I think most of the time it's our flesh that causes us to begin to worry or fear and then when we continue to feed it, Satan then steps in and eggs us on. I say that because the Bible says:
James 1:13-15 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, (when we have a desire, good or bad, it is preceded by a thought) he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Since Satan can't hear out thoughts, he can't be the instigator at least at first. So it's our own sin nature, our flesh that starts the cycle. The first bad thought starts the cycle. When it's not stopped, each subsequent thought entices us to continue in the sinful thoughts and we are once again slaves to sin instead of being free in Christ. Once we've begun the sinful inner dialog, most of us tend to eventually speak some of it out loud, whether we're telling a friend or whatever. Plus Satan and his demons can observe our behavior and generally things like this don't just happen once, they happen over and over. It's actually a besetting sin. So when the enemy sees us becoming discouraged, worried, depressed etc. he knows it's because of our thoughts, so he and his demons encourage us to continue in those sinful thoughts egging us on and telling us more lies. Depending on how worried, or depressed we are, will determine if we fall for it or not. Obviously the more worried or depressed we are, the deeper we are in that sin so the easier it is for the enemy to keep us there. This is what Paul is talking about here:
Romans 6:16-23 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You see, it's obedience to God by renewing our minds and stopping those evil thoughts cold that leads to holiness and maturity in Christ. It's not something that happens overnight, it's hard work and work we have to do every day. Just putting a stop to those thoughts doesn't lead to holiness and maturity in Christ though, it when we replace them with God's Truth that it leads to those things. Why? For a couple of reasons.
First because we have to study and know God's Word in order to use it. Just as Jesus rebuked Satan with His Word, so do we. Remember when Jesus was tempted for 40 days and how He always answered the temptations with "it is written"? Here's one of His replies:
Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
The better we know God's Word, the better we know God and the closer we become to Him especially if we are spending time in prayer as well. And spending time in prayer is essential to this too since we need His help to find the right verses to fight the thoughts with.
So it's kind of like a circle here too. The better we know God and His Word, the better able we are to put an end to the sinful lies in our minds. The more we put an end to those sinful lies, the better we will know God and the closer to Him we'll become. So because of that, it leads to holiness, righteousness, and maturity in Christ. See what I mean?
When we have that first sinful thought, the only way it can continue is if we feed it. We feed it by giving it more sinful thoughts/words which produce the emotion in us that Satan then uses to egg us on to feed it more and more. The sin cannot survive and cannot continue unless we feed it!
Just as sin cannot continue without being fed, so we cannot grow in our faith without being fed. God tells us right up front that we can't live on just bread for out bodies. If we try to, we will die spiritually. We will starve ourselves to death. When we don't read/study God's Word daily, we are not feeding our spiritual selves.
We tend to not think much of it if we skip a day of reading God's Word or reflecting on it, yet each time we do that, we are quite literally starving ourselves. Because we don't feel it physically like we do when it's physical hunger, we ignore it to our own peril. We are told once we are saved:
2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
The only way that can be done is by renewing our minds daily with His Word which feeds us and gives us the strength we need to continue on each day. Just as sin can't grow without being fed, righteousness also can't grow without being fed.
The neat thing about overcoming these sinful thoughts is that the more we do this, stopping them and replacing them with God's Word, eventually we will be in control and the sinful thoughts won't come as often or as forcefully anymore. Eventually even when they do happen, our response will be so automatic that it will hardly take any thought or effort at all to do. Basically, by obeying God in this, we are forming a new habit of righteous thinking to replace the old habit of sinful thinking.
Join us at FH for this study on Stress!
