WRITTEN BY MICHELE HANSEN
“…for we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16b)
Thinking. Everyone does it. God designed our brains in such a way that modern science is just now able to map a few things. Compared to God, human logic and thinking is like a toddler drawing on a wall with crayons compared to Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.
Vandalizing thoughts…that’s what I call ‘em…they are a smash and grab kind of thinking where the intrusive thoughts barge in, hijack my brain, put a potato sack over my head and throw me in a ditch somewhere and by the time I get the sack off my head, I don’t know where my thoughts took me, and I can’t figure out how I got there…
Can anyone relate?
The Bible has much to say about our thought-life. If we don’t think about what we’re thinking about, we’re going to two step our silly selves into one hot mess after another.
Why would it matter what our thoughts are thinking? What’s that got to do with righteousness? It matters a great deal…what we think begins to manifest in actions…good, bad and ugly, despite the fact that God knows exactly what we’re thinking anyway.
The Bible is perfectly equipped to help us learn how to police our thought life and take every thought captive…into the obedience of Christ.
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 10:5, NIV)
Our weapons are supernatural because we are battling supernatural forces that are determined to knock us off a spiritual cliff. The word of God-our, the shiny sword of the Spirit is, what we use to stand up to the “thought bullies” that try to push us around.
The fight to stay focused isn’t within my power to achieve. I need to remember whose power I have been given as a weapon of “mass instruction.” Getting that beautiful, awesome, powerful Word of God down deep in my soul and staying in submitted reliance on the Lord at all times is the recipe for some mighty powerful thought wrangling.
What does it look like to take those rogue thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ? First, I need to know what I’m thinking. Does what I am thinking about line up with the character and word of God? If it doesn’t, it needs to be brought under the authority of Christ.
How does a believer do that? For me, it’s like lassoing a lizard sometimes. Slippery. But the thing about intrusive thoughts is that they will continue to come up until we put ‘em in a headlock and wrangle them to the ground, in Jesus name, of course. We take those thoughts and put them before the word and presence of the Lord. We need His help. We don’t have the ability to destroy the power they have over us, but God does, and He will. We replace the wrong thoughts with the truth of God until there is no room for anything but the truth. We begin to believe what God says and not what our thoughts are digging up in us.
That’s the healing work of the Holy Spirit. God’s Word is “living and active.” (Hebrews 4:12). This verse talks about how the word of God does surgery in our soul. It is alive with the power of God and as we take in His truth, it literally changes our spiritual DNA. The word says we “are a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Changed from the inside.
The battle for our mind will not end this side of eternity, but the power of God and His living word have the ability to bring us closer and closer to the purity of Christ in our thinking and by proxy, our righteous acts. We are being purified in thought and actions through the grace of God in Christ.
We as believers have been given a precious and powerful gift of Holy Spirit and the Word of God. He has given us everything we need “for life and godliness”. (2 Peter 1:3). We do not have to be bullied or captive to our thoughts that affect our emotions. We can absolutely know the deliverance of God through the power of Christ.
As we begin to come under the power and protection of God, His Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit, our actions will follow. The righteous acts that clothe us come from the “renewing of our minds” in Christ. (Romans 12:2) As our minds are renewed, our actions will follow and the image of Christ in us will be more and more evident.
Dear Blessed Father,
We are unable to represent you well to the dying world around us without the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Thank You for giving us Your word and the Holy Spirit to renew us from the inside out…for Your Glory and for the world to know You.
In Jesus Name
