How To Fight Intrusive Thoughts (Johnny Chang Q&A Compilation)

I come from a very long line with people who committed suicide, friends who died from overdosing. I feel grief whenever I'm eating a meal or just trying to enjoy myself. What is Satan? He's a thief, right? He comes to kill, steal, destroy. I want to see this person kind of suffer a bit. Your job is to forsake your thoughts, not try to change your thoughts. When reading the Bible and intrusive thoughts and shame come in and try to distract me from that, how can I combat that? That's how you know that you got to keep reading the Bible. A lot of the time I'll like hear things and I can't tell if it's from God or the enemy. Yeah. And I just like, I'll go down like rabbit holes saying, is it from or not? And I'm just very confused. Yeah. And so I'll try to stop and then I just get confused about that again. So how can I tell the difference from God speaking to you and the devil? Good. So God likes to speak to us through the word. You understand what I'm saying? The apostles, for example, were crucified. They were killed, martyred because of the word. They were protecting this Bible so that we, because they knew that we would have thoughts like this. Oh, is this from God? Is that from God? How do I know? What happens is you stay stagnant, right? And you're very young. So that's good that you have a spiritual awareness, but you have to know one thing.

Oh, I cannot trust any of my thoughts because now it's making me spiral, right? Understand? And you don't feel good when you do that, but you agree you're confused. And the Bible tells us in first Corinthians 14, that the spirit of confusion is not from God. So whenever you feel confused, you have to know right then and there. Oh, that's the enemy. Whenever you feel fear, enemy. Understand? So you're young. You can go in and just read the Bible and just accept it, right? And get into your word more. How old are you? 10 years old. That's wild. 10 years old. It's beautiful that you have a heart from God to do that. When I was 10, I was stealing, okay? Stealing. You're over here like, Jesus, right? Amen. But God wants you to recognize something. You're 10 years old. If you listen to me carefully in what I'm saying, and you start reading your Bible now, by the time you're my age, it's going to be crazy. Understand what I'm saying? Amen? God wants to use you. He's blessed you in this way.

But always remember who you are. Oh, I'm a person who can only go, whoa, is this from God? Is this from Satan? Is this from God? And you can't produce anything out of yourself. That's why God is showing you that he needs to help you through his word. Stay in your word, okay? Don't get in your thoughts. Amen? All righty. Thank you. That's beautiful. 10 years old is wild. I just want to say thank you because you are truly moving mountains for people who are left in the dark, for people who think that their past can't define who they are. And you've truly taught me that I'm not the person who I was before. And I have a chance to be able to change my future. And even though I have some grief and some regret on my past and my decisions that I used to do, I have a lot of faith now because I have God. And I have people like you who are able to show others like, hey, there's a chance. And it's not too late for you. But I do have one question or two, actually. I come from a very long line with grief. And I come from a very long line with people who committed suicide, friends who died from overdosing. And I've actually developed PTSD from that, actually.

So it's hard to enjoy the things I have now. And even though I thank God for every meal that I have, I thank God for the hot water that I have. I thank God for the mom and just family that I have. I still feel grief every time I enjoy something. I feel grief whenever I'm eating a meal or just trying to enjoy myself. How can I cope with that? Good question. Grief comes from feelings, would you agree? Yes. Feelings come from where? From myself. Your heart, right? What does the Bible say in Jeremiah 17 verse 9? I'm not very too educated on the Bible yet. No worries. It says the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked who can know it, right? So if your heart is deceitful, meaning it's a liar and it's the top liar because it's above all things, would you trust a pathological liar? No, right? But you trust your heart. And that's why even good things come. You're not thankful, understand? Even the best things come. If you trust your heart, Satan steals it away. What is Satan? He's a thief, right? He comes to kill, steal, destroy in that order, right?

So he wants you to die in your spirit so that he can steal it away and destroy you. Are you understanding? So you have to recognize one thing. Wait a minute. Everything is good right now. Why am I feeling grief? Oh, Johnny said grief comes from feelings and feelings come from. heart. Amen. I don't need to listen to this. Satan, you're lying to me right now. Why would I listen to you right now? It's impossible. How can I be sad? I have salvation. How can I be sad? Jesus died for me. Amen. You have to learn to combat it this way. You have to learn to combat the feelings with the word. If you're not studied, as you said, I'm not studied in my word, which I appreciate you. If you follow me, follow me for one thing, quoting the scripture. Amen. Don't follow me because I'm a gangster. Don't follow me because I make a joke like this. Okay. Follow me because I know the gospel and I read the word. Please be inspired by that and read your word too. That's all I ask, bro. Amen. I do have one more question. So I was really inspired by my sister and my mom because one of them's a teacher and one of them's a nurse. And for a long time, I've been defined by my past, but you've really taught me to push forward and be with God and not to allow that to define who I am. So now I am on my second session for my tattoo removal on my face. And now I'm studying for EMT so I can help other people as well and actually be a firefighter or something with my life at least. But what is a biblical way to deal with traumatic things that you see on the field? Like I know I'm going to be seeing a lot of suffering. I know I'm going to be seeing a lot of people dying and I've already seen that in my past, but I dealt with it in a different way. I've taken drugs. I've drank alcohol. And now that I'm sober now and now that I've stopped smoking weed and now that I'm trying my best to move forward, what are ways to deal with those situations? View it as an opportunity to get closer to God. So God allows evil and wicked traumatic things like that so that you can appreciate the good and the peace, right? How can you appreciate dark? How can you appreciate light without darkness? How can you appreciate wealth without being poor? Are you following me? So we have to be people who we need to express this in this way where God, thank you that these things are happening because why does he allow kids to die,

