What you will need: A Bible or your Bible app, a notebook, pen, and highlighter. The verses highlighted below are linked so that you can easily access them during your study time.
Jump Start
1. Look back on a time of intense feeling: love, pain, excitement, fear. Did the feeling match reality when you got through it? (Think about things like a first love, a bungee jump, or public speaking event.)
2. Read 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 and Ephesians 6:11-18. What are we fighting against, if not the flesh? What weapons of spiritual armor specifically help us fight the arguments, world’s logic, and wrong thinking we can face?
3. Identify the lie. Replace with truth. Speak with power. Which of these steps is the most difficult for you? How do you (actually and practically) do each one? Read these verses for insight and ideas: Romans 12:2, Philippians 4:6-8, and Proverbs 18:21.
4. Final Thought: Where do your negative thoughts come out in your speech? What triggers them? Who do you voice them to? How do these spoken thoughts add chains to our spirits? How can you change this pattern in your life?
Deeper
5. Read 1 Kings 19:1-3, and 7-9. Elijah, the bold prophet, fled in fear of Jezebel. Even after the angel of the Lord appeared to encourage and strengthen him, he kept running, ending up in a cave on Mount Horeb. What is the significance of this place? (Look up these Biblical references: Exodus 3:1-3, 12, 17:6, 19:1-11, 33:6, Deuteronomy 1:2, 6, 4:10, 5:2, 29:1, 1 Kings 19:8, Malachi 4:4.)
6. Read 1 Kings 19:11-16 and Jeremiah 29:13. What did it take for Elijah to overcome his "stinking thinking"? What parts of question #3 above take place in these verses? How can you confront the wrong or spiritually untrue thoughts in your life? How are the relationships in your life? Who can you share your struggles with?