We all have what you might call “infected thinking.”

This comes in many ways: anxiety, doubt, fear, thoughts that tell us “you’re not going to get well,” “you can’t accomplish that dream,” and so forth, a popular preacher tell us.

You’re a failure. Maybe a bad person. God has abandoned you.

These are negative thoughts and negative thoughts aren’t just psychological; spiritually, they’re an infection.

And like any infection, when it takes hold, it spreads.

The “redness” can engulf our entire being.

“When we dwell on it,” he tells us, “you’re giving it permission to become a reality.”

Thoughts are powerful—positive or negative.

And the negative ones are too easy to conjure.

Studies have shown the average person spends nearly half his or her thinking on worries or negative thoughts of whatever kind.

Does the negative dominate your cogitation?

It’ll take away your peace; it will make you feel stuck. Or useless. Inferior. You’ll lack confidence.

Scripture says to bring every thought into “captivity.”

Do we—or do our thoughts, particularly a niggling one—capture us, imprisoning joy?

Contaminating your self-image?

Pray on it, and ask Jesus to specifically wash away the gray and black thoughts that haunt you.

Thoughts that haunt.

Thoughts can equal distraught.

Hope, faith, victory.

Harmless thoughts can end up anything but.

Quit hosting the wrong thing.

When you give it time and space, it distorts your vision and perverts faith.

Negative thinking is faith in what we don’t want to happen.

God does not create losers; He created you to rise above it, like His Son. He created you to win.