Well, the Bible talks about strongholds in our mind. These are areas of our thinking dominated by the enemy—areas where we are deceived.

At a certain point in my Christian experience, I made a startling discovery: I had an enemy of God in me. Even though I was a Christian, serving God, I discovered that my enemy was my own mind. In Romans 8:7, Paul explains: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” Many people trust in education. But education will not change your mind from being an enemy of God. It will just educate your mind the way it is. If you have a carnal mind and you go to seminary for five years, you could likely emerge with a highly educated carnal mind inside of you. Once we begin to develop convictions, we start developing habits — and the sum total of our habits is what we can call “character.” We cannot say that we have the character of honesty unless we are habitually honest. We cannot say we have the character of kindness unless we are habitually kind. Character is the sum total of our habits. This is a gift that God gave to us: the ability to dream and envision and imagine something before it comes into reality. Every building we see was first imagined by an architect before it was built. Every piece of art was imagined before it was painted. Every song was imagined before it was written. Every athletic award, every gold medal, the athlete imagined before it ever happened. Every church that’s been started, somebody — either a group of people or a single church planter — imagined that church first. Rarely does anything happen until somebody starts dreaming. Out of pride proceeds prejudice—having your mind made up before you’ve heard the facts. It’s narrow. It’s arrogant. And it’s destructive.

Suggest a Verse

In Scripture, knowledge is the only thing we are supposed to store up. Jesus says we are not to store up money. Don’t store up treasure. Don’t store up material possessions where moth and rust decay. But store up knowledge because knowledge is far more important than money. You can always get more money, but knowledge is something you are going to take with you to heaven. You will leave all your material wealth behind, but a wealth of knowledge goes with you. Suggestions for Growing in Knowledge These battles in our minds are actually a normal part of Christian experience. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul speaks about this very vividly. In verse three he says: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.” Some churches are great at Bible knowledge but fail to teach their people perspective. They don’t teach wisdom. I love this paraphrase of Isaiah 55:8 in The Message: God says, “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” Obviously that’s true! Psalm 103:7 says that the Lord “made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel” (KJV).

Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 7 about being settled in our own minds, which means having godly convictions. And in Hebrews 11:1, faith is said to be “the conviction of things not seen.” Let me give you some examples. The Bible says “Wise men store up knowledge” (Proverbs 10:14 NIV). And here’s Proverbs 19:8: “Whoever gets sense loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will discover good.” We must make time to think. Plan it in your life. Strategize for a balance between doing and thinking. We need both of them in our lives. Five Levels of Learning

The enemy within

I was looking for a good study Bible for this year. I was SO EXCITED to see that she had put one out that used my favorite work by her, Battlefield of the Mind. That's why I am so crushed to give this less than a perfect review.

Make no mistake, though. In the course of that year, I had many prayer battles. I had to fight my way through to the truth. I had to reject lies from the devil—doubt, discouragement, fear—and I had to do that through prayer. By using those two great weapons—the Word of God and prayer—I eventually won that battle in my mind. Three strongholds Admittedly like many others here I not a big fan of televangelists, I appreciate their tremendous work in reaching to an audience that would never consider for themselves going face to face with people in a christian church. I do consider alot of their teaching as baby food in the scale of what should a believer should be eating. However coming at low point recently I began reading this book and fed upon every word. Nothing] . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:39). That’s conviction. It’s not an opinion; it’s a conviction. What is God’s perspective on temptation? What is God’s perspective on evil? What is God’s perspective on our past, our present, and our future? What is God’s perspective on sin? What is God’s perspective on Satan? Once we start getting perspective, we begin developing convictions. Though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh [in other words, we don’t fight with armor, we don’t fight with politics, we don’t fight with money, we don’t fight with all the humanistic ways]. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

The helmet of hope

Any nutritionist will tell you that there are three kinds of food for your physical body. There is brain food that makes you smarter (food that actually makes you smarter!). There is junk food, which is simple calories — it’s not poison, but it’s just empty calories. And then there are toxic foods, which are poison.