If you haven't seen Inception...

Then...

1.) Go and see it, and then
2.) Come back and read this blog post.

I went out to see Inception last night - and it was by far the best movie I have seen all year.  Definitely the most original.  Now, if you really haven't seen it and you've ignored my warnings here, then I won't spoil anything.  But...

It got me thinking about Satan.  And his greatest strategy for destroying our lives. I'll explain.

If you have a thought or a belief that keeps running through your mind.  A thought that is ingrained in you.  Something that is honestly, not beneficial and may I dare to say destructive?  A thought like...

I'll never be worthy of love
I can never overcome {fill in the blank}
I'm stupid
I'll never amount to anything
I have to have {fill in the blank - something other than God} to be fulfilled and happy
I'm a failure
I'm not good enough.
I'm a mistake

I can probably name a few more, but you get the gist.  Think about it, would we willingly put those thoughts in our minds on our own?  Would we intentionally and consciously tell ourselves:  "I think I'm going to convince myself to believe something that will kill my ability to live the life God has intended for me."  No.  Or at least I don't think there's a whole lot of narcissistic people reading this :-).

But we all have something like this, or had, in the core of our belief system.  And yet we wouldn't put it there if we really thought about what we were doing.  But somehow it got there... a lie was planted in our belief system and it took root and has has grown to define us.

The movie did get me thinking... "man, this is a really good parallel to how {Satan} does this."  We are in an impressionable position:  an emotional moment, a core period in our self discovery... and he in that moment plants a little lie related to how God has wired us and the moment we find ourselves, and that little lie takes root... and we nurture it in our private minds, in our subconscious, in like experiences... and it grows.  And sooner or later it's a weed that's choking out the life from us.

Solomon states that we should "Guard your heart, for it's the wellspring of life."  At a moment when we were not guarded, it got in and if it's taken root it's poisoning the well.

The truth is, if a thought is in your mind & heart that steals life from you and distorts the truth that God created you, God loves you, God has great plans for you that He designed for you, and God has made you as a person with great potential and loves you so much that He sent Jesus to die for you, then it's a lie.  It got planted there not by God, and if we were uninfluenced by any outside circumstances, we wouldn't have planted it there ourselves.  The enemy, Jesus says, has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy.  These are what thoughts and beliefs that originate from his worldview produce.

So how do we get them out?

We have to expose them.  We have to confront them.  And we have to oppose them.  And once we have, we need to replace them consciously with the truths that God has spoken about us, especially if we know Jesus.  We are awesome, because we were created by and in the image of our awesome creator.  That is the truth.  Meditating on Psalm 139 helps me out a ton when I have self-effacing thoughts running through my mind... it's hard to argue with God when He tells me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, ya know.

Additionally, I have found that we need to have people that love us in our lives that know what's going on and are trusted to speak truth into our lives, and that truth that will bring us life.  And ultimately, I believe that God is most glorified in our lives when we are alive and satisfied in relating to Him without fear.  It's something that our enemy does not want to see... but he can go to (you know where) :-)

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