Mind over matter. That’s a phrase I’ve heard since I was a kid. It implies that our mind is strong enough to control and master anything we set it on. Entire cults have been built on this lie.
Every one of us has had things we wanted to change — and yet found ourselves with little or no success. Why can it seem impossible to stop thinking about something our flesh loves, even when we know it is not pleasing to God?
The answer is simple:
We’ve convinced ourselves that we love things God says we shouldn’t.
Love and affection create desire.
Love and affection for sinful things create desire and lust — and lust leads to disobedience.
Here is the critical key:
Love creates desire… but hatred destroys desire.
It creates a repulsion toward sin.
So yes — there are some things you must learn to hate.
“But Pastor Tim, isn’t hatred bad?”
Hatred toward people is always bad.
But hatred toward sinful thoughts, desires, and actions is godly and necessary.
God created the emotion of hatred so it could destroy the desire for sin.
Unless a fleshly love is replaced with godly hatred — or at least holy repulsion — that sin will continue to pull on you. And when it does, it leads you straight into the devil’s playground: sin, guilt, shame, condemnation, and ultimately, running from God.
Psalm 97:10 (NKJV) — “You who love the LORD, hate evil; He preserves the souls of His saints…”
Proverbs 8:13 (NKJV) — “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil…”
All of us have said at one time or another, “That’s it! I’m never doing this again!”
But too many people try to mentally overpower their flesh — and the success rate is miserable. That’s why people fall back into drinking, smoking, pornography, sexual sin, anger, greed, lust, and more.
So what's the answer?
The answer is to reframe your thinking so that you learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates.
Proverbs 23:7 (NKJV) — “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…”
Romans 12:2 (NKJV) — “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
Your mind is renewed by replacing stinking thinking with God’s thinking.
Take pornography as an example. Thinking about it because you “like it” is stinking thinking. It produces desire and lust. God says to hate what He hates. He hates porn. Not the people — the evil behind it.
Over 35 years ago, I changed my thinking about pornography. God opened my eyes, and I began to think like this:
“Tim, statistics show that most of these girls were sexually abused. They are someone’s daughters — God’s daughters. Satan tormented them until they were trapped in this darkness. They were meant for a beautiful future — marriage, family, love.
I hate what the devil has done to them. I hate how pornography destroys lives.
If I watch it, I support the industry that ruins them — and destroys me in the process.
I hate porn.
God, please send laborers to help rescue these women. Deliver them from this evil.”
When I began thinking biblically and praying for those women, it took almost no time for me to develop a deep hatred for pornography.
So when temptation tried to creep in, I reframed my thinking, prayed again, and the desire vanished. Time after time, the temptation lost its power.
This applies to anything — food, lust, anger, greed, habits, you name it.
There are godly ways to think about everything.
There are things to hate — especially when they destroy lives.
We all want to be godly examples.
Framing what was once a lust into a godly perspective — paired with prayer — gives us strength and victory.
As Scripture says:
Proverbs 23:7 (NKJV) — “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…”
So when temptation comes, ask God to help you think the right way — to love the proper use of something, and to hate the sinful misuse of it. That is why God gave you the emotion of hate: to break sinful desires and create godly repulsion toward sin.
Romans 6:18 (NLT) — “Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.”
