Joel M Bradshaw

5…take every thought captive to obey Christ…–2 Corinthians 10

Paul was describing the inner war that Christians wage against the enemy. His context seems to indicate spiritual warfare, not physical people. He mentioned destroying arguments on the one hand and one’s own behavior on the other. This implies that the enemy was tempting the Corinthians to disobey God and they were pressured then to follow through with the sin.

In between temptation and sin is the thought life. You don’t do anything without first thinking about it. Go ahead and try. Your brain is faster than you. You will have thought first about anything you say, do, or feel. So this becomes your greatest weapon to utilize. I do this all the time. Let’s look at scenarios.

1. TEMPTATION. I am tempted to sin and I tell myself, “Hey! This won’t honor God. Don’t go there.”
2. ANXIETY. I am facing a stressful situation and I tell myself, “God’s got this. He cares for me.”
3. DEPRESSION. Depression always attacks my thoughts, because it maintains stories to tell myself. I attack depression at the thought level by changing my stories. I’ll say something like, “God loves me. He cares for me. He is faithful.”

My favorite ways to take thoughts captive is to replace them with Bible verses. I always have Psalm 46:10 and Psalm 31:14-15 at the ready, because I usually need to be still know that my times are in his hand. They are the two major self-talk replacements after I take captive stinking thinking.

Biblical self-talk is the way to do today’s verse. You tell yourself to knock it off and then you tell yourself something you need to remember from the Bible. To do this regularly you need to hide the Bible in your heart (Psalm 119:11) and repeat the verses to yourself often. I have set alarms on my phone to remind me of my two favorites. 3:30 happens and my phone starts chirping. I wonder what’s going on? The screen reminds me that my times are in God’s hands. My afternoon now has a self-talk reminder.

Take stinking thinking captive. Change the stories you therefore tell yourself. You have the power to change the way you think. This changes the way you feel and the way you act. This is your greatest inner weapon. It just takes discipline to wield it.–JMB