"Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5
Every thought... man I have a lot of those. I'll start thinking about one thing and about 10 seconds later wonder how I got to what I'm thinking now. This taking captive my thoughts thing is really hard for me! I have a tendency to let Satan feed me his lies and once he's got a foothold he really goes for it. You know, somebody looks at me funny and soon I'm having a pity party because the world hates me. Ha, that's a slight exaggeration but its along those lines. Or If I feel someones wronged me and I start resenting them or thinking badly of them, I've taken the bait. And if we have these thoughts and we dwell on them, we are likely to act on them in a way that will not be so pretty (James 1:14-15). Today's thoughts are tomorrow's actions! What if I made the conscious effort as soon as a thought that is not Christ-like enters my mind that I'm going to stifle it? Satan's good. He knows my weaknesses, he knows my insecurities, he knows just the place to stick the knife in. But lucky for you and me we've got someone so much greater on our side. And the enemy is scared of His name. I like this version of the verse too: "We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ." How cool is that? Phil 4:8 gives us a pretty clear picture of what our thoughts are suppose to be. So solution! With every thought that comes to mind I need to say, "Ok liz, is what I'm thinking true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy?" HA yeah right. People would either think I had Parkinson's from how slow it would take me to speak or they'd think I was nutso as every few seconds I appeared deep in thought, mouthing the words of that verse. But this, and the entire rest of God's word helps give us an idea of what we should be thinking. So once we know God's thoughts, we can better separate them from Satan's (or ours, which may be one in the same a lot of the time). Sanctification! So when I start getting impatient in traffic, or I get annoyed with the person that made a rude comment, or I'm fearful of saying something about Jesus because I don't want to offend someone, etc... that's when I have to take responsibility of my thoughts. And say be gone!! Cast it out! Have a bible verse to recite at that time or maybe just start praying! God can purge us and cleanse our hearts of the messy things, but we've got to be willing for Him to do it. He can restore and heal us. I have to remember I'm not a victim of my thoughts. And also its good to know that these things I struggle with, the sins that seem so prevalent in my life, they are NOT me. It's a lie of the devil that I am an insecure person. The insecurity is a sin that's being lived out through my body. It's not like I want to be insecure! (Romans 7) And now that I have recognized this sin in my life, whenever I have a thought that is putting my security in something of this world and not in God (and that's a whole other story... I've got lots of those things) I can so "no siree girlfriend, your security is in Christ!" So no one and nothing is gonna take that away from me! And in time, it will get easier. If God and I start fighting this together, we're gonna beat it. It's not instant gratification, but this is the first step- taking our thoughts CAPTIVE and making them give up and obey!! How awesome that we have that power in Christ?
