I woke up the other morning with four words echoing in my mind – taking every thought captive. I think I might have been dreaming something that included those four words, but whatever that was, it disappeared from my mind and only those four words were left – taking every thought captive.
Those four words are found in 2 Corinthians 10. Paul, in his letter to the church at Corinth, reminded them that the weapons of our warfare in this life are not like the world’s weapons. Instead they are powerful in God – powerful for the destruction of strongholds, demolishing arguments and high-minded things that flaunt themselves against the knowledge of God.
In this life, we are inundated with things that try to shake our faith in God. The world floods us with its viewpoints and ideas from every direction and through every media. The enemy of our soul wants to implant in our minds all kinds of lies and misdirection. We can find ourselves trying to even decipher our own thoughts that spring forth from our feelings, hurts, sin, shame, and doubts.
So when Paul reminds us to “[take] every thought captive to obey Christ,” he is telling us how to capture what is in our minds BEFORE it takes root in our hearts! [10:5b HCSB]
We are not going to be held liable for the things that enter our thoughts UNLESS we entertain them – unless we allow them to become rooted in our hearts. We need to stop them before they start to root and reproduce.
That means when the world, the enemy of our soul, and our flesh try to influence us with things not of God, we must immediately stop and remind the world, the enemy, and our flesh that we are a child of God and that even our thoughts will come into obedience to Christ. Then we need to transform our minds with the Word of God.
Get into it, read it, and study it! God’s Word is our first line of defense. Amen
