“…the WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations (logismos: forming a mental image of something not present), and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and BRINGING INTO CAPTIVITY EVERY THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ…” …” (2 Corin. 10:4-5) All conscious acts—creative ones, righteous ones, or evil ones—are born from our thoughts. There never has and never will be a willful act that did not first begin as a thought. That is how we were created!
If we truly love the Lord, we will want to control our thoughts. Truly, there can be no deep spiritual progression until we are able to CONTROL our own thoughts. That’s why we are told to bring into “captivity every thought.” To TAKE CAPTIVE means to trap, seize, control, secure, and conquer. The Lord inspired me, a few years ago, with a practical application of how to understand this concept. I brought a lemon and an onion to the pulpit with me, I held up the onion and asked each one to think about how you might prepare this. Some even had watery eyes as they remembered peeling onions. Then I put the onion away and held up the lemon, we talked about lemon meringue pie and other lemon uses. Then I asked them “what happened to the onion?” We “cast it down” and replaced it with the lemon! When the devil tempts us with evil thoughts we must replace these thoughts with scripture and “CAST DOWN” the evil thoughts. And “…bring into captivity EVERY THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ…”
The Lord said what we should do with HIS WORD, we should, “…TEACH them diligently (shânan: to pierce; figuratively to inculcate) to your children, and shall TALK of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up…You shall WRITE them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:7-9)
KEEP GOD’S WORD BEFORE YOU AT ALL TIMES!!!
-Bill Stockham