4 Biblical Ways to Stop Blasphemous Thoughts About God

1 John 4:18-19

Here are 4 biblical ways to stop blasphemous thoughts about God.

1. Directly Confront the Root Fear Fueling the Particular Lie that Is Plaguing You

Another way to label “blasphemous thoughts about God” is to call them “unwanted intrusive thoughts.” The term “intrusive thoughts” is a psychological term that refers to “ideas and images that come to mind uninvited and typically unwanted.”¹

My dog Lois just passed away. She was the first dog I ever had as an adult. My wife and I got her before we had kids. She was the best dog ever. We loved her so much. When we knew her time was coming to an end, we did everything possible to make her comfortable, to help her feel loved, and to give her the best ending a dog could have. We prayed about every decision. If there was anything we could do to help her, we would have done it.

And yet, after she passed, I was overwhelmed with feelings of regret. Could I have done more? Could I have eased her pain better? Did she feel my love for her in the end? We spent so much time trying to do everything we could for her. So why was I having these types of thoughts?

As I prayed about it, I feel God was basically saying, “You’re having these thoughts because your greatest fear for her was that you would not give her the best ending possible.” In kindness, God then reminded me of all the plans and decisions we made for her in love. We surrounded her in her final moments, whispering to her how much we loved her, how proud we were of her, how good she was doing. She was surrounded in love when she passed. She loved us and we loved her. That’s the truth.

I say all of that because your worst fears are usually coming out of your greatest source of love. The reason we have intrusive blasphemous thoughts about God is not because we hate him but rather because we love him so much. Our greatest fear is that we would dishonor him, and thus that fear fuels the very thoughts we hope we would never have about him.

It’s my belief that unwanted intrusive thoughts are coming from that part of your brain that detects threats, but that part is overworking. When you walk into a room and suddenly see something dangling from the ceiling about to fall on you, when you’re walking alone through a parking lot at night and you have the thought to reach for your can of mace, or when you open a strange email and cautiously avoid clicking on anything in fear it’s a virus – those thoughts come from that part of your brain God designed to detect threats. Sometimes, however, our greatest fears fuel that part of our brain to overwork so it starts searching for threats that aren’t really there.

Thus, these bad thoughts are really a sign this is the exact thing you don’t want to think. It’s like your brain is asking, “What’s the worst thought we could have so we can avoid having that thought?” But then when that bad thought pops up in your mind, it feels like you are just having that thought; but in reality, you are having that thought as a way of trying to detect bad thoughts and not have them.

The way you solve this is by rising above the immediate thoughts and confronting them with the truth, “No, I love God. I’m just having these thoughts because these are the very thoughts I don’t want to have because I love God so much. I’m moving on from these lies and I’m going to walk in truth. God loves me and I love him. Period.”

As 1 John 4:18-19 proclaims, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.”

2. Walk in God’s Grace and Accept You Cannot Lose His Love

Many times we fear we will lose our salvation if we think the wrong things about God. If you are prone to intrusive thoughts, this fear of losing your salvation will fuel your blasphemous thoughts about God for the reasons we discussed in point 1 of this article.

The way to fight these thoughts is to address your root fear of losing your salvation through studying what the Scriptures say about this topic:

• Romans 5:20-21, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
• Romans 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• Hebrews 10:14, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Some people will abuse these verses and treat them as a license to sin. Scripture states these people were never saved to begin with (Romans 6:1-2, 1 John 2:19). But if you are someone who loves the Lord, you are repenting of sin, and you are seeking to obey the Lord as he matures you more and more through sanctification, you are not one of those people.

You don’t need to worry about having blasphemous thoughts and then losing your salvation because you are truly saved, you don’t want to turn from God, and his grace is more than enough to handle your sin.

3. Spend Time with People Who Speak the Truth

The way people talk affects how we feel, how we think, and what we come to believe. I’m not saying you need to let someone instantly influence you. If you have to be around someone and they say something untrue or hurtful, you can reject it and not let it affect you.

However, when we choose to be around people as friends and we receive the things they say because we are yoking ourselves with them, this is when other people’s words will affect you for good or bad. This is why Scripture states:

• “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:15-17)
• “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4)

When you surround yourself with people who speak the truth in love, they will benefit you immensely by fueling the right thoughts in you (Ephesians 4:29-32).

4. Spend Time Alone in Prayer with Just You and God

Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” (Matthew 11:28-30).

He also said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

We need Jesus. Personally, deeply, all the time – we need him. By spending time alone with him in prayer, your heart and mind are filled with his love.

Here’s a playlist of videos I’ve created about the topic of overcoming intrusive thoughts: What Does the Bible Say About Intrusive Thoughts?

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