Taking Thoughts Captive
To have the mind of Christ is to have our thoughts totally set on and framed by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The mind of Christ is one of power, love, and self-control. This is an objective reality for all who are in Christ. The Lord intends our minds to enjoy His fruit at all times.
About a year ago, I received one of the most impactful revelations I have ever had. A battle had been raging in my mind - tormenting thoughts accompanied with shame, hopelessness, and spiritual heaviness.The Spirit spoke to me and said, “all thoughts are neutral until your heart lays claim to them.” I asked the Lord to elaborate further.
The Lord began to explain that with the Spirit, He has given us the ability to separate our thoughts from our emotions. We are able to capture thoughts and align them with God’s Word.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NSRV) “for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
We have heard and read this truth many times, but we are helpless to apply it unless we understand that the key is awareness. The issue is our programming. We are conditioned to respond in certain ways to certain thoughts, based on what we believe about them. Our thoughts are not our own, in reality they are our mind’s response to activity happening in the spiritual realm. If I believe every negative, dark, or demonic thought originates somewhere in my own humanity, I will go on believing that I am the problem. Likewise, any thought marked by the fruit of the Spirit originates from the throne room of God, and did not start with me. In one way or another, anything not marked by the demonic is from Jesus Himself. He is the Lord of life, and He is in all things and through all things. By Him, everything is held together. We are never, in any way, separated from His life. His emanating glory from heaven empowers all life in the natural.
How do we make our minds obedient? We invite the Lord into every thought we have. This is difficult to practice at first, but the more we try, the easier it becomes. As each day goes on, I am finding I have a greater and greater awareness of what I am thinking, and I am able to share all these thoughts with the Lord. In other words, I am able to use my imagination in such a way that I can literally stare at a thought in my own mind without it feeling like it is my own thought. At this point, I imagine the Lord Jesus joining me in the thought. I ask Him what He thinks of the thought, where it came from, and why it is passing through my mind. Once I hear from the Lord, I am able to “claim” the thought and allow the subsequent emotion - peace, joy, excitement, etc. I call this process “splitting thoughts.” This process feels tedious and foreign at first, but over time it becomes almost automatic. This is how the mind becomes renewed more and more into the image of Christ. I used to have thoughts that would automatically alarm me and produce shame, anger, and despair. Now, I have great control over what I am thinking and feeling. I do not need to attach any feeling to a thought. The key is practicing awareness, inviting the Spirit into every single moment, and allowing Him into the process of reprogramming.
The power of the human mind is what separates us from the animals. It is the tool by which we interact with the world around us, collect information, and make decisions. Our mind is also the primary place where the spiritual realm invades the natural world. Through it, we interact with the Lord’s Spirit and the spiritual realm. As our minds are renewed in our walk with the Lord, as He transforms our wine-skin (Matthew 9:17), we become more and more aware of God’s voice and our interaction with the spiritual realm.
What about our emotions? When I am able to filter my thoughts with Christ, I am able to hold off on responding emotionally to the thoughts I have. Thoughts don’t mean anything in and of themselves. They are inherently neutral in nature- they are neither good nor bad. How our heart responds to our thoughts is what brings us closer to either heaven’s reality or a lie of the enemy.
For many people, the processes of thinking and feeling are nearly identical. This is because we are deeply conditioned throughout life to respond automatically to certain thoughts we have. One key purpose of the Spirit’s indwelling is the permanent overhauling of our thinking patterns. The Spirit reveals what Jesus is thinking.
As we live life with the Lord, we are granted greater and greater awareness that He is with us in everything - every thought, action, and circumstance. When I understand this truth, I am able to invite Him into every thought without fear of shame, judgement, or punishment. My mind begins to align itself with God’s Word, and I experience true and lasting freedom.
