August 31, 2022 TAKING EVERY THOUGT 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; somehow, we have the ability to postpone until another day what we should do today. 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, 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 pitfall we must be alert to, one common misunderstanding we hear is that a person is born with a positive attitude or born with a negative attitude. (We are born with different temperaments.) That belief or viewpoint is the very thing, the lie that can 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 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. Philippians 4:8 gives us a good general framework, or a ‘standard mode of operation’ of what we think about. Romans 12:2 tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind-and who does not want to be transformed? 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.
1 Peter 1:13 “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
2 Timothy 1:7 ”For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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