Cover Your Head
By: Misty J. Grimes
Focus Scripture: “Take the helmet of salvation…” (Ephesians 6:17)
Day One
Introduction
Roman soldiers wore helmets, called galeae, made of bronze and iron and lined with sponge or cloth. When a soldier was wearing his helmet, he didn’t have to worry about what might hit his head from behind, on top or from the side. All he had to do was keep focused on what was ahead. One of the biggest battles we face in our walk with Christ is the battlefield of our minds. If we do not receive, or put on, the helmet of salvation, then we do not need any other part of the armor of God for salvation is the beginning of the life changing work God will do within us, even when we are in the midst of life’s many battles. When we put on our helmet of salvation we are able to do as Paul did, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Lesson
As I said above it is my belief that the biggest battle most of us face is changing the way we think -getting control of our thought life that is full of both past and present events and circumstances. We need the helmet of salvation to protect our minds from thoughts that are against God and the truths of His Word. There are two ways that thoughts move into our head: our eyes and our ears. While the thoughts planted in our minds by what we see is important, I want to focus on the things we hear because I believe that these are the thoughts that have the most power over us and that we have the hardest time changing. Let me clarify something here. When I talk about our thoughts having power over us, thoughts that take up residence and need to be changed, for the purpose of this study I am talking about the negative thoughts the lies that we believe, that we let affect many areas of our lives including our walk with Christ.
Question: Can you stop the thoughts that develop from things you hear from taking up residence in your mind? For example, if I tell you, “Don’t think about a zebra with pink stripes”, what happens? While we may not be able to stop a thought from coming in, we can choose to not entertain it and not let it take up residence. Fleeting thoughts that come from things we hear aren’t the problem, the problem comes when we allow these thoughts to remain at home in our mind because when thoughts remain they can lead to desires and desires lead to choices, often wrong choices.
Our thought life is so important because what we believe to be true will determine not only how we live but also our thoughts about God. Here are two examples:
- Wrong Thought: “A small lie won’t hurt anything”
Truth: God’s Word tells us both not to lie and that God is truth. A small lie can make it easier to tell more lies. It can also destroy others trust in us (think of the story of the boy who cried wolf).
- Wrong Thought: “I messed up too bad; God won’t forgive me. I am lost again.”
Truth: God promises to forgive us. I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Romans 8:28-29 goes on to tell us, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor thing to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So how do we begin to change the way we think? The best, and most effective way is to filter our thoughts through the truth of God’s Word. We also have the Holy Spirit who helps us to be able to begin to think like the author of our salvation – Jesus! This is part of how the helmet of salvation protects and directs our thoughts. There are numerous scriptures that can also help us to learn how to redirect our thought life, here I listed the two most referenced and the two that offer me the best guidance:
- 2 Corinthians 10:3-5: “Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ” (emphasis mine).
- Philippians 4:8: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Conclusion:
The more we feed our minds with the truths of God’s Word, the more protected our minds become. Remember that no matter what happens in life, if we have salvation in Jesus, we don’t have to worry. We can know that God has it. He is on our side. Even death can’t separate us from Him. He promises us eternal life in Heaven with Him because of Jesus. There is always hope in Him!
Application
- What type of things that you see may cause wrong thoughts/lies, to take up residence within your mind?
- What type of things that you hear/have heard may cause wrong thoughts/lies, to take up residence within your mind?
- What is one of the biggest thoughts/lies you are struggling with right now? Take time to pray about it and ask God to lead you to His Word to show you what the truth is and memorize that verse. If you are doing this with others (family, group, friend, etc.) take time to share with each other a thought/lie you are struggling with and help each other find scriptures that apply the truth of God’s Word to this area of your life so that you can change it and then lift each other up in prayer.
- Here is a big challenge for you this week. Philippians 4:8 lists eight things that we are to think on. To get into practice doing this, throughout the next few days, take a few minutes to think about what each of these mean and do the following exercise:
- The Lie I believe is: The truth is: Scriptural Support:
- Unhonorable thought: The honorable thought: Scriptural Support:
- Unjust thought: Just thought: Scriptural Support:
- Unpure thought: Pure thought: Scriptural Support:
- Unpleasing thought: Pleasing thought: Scriptural Support:
- Uncommendable thought: Commendable thought: Scriptural Support:
- Unexcellent thought: Excellent thought: Scriptural Support:
- Nonpraise worthy thought: Praiseworthy thought: Scriptural Support:
Day Two
Focus Scripture: “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-3).
Introduction:
Today is going to be a little bit different than normal. I will still be teaching about the helmet of salvation yet with a more personal twist as I will be sharing part of my testimony with you. I decided to take this route with you for two reasons: One, because I have found that connecting with people on a personal level when applying Biblical principles is highly effective. Two, because the battle of the mind, especially not believing all the lies I have heard the majority of my life, has been a very big battle for me, one I am still fighting but working on. I have had some victories and I know I will have more as I continue to grow in my relationship with Christ and continue to focus on the hope that a relationship with Him brings.
