Get rid of these old thought patterns to receive your breakthrough
Until we remove the old thinking we cannot kill the “giants” we are facing in our life. God wants us to remove the old thought patterns in life so that we can kill the “Goliath” and receive the breakthrough.
2 Timothy 2:20 says, “Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”
God wants us to clear the “wood” and “clay” in our life which also includes old thought patterns. Here are some old thought patterns we need to get rid of:
> “I am insignificant” mentality
God had a big plan for Moses and the Israelites. When God revealed his plan to Moses and asked him to go to Pharaoh he said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”. Moses was so caught up in his past that he failed to see the future. If we hold onto our past failures and regrets we will never be able to see the glorious future God has in store for us. We will never be able to kill the giants and get the breakthrough. But look at how God responded to Moses’ question:
And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
In other words God was saying to Moses, “It doesn’t matter who you were as long as I am with you.” God wants Moses to focus on the present and not on the past.
Wikipedia explains “Inferiority complex” as “the lack of self-worth, a doubt and uncertainty about oneself, and feelings of not measuring up to standards”. Feeling inferior can be one of the greatest stumbling block in our life. If we want to kill the giant we must throw those old inferior thoughts about us and start looking at our own life through God’s eyes. God wants us to forget our past and delight on the fact that He is with us and no giant or no pharaoh is too difficult for us to handle. Remember “Old thinking — old result.“!
> “The enemy is stronger” or “It is impossible!” mentality
Numbers 13 records a beautiful story. Twelve spies were sent to Canaan to explore the land. They came and reported that the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”
That’s a mental blockage! If we think that the enemy is stronger than we are we can never defeat the “giant”. We need to understand with God on our side we are bigger than any “giant”. We need to have the attitude that Caleb had. We need to learn to say, “we can certainly do it.”! With God on our side, we can do it. We can kill any “giant”.
God wants us to FEAR NOTHING! What we don’t understand is that our enemy is afraid of us. When Gideon and his people were afraid of their enemies, God taught a beautiful lesson to Gideon to teach him this truth.
Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. During that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah 11 and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp. 12 The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.
Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
When Gideon heard it he was overjoyed and he went to attack the enemy.
How many times we have said, “it is too big a challenge”, “this task is impossible”, “no one has done it before and so I can’t do it” and so on. Well, it is time to change our thinking! Let us learn to say “it is difficult for me but I don’t think it is difficult for my God”!
> “What I have now is good” mentality.
Sometimes we are so comfortable with the mediocrity which prevents us from getting anything better. We think what we have now is good. If we want to kill the “giant” we need to let go of “good”. We need to let go of good to become great.
In the bible, Naaman, the commander from Aram had leprosy and went to see Elisha to get healed. Elisha commanded Naaman to get dipped in the river Jordan. Naaman got furious and he said,
“Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.”
If you read that story further, you can see that Naama got healed after he changed his mind and dipped in the river Jordan.
If Naaman had not changed his mind he would not have got his healing. Remember “Old thinking – old result”.
> “I thought, I felt and I acted”
How many times we have acted based on our feelings and went contrary to God’s word. Saul had a great future before him as God chose him to be the first king of Israel. One day, Saul and the Israelites were facing their arch-rivals Philistines and they were outnumbered. They were waiting for Samuel to make the sacrifice before going to the war. Since Samuel was slightly delayed and the situation was so tensed, Saul decided to make the sacrifice himself. Samuel eventually came and asked Saul why he did such a foolish thing.
Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”
“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.
Saul thought, he felt compelled and acted foolishly! Let us not do anything impulsively out of our old thoughts. Thoughts can be very deceptive. It will lead us to do foolish things and disobey God’s word. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”. If we want to become a giant killer, we need to change our thinking and get rid of our old thought patterns. We cannot keep thinking in the old life style as old thinking will lead to old results. We need to learn to renew our thinking and to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.
