By Marni Montanez
New King James Version (NKJV)
5. casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ
It is in our power to cast out of our minds anything that argues against who God really is and what He has said about Himself and about us. Our thoughts play the biggest role in moving us to action or causing us to feel certain ways.
To cast down and bring our thoughts into captivity is to submit them under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is to agree that everything God says and commands is right and true.
Our thoughts can lead us down the long halls of darkness or free us into the realm of light. From thoughts our emotions and actions are produced. Because of this, the enemy uses thoughts to afflict and torment us.
What are your thoughts about? What are you thinking about God, about your life, about you and others? Are your thoughts of truth? In scripture it tells us that whatever is true and noble….etc, these are what we should be thinking about. It doesn’t mean that we ignore the horrors that go on in this world. It means we take these to God with our petition or prayers for Him to change the matter, but we are not to dwell on these thoughts or images which will eventually oppress us. Only God has the capacity to think about these things and not be subject to them. Every thought must bow before Him. I read a commentary that said when we bring our thoughts under God’s ruler ship and control, “the center of man’s being thus becomes fully subject to the lordship of Christ.
Everything we think will have an impact on our behavior. As Christians we must believe what the word of God says about every situation. I find that this is a struggle. The world says be thin or be young and beautiful….etc. Do our thoughts line up with this way of thinking or do we have the resolve and understanding that the enemy has devised a strategy to get people to think along a path that will bring them to their destruction? All our thoughts of worry, shame, fear….must be thrown under the feet of God so that He can crush them. We must relinquish the thoughts that do not agree with God.
I challenge you to be mindful of what you are thinking and then whatever you see that is not of God say these words.
“I take these thoughts captive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and rebuke anything that causes me to think contrary to God’s opinion in Jesus’ name”
God bless you
Marni
The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving,
compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God
tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what
does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk
humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no
more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us
to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human
beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do
otherwise is not Christian.
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