Captive Thoughts
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Sometimes we live as if our mind is not our own to control. We come up with reasons like, well my mother was this way, or I had a hard childhood, or this is just the way I am wired. But God knows there is freedom in the redeeming work of His Son’s blood that is not only for the salvation of our souls but also for the “renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2). When we die to the old self and allow Christ to put on our new self (2 Corinthians 5:17), a new mind comes with it. The way we “were” is gone. The hard wiring within us begins to crumble and break as the light, hope, freedom, mercy and grace of Jesus Christ begins to rewire us into this new creation. It is still our daily choice to allow this renewal to continue. When we first choose Christ to be our savior we still have to choose Him everyday and sometimes every minute for the rest of our lives. The rewiring is not normally accomplished in one moment or one day. The salvation of our souls does but the recreation into the image of Christ takes time. For some of us it takes years to allow Christ into all the parts of our lives. We may be far more willing to give Him access to the forgiveness of our past sins, but our willingness to forgive ourselves is a whole different process. For others allowing Him to take only the ugly things that are seen like the way we act or behave around others is easy but giving Him the ugly within is still off limits. The possibility of our various hang ups are endless.
So much of our daily reactions, responses and rituals are made up of what can be found within our minds. Each thought, regret, uncertainty, belief about ourselves, God, and others lead us down our daily paths. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10 that we should take EVERY thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. Most of us are thinking “how could I possibly do this?” Our thoughts race and go so many different ways every single day. Can we really take the time to grab each thought and make sure it’s obedient to what Christ would want for us? Take your mind to God in prayer. That’s the first and best step. Ask Him to show you the ones that need to be dealt with first. God knows what we can handle and deal with each moment of each day, He will show us how to take our thoughts captive. He will also be faithful to help us cover all the ones we don’t. Give your mind to God every morning and ask Him to help you start noticing the ones that aren’t from Him. He only wants us to believe what He thinks about us. For example: He never forgets about us or leaves us (Deuteronomy 31:6), we are made in His image(Genesis 1:27), and we are chosen by Him (1 Peter 2:9). The list is long of all the things God thinks about us and all the good He wants in our lives.
The negative thoughts, the things that weigh down our minds do not come from God. Why would a truly loving and perfect Father want His children to believe the things we contain in our thoughts? He is too good to put those there. We know that these thoughts are a work of satan. He uses these thoughts to distract us from all that God has for us and wants for our lives. Take captive your thoughts, don’t let satan win, let God in and allow Him to do the rewiring needed so you can fulfill His purpose for your life!