Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 132
TRANSCRIPT
Have you ever said something and then instantly regretted it? Of course, most of us have. Did you know that the #1 battleground for the enemy is your mind? Did you know that sometimes even good thoughts need to be taken captive to the obedience of Christ? In today’s podcast we are going to talk about the verse that says to take every thought captive and just how important that is.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. One of the most important disciplines we need in order to live the Christian Life is the ability to take every thought captive. Today’s verse is 2 Corinthians 10:5, and I’m reading from The Passion Translation, it says, “We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.
I want to go in a couple of different directions with this podcast. Most of you have heard sermons on this verse, some of us, many sermons. So, I am not going to go at this from an exegetical standpoint. I want to put this into simple language to help us in our everyday life.
The first thing I see in this verse is that we are to take EVERY thought captive, and not just those negative or sinful thoughts. I think those sinful thoughts are obvious thoughts we need to grab ahold of and stop. But what about the good thoughts? Do we also need to take those into captivity as well? The answer is yes. The first time I heard someone say that we need to also take every good thought into captivity I was like, What? Why do we take good thoughts into captivity? Because this verse says make every thought bow to the obedience of the Anointed One, Jesus. That includes thoughts that on the surface might not be sinful or evil.
Why is this so important? Because of verses like Romans 12:2 again from The Passion Translation that says, stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” To say it bluntly, we have been brainwashed by the ideals and opinions of the culture around us. We have been fed a steady diet of these ideals from the day we were born through our families, through school, through television, through the media, through movies, and on and on I could go. We don’t really know the depth of this indoctrination. There is a wonderful line from the movie The Matrix that says, “The Matrix… is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The movie pointed out a spiritual truth: the world we can see often times blinds us to the truth. Let me go to the extreme for a minute hopefully to prove a point. Let’s say you know something that you think is true about the world, or about God, or really about anything. You believe it is true but what if it is not true? How do you know? The only way to know is to take that thought captive and make it obedient to Christ Jesus. I also believe that there are good non sinful thoughts that we need to take captive and ask Jesus about. Let me give you an example. Cindi tells the story of being in a restaurant having coffee with a friend when a young lady walked in. Cindi instantly had a word of knowledge that this sweet young girl had two abortions and was experiencing terrible guilt and remorse. Cindi shared this with her friend so they could pray together for the young lady. To Cind’s horror, the friend immediately got up and went and told the girl that God knew about her two abortions in an attempt to minister to her. What it did was send the girl running out the door crying. What the friend did not do was take this thought captive and ask Jesus what to do with it. Cindi is pretty sure Jesus gave that revelation so she and the friend could pray for this girl without lettering her know. That was a good thought that was not taken captive and actually hurt instead of helped the situation.
Our words are powerful, which makes it even more important to take every thought captive and check with Jesus before knowing what to do with them. Since our words are so powerful we need to be very careful how we use them. As James said both blessing and cursing come from the same mouth, and it should not be that way. Word curses are very destructive because the negative words we speak take on the power to create when spoken. We also have an enemy that is able to take our spoken words and orchestrate events to make them happen. For example, it is not uncommon for an exasperated parent to say out of their frustration things like, “You are never going to amount to anything”, “how can you be so stupid”, “you are just like your mom” and many other things said in the heat of the moment. Once these words are spoken, we have just declared something into existence that will go on for generations. Plus, as I mentioned the enemy can now take these words and empower them to make sure they happen. There are many people languishing in subpar situations because someone spoke failure over them as a child.
Isaiah 54:17 says: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which accuses you in judgment you shall condemn.”
This is an amazing verse which talks about the power of our words. First it says that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Why will no weapon prosper? Because you don’t let it prosper. You have the God given authority to come against these attacks and stop them. The verse then tells how you defeat the weapons, so they don’t prosper. You, standing in your authority as a child of God, hear from heaven on the validity of those words spoken against you. You take them captive and ask Jesus about them. Then you declare what God is saying in heaven about those words to condemn the judgments coming against you. By the power of the declaration, you say to those judgments against you, NO! I do not receive you! God says that is not true! And by doing so, the weapon that was intended to harm you will not prosper. Your words are powerful!
