Sin begins with a thought, doesn’t it? We first think about it, then put it into action. Once it’s in action, there’s a good chance it’ll become habit forming. That makes it hard to get rid of. So it’s best to attack sin in its thought stage.

However, before doing that, faith must be employed to ensure success. I’m talking about having faith in Jesus’ presence inside of us; belief that Jesus is willing to help and will help if we submissively follow the Spirit’s guidance. I’m talking about having no confidence in the flesh.

With conquering faith in place, and one more step of preparation, we then are ready to take on those sinful, tempting thoughts that sometimes can find their way into our heads. Those thoughts should be recognizable because the other preparation step is for us to be familiar with God’s word through daily Bible study and scripture memorization.

When a sinful thought enters the mind, it is not enough to think or say that it’s not wanted. Rebuffing the thought in that way is trying to do it in our own strength. It may work for a while, but most of the time, the force of it will come back even stronger. It’s sort of like that story that Jesus tells about the house being swept clean of an evil spirit. The house remained empty and the evil spirit was then able to re-inhabit the dwelling. Plus it brought along other evil spirits with it (Matthew 12: 43-45).

A sinful thought mustn’t be pushed aside, leaving a vacuum. It must be done away with and replaced with godly thoughts. That’s what Jesus did in the wilderness when confronted by the devil. He countered the direction of Satan’s temptations with Scripture that applied to another direction.

That is what we want to do. For those sinful temptations that are already rooted and constant in our lives, we need to study, memorize, and be ready to verbalize scripture that pertain to those issues. For those sinful thoughts and temptations that’ll unexpectedly arise, it’s a good idea to have on hand a pocket-size, scriptural-topic, reference book to whip out as needed.

Lastly, one more help for replacing sinful thoughts is to be mindful of another one of God’s gift to us. That would be the gift of fellowship. In the communion of believers, we will find solidarity, friendship, encouragement, accountability, and prayer; all to help us overcome the temptations of the world and to be victorious in Jesus.