April 20, 2020 TAKING EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”
Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every false thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
It is interesting how so often we can fail to act on what we know to be important, even to our own hurt. For example, we may know that we should have a healthier diet, but we continue our routine diet, or we may know that we need to change the oil in our car, but we neglect to do it. Having a healthy diet and changing the oil when needed, or whatever it may be, is important, but there is something that is far more important and fundamental that we must take action on if we are to live life as God designed it to be lived. Everyone knows the importance of, and the power of the mind-our thought life. One misunderstanding we must be alert to, one common ‘un-truth’ we hear is that one is born with either a positive or negative attitude, and that is the attitude they go through life with. (We are born with certain temperaments, but that is another subject.)That belief or viewpoint is the very thing, the lie, that will prevent us from experiencing change in how we think. It is a major, red letter day when we realize that we have power over our thought life; the mind must not be viewed as being independent of our spirit. If left to itself, if we do not direct or choose our thoughts, we will as they say, run amok. We tend to see ourselves as a body with a mind, soul and spirit, but the truth is that we are a spirit with a body, soul and mind. In the verses above, we can readily see that we have a choice as to what we think about-how we set our mind. Each of us are daily bombarded with information and circumstances that would get our thought life off track if we fail to take control over our thoughts in the midst of the bombardment. Philippians 4:8 is a good filter, or a ‘standard mode of operation’ of what we choose to think about. Romans 12:2 tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. 2 Corinthians 10:5 shows us the necessity of taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ-in other words, think the thoughts that are pleasing to Him. It seems that many believers have difficulty in believing and receiving what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 when he states that we “have the mind of Christ.” It is amazing, but because the Holy Spirit lives in us and God has made us new creations, we can think like Christ! (For believers in general to think like Christ would no doubt have a tremendous impact on the world in which we live.) Our actions and responses flow out of our thought life. Proverbs 23:7 reveals a crucial truth: “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” There is a battle we must fight; we will have wrong thoughts trying to take hold in our minds, but we must not allow these unhealthy thoughts to land. As the verse above instructs us, we must take our thoughts captive. In other words, we must choose what we will and what we will not think about. I have shared this illustration before, but it is worth repeating. A thought is like an airplane circling above asking permission to land in our minds; we can tell it to land, or not to land! The temptation to think on a wrong thought is not a sin, it is yielding to the temptation to dwell on the thought that is a sin. May each of us take full control over what we think about and meditate on; let us filter our thoughts through Philippians 4:8. Let us choose this day to think like Christ-we can do just that!
1 Peter 1:13 “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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