Strange thoughts - of the flesh or of the Enemy?

[280305]

Hi guys,

This is a question to everyone

Being a new baby Christian (Praise God!) I have had some very strange and unwanted thoughts appearing in my head, which before I came to the Lord, I never thought I had ... some are really sexually perverse (like things I have never thought before), some are vengeful (in ways I have never thought myself before), some are quite manipulative (again in ways I have never thought before - and are actually quite clever).

So, Praise the Lord! I am not fearful however because we are in Jesus! These are new things for me that the Lord wishes for me to learn through!

Are these of the flesh or of the Enemy? Would appreciate your thoughts on this! Be gentle! Cheers

 

[Adstar]

Hi


How did you come to be a new Christian?


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Sketcher]

Depends. Maybe you're just sensitive to stuff you ignored before. However, the devil loves to plant a lie in our heads and tell us that we thought it and we can't be forgiven, yadda yadda yadda. You believe in Jesus. You know what you really believe deep down in there. If it conflicts with your faith and values, I would argue that it is the devil trying to play that game with you. You love God, so thoughts that are hateful towards Him are neither likely to come up or unforgivable if they do. Now that you are a believer, YOU ARE GOD'S CHILD. He loves you better than your parents ever could.

All new Christians should memorize Romans 8:38-39.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

[280305]

Hi


How did you come to be a new Christian?


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

G'day Adstar,

Actually it came completely out of the blue for me praise God! lol

In a nutshell, I'd only ever been to church about 2 or 3 times before, both times for friends' weddings. Being a Buddhist, I was quite ambivalent about there being a God so never paid the issue much attention. Then, I went to a service on Easter Sunday where the Lord spoke to me in a sermon on Eccelesiastes that catapulted me into his arms. The speaker there touched on every issue I had in my life, and ones I never even thought about and I felt like I was being pulled through an absolutely glorious ride! I poured my heart out to my friends, and prayed to the Father that day, giving my heart to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour the following evening - hence the funny sounding user name!

I believe if a person truly wants to come to God, he/ she will be given to know what to say because I was never taught how to pray the sinner's pray but, as it turned out, I had prayed it anyway! For God has planted eternity in men's hearts (Eccl. 3:11) and the skies pour forth the speech of God's work every day (Psalm 19:1-2).

 

[280305]

Depends. Maybe you're just sensitive to stuff you ignored before. However, the devil loves to plant a lie in our heads and tell us that we thought it and we can't be forgiven, yadda yadda yadda. You believe in Jesus. You know what you really believe deep down in there. If it conflicts with your faith and values, I would argue that it is the devil trying to play that game with you. You love God, so thoughts that are hateful towards Him are neither likely to come up or unforgivable if they do. Now that you are a believer, YOU ARE GOD'S CHILD. He loves you better than your parents ever could.

All new Christians should memorize Romans 8:38-39.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Yeah true.... perhaps I am just much more sensitive to these things.

However, some thoughts have risen that have been extremely base, crude, horrific, but also quite clever and cunning. Stuff I have never thought of before that are quite startling. Oh well - I'm in the hands of the Father now! What better place to be! Praise God!

 

[TheListener]

280305:

I'm a fairly new Christian too.

The feelings/thoughts you have is normal, wierd things happen. Just concentrate on you're growth, find a Bible study home group, read daily devotional passages every day & pray pray pray. You'll be fine.

 

[holo]

Are these of the flesh or of the Enemy?

I honestly don't think it really matters. Should you need to confront the devil himself, so to speak, God is perfectly able to guide and teach you as you go.

I've stopped seeing demons in everything, much in the same way that I don't believe everything is mental. But thankfully, it's rarely for me to judge.

 

[PorcelainHeart]

When we become a christian, we start to see all the bad things we did more cleary. We might not think we had them before, but we did. Satan loves to play with us new christians, for we are easier to scare away. Satan used other christians, athiest, hurricanes and sexual abuse to scare me from Christ, I almost fell into his trap.

 

[whitedove7]

We hear from two kingdoms. One kingdom is from the Lord and the other kingdom is satan. Satan's job is to kill, steal and destroy and he comes to us through thought. It is usually opposite of God either through condemnation or temptation into sin. Jesus thoughts to us are about love.
Intrusion, is when Satan shoots his fiery darts into our lives. He runs in with thoughts and does what he can and then runs away. It is an attack from the outside. We have given him no place. He has not legal right to be there. James 4:7-8 – “therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
Example, the flesh that says, "I desire such and such." The mind (intellect) says, "I think such and such." The will says, "I will do it, I can do it, I will not do it, or I just can't do it." The emotions say, "I feel such and such." The spirit is also there. The Spirit says, "You should do such and such." When this is happening, then we need to yield to the Spirit. We should say, "Not my will, but they will be done." Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure". We should make our will the servant of the will of Lord and do His work by His power.

​

Satan wants to intrude into our life and get our attention off of God and on to him in order to stop our communion with God. Usually Satan attacks our mind with temptation and our will is activated to make a decision of right and wrong through our conscious. Sometimes those thoughts can be very intrusive or very settle.



Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 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;. So this means when we get a thought that is not of love and the opposite of God, that we are to cast down imaginations. Most sin comes into our minds through thought. What the person does with the thought can depend where it goes. If a person is lusting and does not have control of his thoughts can cause him to lust over and fall into sin. The Lord gave us ability to cast down vain imaginations.

I hope this helps. Blessings!

 

[bethdinsmore]

The Bible itself says Satan is cunning. But the battle is God's, and He's already won the war.

aloha in Jesus

2 Pet 1:3-8
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;
6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;
7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(NIV)