The Battle of the Mind Beth Moore

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

(Message) So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The battle of the mind will never be won subconsciously but deliberately.

You cannot just think with your natural mind and discern the will of God; you must renew your mind daily with his word and presence.

A stronghold is anything that gets a grip on your mind. Anything that replaces God as first place in your mind. Anything that "gets away from you".... a compulsion, pride, bitterness.

Ephesians 4:17-19~ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the people of the world do, in the futility (uselessness as a consequence of having no practical result) of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. ¹⁹ Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

2 Timothy 2:15 ~ Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

It is possible to live in mental victory.

God has a will for my life and so does Satan. We will never be able just to sit and maintain.
2 Timothy 2: 26 ~ and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

We are capable through the power of Christ living life victoriously without sin having dominion over us. Psalm 119:133 ~Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me. or (Amplified) Establish my steps and direct them by [means of] Your word; let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
There are two kinds of sins.
1) Dominion sin
2) Reactive Sin
Dominion sin is the scary, has control over you kind of sin, something that has presendence (1st place) in your mind over God.

1 Corinthians 6:12 Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

Philippians 3:10[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [^a]">which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

Luke 2:19 But Mary was keeping ^a]">within herself all these things (^b]">sayings), weighing and pondering them in her heart.
Psalm 27:4 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple.

We have to take a moment to sit in God's presence without distractions, this is when we can mediate on His word and He can speak to us.

If you want to have the mind of Christ, you must frequently shut the door to EVERY other distraction in your life and get alone with Him because God doesn't and will not yell; He speaks in a still, soft, voice.

We do so many things at once.....let all other distractions go.

God is a jealous God. He wants to be your number 1, your 1 thing, shutting everything else out! It's never been harder but it can be done!

We are going to have to fight to do the will of God; it won't come naturally or easily.

Christ says to chain yourself to me. If we want to do God's will for our life, we have to FOCUS on Him.

Matthew 7:17-20 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

The mind is brilliant. The brain is shaped like a tree. It has little branches. Fruit starts in your mind. It is proven that a chain reaction happens when you think the same way over and over and over again. The brain burns a path so that it is easier to think that same way over and over again. The awesome thing about the mind is that we have the capability to change that path. We have the right and the capacity to decide how we think, to decide we are going to think another way and so that our mind doesn't go down the old path anymore!

Begin to think a new thought of the old situation and it refuses the power it has over you!

You can't change how you feel but you can change the thoughts you think and that will eventually change how you feel!

To change my mind in a way that changes my actions is repentance.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 The world is unprincipled. The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.


All of the content in this blog post thus far is from Beth Moore's message at Passion 2011.


How awesome is it to think that through the power of God we can overcome our minds and change our thought patterns. We must decide to do it but we cannot do it in our own power but must have His power. In a world filled with mental garbage, how refreshing is it to think of having a renewed mind day after day.

I am so excited about today. I have started meeting with a girl in the youth group and we are going to go through "Loving God with all your Mind" and then we are having a fun family from our church over for dinner and then some girls who just became believers are coming over because they have some questions and just need to talk. Adam told me that last night after youth group they were asking what a testimony was. It is so encouraging to be in a place where people truly need to know about Him.

"...and whatever you do, do it all in the name of the Lord, giving thanks!" Colossians 3: 17