Lesson
During my early teenage years one of my favorite things to do was spend Saturday mornings with my Aunt. We would put a blank cassette (yes, I am dating myself here. Some of you may need to Google what a cassette tape is – ☺) in the stereo, turn on Casey Kaseem’s American Top 40 countdown and, with our finger ready over the record button, listen for our favorite songs to be played so we could record them and have a mixed tape of our favorite tunes that we could play over and over. The best part was if we were late in hitting record and thus missed one of the songs we wanted to capture on tape, we could just rewind the tape and record over it. Better yet, when we grew tired of that mixed tape we could just record new songs over the whole thing and have a brand new playlist. Unfortunately, even though I tried many times, I was never able to record over all the negative thoughts that ran through my mind. It was like my mind was set on the repeat loop and the same tune just played over and over again because I was fed the same lies over and over again. What happened was what I said in day one: what I came to believe was true (the lies), thus I allowed them to determine my actions. Here are some examples:
- Lie: “You are worthless”
Action: I came to believe I was and thus struggled to develop positive relationships. The result: I settled for dysfunctional relationships because I believed that I didn’t deserve any better. (Kind of the “I’ll take what I can get” attitude)
- Lie: “You can’t do anything right”
Action: I came to believe that I couldn’t do anything right so I often set myself up for failure or I never tried to do anything that mattered because I knew I would fail anyway.
- Lie: (This came both through word and deed) “You are unacceptable and unlovable”.
Action: I came to believe that I was and so I built high walls around myself to keep others out. I was very guarded and never believed it when someone said, “I love you” and my initial reaction to the comment was always the same, “What do you want?”
- Lie: “Your feelings don’t matter”
Action: I came to believe they didn’t matter and thus I kept them all bottled up leading to a life full of self-destructive behaviors, a life where silence ruled because I believed the lies and didn’t give myself permission to express myself in any form. If I slipped up and did express a feeling, I punished myself through words, actions, or both to remind myself that I am not allowed to have feelings.
- Lie: “Your needs don’t matter”
Action: I grew to believe that my sole purpose in life was to meet the needs of others, to make others happy regardless of the cost to myself. I learned to never say no regardless of the request or task. I came to live a life where all I did was whatever it took to be sure others were happy and their needs were met while no one cared for me, including myself, because I didn’t matter.
Over the years, even after accepting Christ, I tried everything I could to silence the tape in my head that constantly repeated the lies: alcohol, drugs, self-harm and even numerous attempts to take my own life. Yet when I sobered up, after the wounds healed, after I spent time in one psych ward after another due to failed suicide attempts, the lies never left. Sometimes they became louder because my actions had proved them to be truths. I came to believe that nothing would ever change so I embraced the lies as an ever-present part of my life that I could do nothing about and tried the best I could to move on with life. The result was a very lonely and a very miserable life bound by the belief that the lies of others were my truths. Thankfully, after I began an honest, surrendered healing journey, I began to move from embracing the lies of others to embracing the truth about who I really am as a beloved daughter of a King who never lies and whose Word is always true.
The key to beginning this journey is found in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” (emphasis mine). We must change our thought patterns. We must play a different tape. We must record over the lies with the truth by flooding the fear-based circuitry of our minds with God’s truth and promises. This begins when we go back to Philippians 4:8 mentioned in day one (go back and read it again if you need a refresher).
Paul was also pretty straight forward in Colossians 3:2-3; Philippians 3:12-14 and 2 Corinthians 5:17 (all also mentioned in Day One): we are to STOP thinking about the lies of the past and rather think about the truths of God’s Word because when we embraced Christ we embraced a new life where we do matter, where we are loved and acceptable and where every need we have will be met for we have become sons and daughters of a God whose very nature is to do all this for us and so much more.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 lists four things that we must do in order to change our way of thinking:
- Just as we committed ourselves wholeheartedly to believing the lies of others, we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to believing God’s Word (vv. 5-6). We must not only read it and study it, we must also believe it, just like we believed the lies.
- Just as we constantly had the tape of lies set on repeat, we must put God’s Word on loop (v. 7). We can do this by speaking it aloud to ourselves over and over and listen to audio recorded scripture. Don’t just listen to it, hear it! There is a difference but that’s another lesson for another time.
- We are to talk to others over and over about God’s Word – wherever we go, with whomever we meet and so on (v. 7). When we share God’s Word with others it’s a confirmation to ourselves that we do believe it.
- We must do whatever it takes to remind ourselves of His Word, His truths, His promises (vv. 8-9) One of the ways I am doing this is by writing scriptures, truths, promises and motivating quotes on index cards and hanging them all over my house in places I always go and thus can’t miss them (example: mirror, refrigerator, dresser, closet door, front door, etc.). On days when I’m struggling greatly to not believe tape of lies, to turn it off, I walk from one end of my house to the other, stopping and reading every card I have hung. Sometimes it takes more than one trip but I walk and read until I no longer hear the lies.
Conclusion
When we accept Christ – our helmet of salvation – we are filled with his Holy Spirit and thus we are not alone on this or any other journey in this life. His Spirit guides us, directs us and speaks to us through the Word. All we have to do is open our hearts and our ears to hear that “still small voice” (see I Kings 19:11-12).
If you remember nothing else from this lesson remember these two things:
- Our enemy is Satan and he is a powerful enemy. He will use the words and actions of others to plant these doubts and lies in our heads, it is his very nature: “He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Just as Satan is a liar, so are those who recorded the tape of lies we have come to believe. It is time to replace the lies with the truth and not let Satan put a question mark where God has already put a period.
- When we put on the helmet of salvation it protects us and directs our thoughts toward hope. The result will be: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
Application
Read Psalm 19:7-11 and list the eight awesome truths about not only what God’s Word is but also what it does. Once you have listed them, go back and for each one apply it to at least one of the lies you have playing over and over on the tape in your head.