Why We Need to Understand the Source of Our Self-Judgy Thoughts

My last post was about how we sometimes let the scale define us, instead of God’s truth.

If it’s not our thoughts about the scale and our weight, most of us have been sidetracked by some kind of self-judgy thought. 

The strategy I use to combat critical thoughts (as I shared in this blog post) is threefold

1 – Become aware of our negative thoughts.

3 – Recognize the negative feelings triggered by the thoughts.

3 – Take our negative thoughts captive to the Lord and replace with God’s truth.

And this is a strategy we follow over and over. Each time we battle the defeating thought, we replace it with God’s truth.

Our self-judging thoughts are damaging, sometimes even destructive.

But one thing they all have in common is this: they’re deceptive.

Scripture tells us our deceptive thoughts have a source: Satan.

In John 8:44, we’re told Satan is a “liar and the father of lies. He lies to us all the time.

Maybe that lie sounds like a critical thought you heard growing up that you adopted as your own.

Maybe it’s a habit you’ve gotten into because you have a certain personality type that tends to be self-judgy.

Maybe something like depression or anxiety has contributed to your self-judgement.

But ultimately the source of the lie is Satan.

Why is it important to recognize the source of lies?

Because we are in a spiritual battle that can only be fought with spiritual weapons. In Ephesians 6:11 we’re told, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (NASB).

We find strength in God’s armor. If you continue to read the verses following Ephesians 6: 11 you’ll see that part of God’s armor is His truth, in other words, Scripture.

When we buy into those schemes and lies, then we become hard on ourselves. We become discouraged, defeated, and distracted. And then the travesty is that we stop living out God’s purposes for our lives.

So we go back to our strategy: take that thought captive to the Lord and replace with His truth.

The number one truth you need to know? God loves you, right here, right now. You can’t gain more of His love or lose His love. No matter what.

That’s truth to hold on to.

If you have a verse of truth or a way to combat Satan, I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here.

Melanie

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