for example, so that every one of us who were kids or has kids can hold our kids tight and be like, thank you, God. Not everyone wakes up every day. Not everybody gets to live. It's to show gratitude because you're comparing and contrasting. Does that make sense? So you don't have to try to deal with it in any other godly way. God wants you to recognize, look, you think your life is bad? I've extended so much grace to you. Be thankful. That's why Philippians 4.4 says rejoice always for I say rejoice. He wants you to be happy always in all things. Why? Because God is provisioning on your life, has his hand on your life all the time. I am with you till the ends of the earth, he says. So when you focus on these things, you're able to be thankful, right? God is going to allow those things to happen. You're going to see a lot of stuff. You're going to see people get shot. You're going to see people die and see all kinds of crazy stuff. But during that time, that's why you have to sharpen your iron. You have to go, wow, God, no wonder I need to be in my word. Because if I could have preached the gospel to this person, maybe they didn't have to go through all of that. If I could have preached the gospel to that person, maybe they didn't have to go through this domestic abuse or whatever, whatever it is, right? That's why I do what I do. I technically could just sit behind a computer and just spit bars, right? But I travel out here. I go to Polinsky unit because I want to be able to help people, bring them closer to God through the gospel. And that's how we're going to heal people essentially. Amen. Thank you, Johnny, so much for everything that you do. Thank you, brother. Sometimes we are betrayed. We want, you know, in the Bible, it says, let vengeance be mine. Sometimes we think, wow, I can't wait to see it. Like I want to see this person kind of suffer a bit. Like how do we get past that? Like I don't want to feel that rage towards anybody that's deceived me. So you don't take ownership for something that's not your own, right? So Satan plants that inside of your heart and tells you, yeah, take this up. And we're so used to listening to our thoughts and our feelings. That's why we do that, right? So Satan is very cunning in that way. He'll plan something and then he'll go, why did you do that? That's his number one thing, right? He makes you do something and then makes you question yourself and then fall into condemnation. Your job is to realize, no, this isn't thought from the enemy. See, the thing about Satan is he makes all of us rivals, but we're all actually teammates. We all struggle and are interconnected through sin. We have one enemy, that's Satan. Jesus wants us to recognize you are not a person who, you know, can do things, but I'm going to plant things inside of you. And I'm going to make you try to follow your

That's what Satan wants you to do, but you have to realize no, we're all teammates every one of us here our brothers and sisters We're all with one calling one kingdom, but if you trust your thoughts, then you'll start to see all this person has a blemish Yeah, I want them to fail that is not the heart of God Jesus literally when he was pinned on the cross He said father forgive them for they do not know what they do. This is the heart of Jesus So when you recognize oh, wait a minute this vengeance and yeah I want to see this and I want to see them struggle so much that is not from God that is from the enemy your job is to forsake your thoughts not try to change your thoughts throw that out go and surrender it at the altar and At the feet of Jesus through prayer. Amen Thank you Hello, Johnny. I'm Tyson. Nice to meet you. My question would be when reading a Bible and praying Intrusive thoughts and shame come in and try to distract me from that. How can I combat that good that that's how you know That you got to keep reading the Bible, right? Satan he tries to knock you off if you ever be praying or reading the Bible like you say and you have this intrusive thought It's because Satan works through thoughts, right if you feel thoughts of condemnation You know emptiness loneliness, you know random evil negative thoughts Those are not from God Romans chapter 8 verse 1 says there is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus right what this means is when you feel condemnation not from God So you have to realize oh, I'm getting attacked right now, and then you can pray to God father God, I see these these thoughts coming in. I cannot stop them But Lord, you can stop them. You're powerful If you want me to close the Bible if you don't please allow me to overcome If not, I'm gonna close my Bible and try again, right? These intrusive thoughts will not always come sometimes they come but what Satan wants you to do is micromanage that oh You have intrusive thoughts. That means you're evil. You need to manage it Once you put your hands on it, you start to spiral and then you're just not gonna read your Bible You're gonna be in your feelings understand. So learn. Oh, this is not from me. Okay, I'm not gonna touch it I'm gonna leave it there and that's what you do. Okay. Thank you so much. I have a question about like learning to accept things that aren't in your control like you can't do anything about it because like Recently in my life there have been things that I've been taking away my peace and like anything like I could sit in my room let's say productive things like

reading my Bible studying your lives, of course like constantly like there's these intrusive thoughts that like Keep on going and going and going and like I know I can't do anything about it But it still bothers me a lot of times to combat intrusive thoughts is actually Recognizing that they're not really from you obviously because they're intruding The second thing is you have too much time on your hands, right? Like I'm ripping and running all the time. My temptation is big. There's a lot of beautiful women There's a lot of you know business opportunities, but because I'm ripping and running I can't even attend to that. Does that make sense? We're here preaching the gospel. It means it's taking time that I'm not in my flesh sinning Does that make sense? A lot of people have issues like pornography and they're able to fight with their spouse It says they have too much time if you're serving God if you truly are in the word like that You don't even have time to fall into those things, right? Our schedules are wild We wake up at 4 in the morning. We you know go off for 2-3 hours of sleep Like you're not you're so tired. You can't even fall into your flesh So what I'm saying is pick up a hobby pick up your Bible I know the Bible is tiring right but Sometimes like find something that will occupy your time because your issue is not really intrusive thoughts I can't even have a chance to think I'm like, yo, we're going to Polinsky unit. We're driving two hours here Like, okay. What do we got to talk about man? I got this I don't even know if there's a hundred people coming 400 people coming Okay, I got to prepare my stuff like I'm not sitting here like Instagram Explorer page You know like I have to go and I have to actually do these things So I would say try to keep yourself busy because I don't hands is the work of the devil, right as your idol Satan starts to speak to you when you think you're you know thinking you're actually listening you're listening to Satan Does that make sense? Amen. Thank you