2nd Corinthians 10:5

Okay guys we are back from camp ! So tonight a few announcements; This week we hav worship Discipleship and then next week we are back on track for discipleship.

Jr. High this weekend you guys are going to camp ! you are going to have a blast !

So tonight id like to share with you all a verse that I have personally been thinking about for the last few days now and have shared with the Homeschool group yesterday morning

the life we live as a believer is one that can at times be difficult especially in our minds, we battle over and over again every day the enemy of our own mind

Since biblical days we see that as a believer there is a battle , a war that goes on in the mind of each and every one of us

Its a spiritual battle between the flesh and the spirit and it is fought in the mind of the believer

satans battleground is fought in the mind of the believer,

satan fights to influence our thoughts, attitudes, and actions through lies, deception, and negative, destructive strongholds, often leading to doubt and fear

We often times think that because we believe in Jesus and we have accepted him into our life that life is going to be perfect and that he is going to take away all of our problems

the truth is our problems are caused by our own doing, our own decisions and they start in the mind ! they start with a thought, a temptation and after a while of allowing that thought in , action follows , sin is committed

So I wrote a number of questions that I believe paint a picture of exactly what we deal with in the mind of a believer and so im going to ask you these questions, you can write them down and answer them to yourself if you’d like

QUESTIONS:

How many of you have ever had bad thoughts before ? 

how many of you have ever had mean thoughts ?

How many of you have ever had thoughts that cause you to be scared ? 

How many of you have ever had thoughts that make you sad ? 

How many of you have ever had thoughts that cause you to make mistakes ? 

how many of you have ever had thoughts that are weird ?

how many of you have had thoughts that are mean towards others ? 

how many of you have had funny thoughts ? 

How many of you have had thoughts that cause worry ?

How many of you have thoughts that cause fear ?

How many of you have thoughts that cause doubt ?

How many of you have thoughts that cause anxiety ?

we could probably continue making a list on this but the idea is we have a serious battle for our minds every single day that we are alive and breathing

Lets read the verse ill be sharing, turn your bibles over to 2nd Corinthians 10:5

2nd Corinthians 10:5 NKJV “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

2nd Corinthians 10:5 NLT “We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”

We all have these thoughts that go through our head each and every day , being humans and living in a fallen world we all struggle with our thoughts 

our thoughts are ideas, images, or opinions that we have in our mind 

and often times these thoughts, these images, and theses opinions can control our every day life 

I’m a thinker myself and sometimes I think too much about everything and honestly it gets very tiring ! ( How many of you can think so much about something it makes you physically tired ? )

Sometimes when I overthink things I end up making circumstances a-lot worst,

How many of you have ever taken a test for school before ? Have you ever failed a test even though you studied ? I Have. Im a bad test taker because sometimes I over think the answers ! Even though I know them !

Our thoughts have the ability to control us

what we focus our minds on can eventually lead to action …. If i’m thinking about something so much eventually i’m going to do it because i cant get it out of my mind , that can be scary when those thoughts are bad thoughts

This verse says that we are to capture our thoughts and teach them to obey Christ ! 

you know what it means to capture something ? 

Bad guys get captured and taken to Jail !

Police officers, their job is to capture the bad guy and arrest them !

That means they take them and they stop them completely ! They don’t let them go / run ! 

the same is true with our thoughts we are to capture them in their tracks, we need to stop thinking about them immediately !

When we allow ourselves to continue thinking about those things it only makes it worst !

If your someone that is a thinker its not a bad thing but you need to learn how to control your thoughts and take them captive ! Arrest them before they can run !

our thoughts are influenced by what we see and there is a progression from a thought, to dwelling on a thought, and then from dwelling on a thought to acting out those thoughts ) it becomes sin )

The Bird Analogy:  A common illustration is that one cannot prevent thoughts (birds) from flying overhead, but one can prevent them from building a nest (dwelling on them)

our goal is to not allow these thoughts build a nest inside our mind

a place where more and more thoughts grow , A nest is a place where eggs are laid and eventually they hatch and they give birth to new life

its the same with our thoughts , if we are allowing a nest to be built inside our mind, you better believe that its going to give birth to more intense, more frequent and more dangerous thoughts

A) So the question really becomes how do we take our thoughts and teach them to obey christ ?

