It will sound like name dropping I know but I was chatting with Australian gold medal winning swimmer Duncan Armstrong recently (we are old mates now) and he said that they have found out an interesting thing. When they have done studies they have found that silver medalists smile less on the podium than bronze medalists. They should smile more but they smile less! The reason being they were so close to getting the ultimate reward of gold but the whisper in their mind is they weren’t good enough.
Even when we should be smiling, the enemy constantly whispers to us about what matters most in life and seeks to destroy us with lies when we don’t get those things.
Jesus doesn’t want us hanging out with the lies. In fact, he commands us not to. Listen to what Jesus says to his disciples just before what probably was the most discouraging experience of their lives — his brutal death: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1).
Notice the word Jesus uses – Don’t! This isn’t words of comfort, this is a command! One means of winning this war is identifying the lies of the enemy and rejecting them.
Author and Preacher Craig Groeschel in his book, ‘Winning the war in your mind’ says to do some homework on this. He says take a ‘Thought Inventory’. Here are the 5 steps:
- Sit down each day for a week and do a thought audit, literally jot down the lies that the enemy has told you that day.
- At weeks end identify the key themes and lies the enemy is telling you.
- Examine how those lies are hurting you and the people around you. Ask, what is the root cause of those lies? What is the lie behind the lie?
- Search the scripture, and replace them with the truth of God’s word.
- Declare this truth every time the now identified lie comes to take you out.
Truth is as we faithfully apply this truth, whether we are in second place or last place, this applies truth to our life that should le us smile like a gold medalist any day of the week.
Carl Mutzelburg 