Battle to a Beautiful Mind

We brought Pastor Ed Buch into the studio a few years back to follow up on an article he wrote called “Battle to a Beautiful Mind.” He shows us from the commands of Scripture as well as his own personal experience, that it’s possible for us to have victory over impure thoughts as well the sinful acts that can result from them. His words brought hope that if we spend time with God in prayer and learn to take every though captive to obey Christ, we can have a mind, and thus a life, that is pleasing to God.

Mike: Ed Buch has joined me in the studio. Ed it's great to see you, thanks for coming in to talk with us today.

Ed: Hi Mike, it's good to be here.

Mike: Ed you have written an article that is posted on our website entitled, the battle to a beautiful mind. As I was reviewing your article this morning, the verse came to my mind, "bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). I remember the first time that I read that verse I thought to myself, “Great! How do I do that?” You started this article by kind of underscoring the reality that this is really something that God cares about. Talk about that.

Ed: Yes, God cares about it a great deal. Obviously, the fact that He would say something like that in scripture tells us that He cares a great deal about every thought. Not just our thoughts as a total package, but every individual thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Mike: You mentioned in the beginning of the article that you have some experience in this area personally. Talk a little bit about that experience, dealing with taking your thoughts captive.

Ed: Sure. For me this has been a huge problem in my life, from the early attempts to walk out the Christian life. I walked around with the notion that if I attended church regularly and did some good, spiritual things that I could endure a few hits to my thought life. But that wasn’t the case. If you look at it like a boat, I had holes all over the place and this eventually caused me to sink.

Mike: I know that people who struggle with thoughts, which they know are not pleasing to the Lord, sometimes will try to endure it or white knuckle it. But man, the Lord seems to have so much more for us than just enduring these things. He really wants us to have victory over these things, doesn't He?

Ed: Yes, absolutely. My passion is to try and relate to people that you don't have to spend your life dwelling on impure thoughts. You can have victory over that.

Mike: You've said that you've learned that success doesn't come in the form of some secret formula.

Ed: Well, as the article goes on, I talk about several practical things that we can do to bring us into victory in our thought life. But the reality is that those things aren't in and of themselves going to be cure-alls. Even if I commit to that fully, it's not going to automatically result in victory.

Mike: Okay. Let's park there for a moment Ed, because I know what is really on your heart. It's to talk about what the foundation of victory needs to be laid on.

Ed: Anyone who wants to pursue victory over their thought life is going to have to have the help of God. It's not just knowing God or being able to talk about Him in a theological sense, it's having a personal, dynamic relationship, a one-on-one connection with God, where He's truly real to you. It's about having a relationship with God that isn't a means to an end, but is the end itself.

Mike: Yes, the goal here is a relationship with God. I want you to talk a little bit more about that, because so many people have been in church for so many years. Everybody thinks they have a relationship with God. But I want you to talk about what that relationship became to you, which gave you the incentive to be able to overcome the thoughts that you were struggling with.

Ed: For me, it was being able to see Him as my Father, and that He truly loved me. It was having a connection with Him every day that lasted throughout the day. So, it wasn't just a compartmentalized thing that I did in the morning or the evening, and checked off my list, but it was a relationship that I worked on throughout the day and realized that He was with me. That became so real to me when I came to Pure Life Ministries, where I began to wholeheartedly seek the Lord. He began to reveal Himself to me, and I began to experience His presence with me, and His thoughts slowly became my thoughts. It's just a very special relationship that you enter into with Him. I realized that He knows all my thoughts. You know we haven't really mentioned that, but none of them are hidden from Him.

Mike: Yes, that's true. And He loves us anyway!

Ed: Yes. I found that I don't need to hide them in shame like I attempted to do. When you really realize that He knows all of you and He loves you, there's a breaking that comes with that. I'm no longer worried about keeping a to do list. I'm wanting to honor Him, I'm wanting to please Him, I'm wanting to hear His voice, I'm wanting to spend time with Him. Then my though life just falls into place where it belongs.

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Mike: That kind of leads us, if I could, to some of the practical things that in and of themselves are not the answer. We've laid the foundation of the answer, I think. It's a relationship with the Lord. It's a loving, intimate relationship with Him. Our desire is not to keep all the rules. Our desire is to live a holy life that is pleasing to Him. But there are some practical things that we can do and need to do, in order to develop that relationship, which ultimately will help us to deal with these thoughts we are struggling with.

Ed: The first thing that I laid out in the article was about coming to that place where you realize your thoughts are going in a wrong direction. I call it breaking the trance. You can sit there, and it's almost like you are in a trance. Your mind is just going down that path, and unless you do something to break that trance, you're just likely going to keep going down it until it provokes some kind of outward sin.

Mike: It's just by default. In auto pilot we are walking in the flesh. That is just our natural position to walk in. We must grab hold of the controls and we must choose to walk in the Spirit.

Ed: Right. A very practical way that this works out is, when I'm sitting at the computer and it starts, and I get up. A lot of times it really doesn't take very much to break the trance. It's just a minute or so of some other diversionary activity.

Mike: You mentioned also, to pray.

Ed: Pray, yes. We really tend to neglect our weapon of prayer. It's probably the most essential weapon that we have because it goes back to building up the relationship with God. Prayer is absolutely essential. That's one of the key components of developing that relationship. Then you can bring that into the very practical realm of asking God for deliverance from impure thoughts. You can ask for His Spirit to work in you help you when you are dwelling on impure thoughts so that you can cut them off sooner.

Mike: Yes. Maybe this is particularly true to men, I don't know, but we somehow naturally slip into the thinking, “I need to do this.” Well, good luck buddy! I've discovered in my life that every time I try to do it, I fail. We desperately need God's help. Thirdly, you said that you really need to get serious about applying the admonition given by the Apostle Paul, "Do not be conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2). Talk about what that means.

Ed: When Paul wrote, "Do not be conformed to this world," the world was of course a lot different in many ways, but in some ways, it was very much the same. Believers in every generation have always had the tendency to conform to the world's standard in their lives. The activities they participate in, the activities they’re involved in and the things that they spend their time doing. There's worldliness that is involved in many of those things. When Paul said, "Do not be conformed to the world," he was telling us we need to separate. There needs to be a distinction between my life and the life of one who is caught up in the things of the world.

Mike: I would take it even a step further. It's not just the outward things we do, but even more importantly it's the attitudes of our heart.

Ed: That's right Mike. That's ultimately what God is really after in all of this. Even in our thought life. He wants us to have a pure thought life, but it's because He wants our hearts. And if I can go even further with that, God wants us to be like Him.

Mike: You know we have the wonderful promise, that one day we will see Him as He is and we will be like Him, (1 John 3:2). I want you to say something that will encourage the fellas and ladies out there that may have really battled with this and have failed, and they really haven't seen the victory. Just encourage them to keep fighting.

Ed: Well, that's kind of easy to do, really, because there's nothing worse in my mind than being like I was before. I was bound up in a darkness and an oppression, and suicidal thoughts. All of that was going on, and I was really to be able to come into the light out of that. I realized that I didn't have to stay there. At any point while I was in the darkness I could have turned to the Lord, and He could have brought me out of that. There's life and joy and a relationship with God that supersedes everything else, that makes it all worth it.

Mike: Amen. Well thanks for coming in and talking to us about the battle to a beautiful mind.