Taking Every Thought Captive

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  2 Corinthians 10:3-5

I teach in the Prayer 101 classes, this very concept when it comes to Spiritual Warfare. We come against the schemes of the enemy and his plans to “steal, kill and destroy” our identity in Christ and to steal our faith. It would drive you crazy if you had to try to hold back every single thought you have and try to take it captive. So what is it saying here? What thoughts do we take captive? When we find ourselves in spiritual warfare, that is the time we are called to action, to begin to identify our thoughts, match them up against God’s Word and to cast out those thoughts that do not line up with God’s Word. Let me give you an example. You are in a meeting and you represent a project that you had spent time, energy and it is your best effort. At the meeting, all the other projects are being discussed and your project is not. Everyone there is lifting up and praising the other projects with the exception of yours. The discussion ends and they go on to another topic, and your project was never mentioned. Now, you begin to feel offended. This is where it starts. Feeling insecure and unworthy the thoughts, “see, you didn’t do a good job”, “you are not important”, “everyone is better than you”. Are you getting a picture of the thoughts and lies that the enemy is influencing you to think. This is spiritual warfare! You can begin to believe the lie and accept the sadness, rejection, insecurity and unworthiness that the enemy is enticing you to believe OR you can stop and recognize these thoughts as coming from the enemy and TAKE THOSE THOUGHTS CAPTIVE. How do you do that? You tell your thoughts, “STOP”, those are lies and I will not believe them. Because they did  not mention my project does not define who I am nor does it say that my project was not acceptable. You stop that thinking, you begin to refocus on truth of who you are as defined in God’s Word. I am HIS masterpiece, I am the apple of His eye, He delights in me, He sings over me, I am a Child of God...”. Taking thoughts captive is to stop the negative thinking and replace them with God’s Word and with affirmations of who you are. We choose to not be offended for it is by accepting lies about who we are that we can become oppressed by the enemy. The best way to always come against principalities and strongholds is to use God’s Word to see the truth and be set free from lies of the enemy. It will become more automatic as time goes by, to renounce the emotions/lies and to redirect our thoughts to God’s Word and to thoughts that line up with it.
Question: What lies have you been believing that you need to renounce and take the thought captive?