Another powerful way to use the spoken word is to declare over yourself and your home and family the things God has promised to you in His word. Take verses like Deuteronomy 28:13 and daily declare them over you and your family. “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.” I declare that we are the head and not the tail, we will be above and not beneath.
Declare Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Personalize that as a declaration, “I declare that my God will supply all of my needs according to His unlimited riches”. When sickness comes, declare Isaiah 53:5 over that sickness. “I declare that By His stripes I am healed.”
You can also declare the things that God has promised to you personally. Take the promises He gave you for your marriage and declare them into existence. Declare the things God has said to you about your children or grandchildren. Walk around your house and declare them out loud and watch as situations begin to shift.
One of the best things you can do for yourself following receiving RTF ministry, is to declare your new Godly beliefs and Godly Identity statements out loud to yourself on a daily basis. It is a wonderful idea to look at yourself in the mirror and declare your Godly Identities over yourself as often as you need to for them to become firmly rooted in your belief system. Declaring them while looking yourself in the eyes in the mirror is a powerful way to bless yourself. And be sure to keep them in the “I am” form. “I am royalty.” I am a prince.” I am God’s favorite. Sorry, that was one of my Godly Identities. When you begin to declare those over yourself, I guarantee that your life will change.
Do you have situations in your life that need to change? Maybe you are having financial problems. Maybe your marriage is not what you want it to be. Or maybe it is a difficult situation with a child or grandchild. Take whatever the situation is to prayer and find out what God is saying about that situation. Remember, God’s children (His sheep) do hear His voice. Then take what God is saying about that situation and begin declaring it. Some things change overnight, and some things change a little slower. Don’t stop declaring what God told you about the situation until you see change.
2 Corinthians 10:5 was written in spiritual warfare language because as we have said the battlefield is in the mind. Notice that taking every thought captive will also help us “demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God.” Wow, we live in a day and age where we need that ability more than ever. There are so many ideas rising up opposing God that are creeping into the mainstream. I think the foundation of all of the attacks that oppose God started when we kicked God out of schools by removing prayer from school. And for that I blame The Church. Those of us who lived during that time allowed it to happen. There should have been an all-out spiritual civil war to protect our right to pray in school. Once prayer was removed from school you can see a steady decline in our culture. It became easier for the enemy to pull the world over our eyes to blind us to the truth. Not long after that came the attack on marriage, that marriage was not just between a man and a woman. Now it has progressed into mainstreaming the idea that people can change their gender and anyone who stands up for Biblical truth is a hater. These are all part of the “arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God” as it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
Taking every thought captive is vital in this day and will become even more important in the years ahead. So how do you take EVERY thought captive? It is going to come through a change in most of our lifestyles. We are so rapid paced and have so much to do that we find taking every thought captive time consuming and cumbersome. I have found it difficult over the years when someone tried to give me a set of to-dos that worked for them, because frankly we are all so different that those to-dos might not work for me. So instead of a list of to-dos, here is my encouragement. 1.) Try to slow down and do what it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “Pray without ceasing.” We are so accustomed to “imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you” that it will take concerted effort to slow down and take time to take every thought captive. 2.) Another guiding verse is Philippians 4:8 reading from The Passion Translation, “Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind.” Wow, what a difference that would make in our need and ability to take every thought captive. Pastor Bill Johnson says that he doesn’t have time to entertain thoughts that are not also in the mind of God. That’s good preaching right there.
PRAYER
Father God as we begin this new year of 2025, would you help us be mindful of slowing down to take our thoughts captive so that we don’t have thoughts in our minds that are not also in God’s mind. This kind of thinking is crazy in this fast-paced world filled with all kinds of ideals and opinions of the culture around us. We need your help.
If this is speaking to you directly, would you be willing to pray this prayer? Father God, I give you permission to help me take every thought captive.
Thank you for joining us on this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. We look forward to being with you again next week.
