word, a form of the Greek word poieo, which means listen, to make, to creatively make, to fabricate or to manufacture, which means if you will open your eyes, God will create for you an escape hatch. If you've already maintained that thought, you've been focusing on the wrong thing and now it's becoming a reality, even at that thought, you can stop it. If you will open your eyes and look, God's going to fabricate for you. He's going to manufacture. He will creatively make an escape hatch for you to get out of that situation so that you can escape. And the word escape is the marvelous Greek word ek basis. The word ek means out. The word basis is the Greek word for the feet. But when you put the two words together, it. It means to use your feet to walk out of that place. And it means the primary way God's going to provide a way for you to escape is your feet. Your feet. God will enable you to walk away from and out of the midst of the situation that you pondered on so long that now you find yourself in the midst of it. Even then it's not too late. God will enable you to use your feet to walk out of that place just like you walked Now. What are you watching on the movie screen of your mind? Are you rehearsing old hurts over and over again? And it's empowering bitterness in your life? What are you watching? What are you replaying in your mind? Are you replaying scenes of a sexual nature that you shouldn't be thinking about? If you continue doing that, eventually you're going to become impregnated with it. You're going to do it, my friend. The mind is so important, and the devil understands that. And God understands that. That's why the devil wants your mind and God wants your mind. That's why God commands you to renew your mind to the truth. God knows whoever controls your mind controls you and the outcome of your life. This is why it is so very vital that you learn to get a grip on your thought life. I'm going to be back in just a moment and I want to pray for you. Hey, this is Rick Renner, and somebody has asked the question, what do I do when I'm struggling in my faith to the point that I'm even beginning to doubt the existence of God? Well, that's a spirit of doubt that's coming against you even, and you need to deal with it like it is a spirit. It's an enemy coming to steal your faith. And we're told in James 4. 7 that you're to submit yourself to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you. So first of all you need to say, father, I'm submitting myself to you. And when you're in submission to God, it empowers you to take a stand against that spirit of death. Unbelief. You can resist it. The Bible says it will flee from you. And that word flee describes somebody moving their feet as fast as they can. They're running so fast that their feet never hit the ground at one time. So if a spirit of doubt and unbelief is coming against you, submit yourself to God and rebuke that spirit and tell it to hit the road.
- [23:05]
B
Sometimes your thoughts just run away with you and it really creates a mess in your life. The devil knows if he can inject wrong thoughts into your mind, he can outmaneuver you. But you can stop him by taking your thoughts captive. In Rick Renner's series what Jesus said about getting a grip on your thought life, you will learn how you can master your thoughts rather than letting them master you. In these five programs you'll find teachings about how the enemy injects thoughts to outwit you, how to shut the door to the enemy for good, and more. It all begins in the mind. Available in digital or physical formats Starting at just $11, this series will help you find victory in your thought life. In addition to this teaching series, we are offering you the book Dress to Kill. Considered by many to be a classic on the subject of spiritual warfare, Dress to Kill will show you how to pull down mental strongholds and get a grip on your thought life. This powerful book can be yours for just $25. Don't miss this special offer. The series what Jesus said about getting a grip on your thought life and the book Dressed to Kill. Call the number on your screen or skip scan the QR code to order call or go online today.
- [24:31]
A
This is Rick Renner and I want to say thank you to you partner for everything you do to help us take the teaching of the Bible to the ends of the earth. Proverbs 10:21 says the lips of the righteous feed many. And that's our task. We are to feed many the wonderful word of God. And I want to tell you that we have given away hundreds and thousands of my books and other resources. When people call us or they go online responding to an offer that we have made to them, my friends, that's a lot of material and I'm going to tell you it takes a lot of money to give away that many resources, but we're able to do it because of our partners. Because of what you give, we are able to to take the life transforming truths of God's word to people that are looking for answers. And what a privilege that people would come sit around our table and we would be able to feed them the wonderful truths of God's word. And you are a big part of that. So I wanted to say thank you. Thank you partner. And if you're listening today and you're not a partner yet, we need you and we ask you to become a part of the partner families so we can take the teaching of God's word to people all over the world. And we receive you and we welcome you into our giving team. Well, today we went all the way back to Genesis chapter three to see from the very beginning of time, the devil has been trying to inject wrong thoughts into people's minds. And if you will take control of your thoughts, you can stop the devil from working in your life, my friends. You really can. And when we come back in tomorrow's episode, we're going to see how practically to take your thoughts captive. It's really going to be liberating. Please do not miss tomorrow. But hey, I'm teaching a series, a five part series called everything Jesus said about getting a grip on your thought life. It is so important and this series comes with a wonderful study guide and I'm also thrilled to tell you about my book called Dress to Kill. And a lot of this book deals with how to take your thoughts captive so you can walk free. And my friends, you can walk free. And if you want to know more about the series or the book, just go online, the website's on the screen or give us a call and when you reach out to us, please let us know how to pray for you. You can write to us, send us an email or you can call us. Either way, when we hear from you, we're going to pray and Jesus is really going to do what needs to be done and put your hand on your heart so I can pray for you now. Father, in the name of Jesus, I come against every foul thought that's been trying to control my friend. I rebuke it. I command it to halt. In Jesus name. Amen. Now when we come back tomorrow, we're going to see how to pull those thoughts down. It's going to be good. But until then, remember Ecclesiastes 8:4 says, where the word of a king is, there is power. If you've never received Jesus as your Savior and Lord, now is the time for you to experience a new life. Jesus has to give you. Pray this prayer with me right now. Lord, I repent of my sin and receive you as my Savior. Wash away my sin and make me completely new. I thank you that my sin is removed and Satan no longer has any right to lay claim on me. I faithfully promise that I will serve you as my Lord for the rest of my life. Amen. This program was made possible by the giving of the God called Partners of Renner Ministries.