Memorizing scripture is one of the ways we can arrest our thoughts

How many of you love reading your bible ? How many of you memorize scripture ?

Memorizing scripture is so important, when you have bad thoughts enter into your mind because you can compare it to the truth of scripture ! and if it doesn’t line up with Gods word you know its not true !

How many of you Know King David ? He was a man that struggled with his thoughts and at times His thoughts lead him to do crazy things and during those times in his life he wrote a-lot of the book of Psalms

One Psalm He wrote was after he had a man killed and took the wife for himself and its after he’s repented

David was growing and learning from His mistakes and out of this he wrote this one Psalm

Psalm 119:11 “11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”

David recognized that if He memorized Gods word, if it was hidden in his heart, HE would be able to fight against the bad thoughts in his mind !

how do you think that would have helped him when he was tempted with Bathsheba ? I mean think about it if he knew where the temptation would lead do you think he would of continued to allow those thoughts to build a nest in his mind ?

Like think about if he would have remembered a simple verse like James 1:14–15 “14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

His own sin that started in his mind lead to the death of His family members, Absalom we just talked about this a few weeks ago dies , His 2nd son dead and you see the response of David weeping over his son !

if only he would have held those thoughts (on that roof while he should have been at war) captive………

Some of us in this room you all have really good parents and they have given you the tools to do the right thing by raising you in the church, yet some of you really struggle to hold your thoughts captive

if only scripture was hidden in my heart when i was about to make a bad decision …..

if only scripture was hidden in my your heart when i was sad

if only scripture was hidden in my heart i would be less anxious

if only scripture was hidden in my heart, how much different would my reactions be !!!

if only scripture was hidden in my heart my thoughts would change !!!

thats the battle that should be taking place in the mind of a believer

Romans 12:2 “2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Romans 12:2 NLT Says it this way… Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

we just talked about this at camp for those of us that were there, our minds need to be renewed daily by the word of God

memorizing scripture is so important, sometimes your not always going to have your bible or your cell phone on Hand unless your Danny and Leighton

Expound

B) Another thing we can do to arrest our thoughts is search Gods word for what it says about the very thing we are thinking about

Gods word has an answer for everything !

there isn’t one thing that you think about in your mind that you can not find in Gods word

Gods word gives us wisdom, it gives us peace, it gives us purpose, it gives us comfort , it gives us strength, so what ever your mind wanders to Gods word can help you !

Go home and search His word for Help !

When we are helping a friend who is going through a hard time the best thing we can do is point them to Gods word !

the same is true in our own mind, if your going through a hard time with your thoughts, direct them to Gods word ! ( go literally do research and find out what Gods word says about what you are thinking about)

this weekend at camp we talked about this very thing, we have cell phones and they are viewed for the most part as an addictive thing that we could all spend less time on, but think about it this way

if you have 3 hours a day on your phone what if one of those hours was you researching Gods word about the thoughts and questions you have ? how much more would that help you to hold your thoughts captive ?

“Teach Our thoughts to Obey Christ”

the last part of the verse says to teach our thoughts to obey christ

Ask yourself , are my thoughts Glorifying God or are they going to cause me to make a bad decision ?

Are my thoughts lining up with Gods word or do they want to do the opposite of what God says ?

Our little Scotti, sometimes she gets scared before bed , How many of you get scared to go to bed ?

She has memorized scripture, and before bed we ask her to say the verse and it comforts her and it helps her to sleep. So when she’s scared she repeats 2 Timothy 1:7 “7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

the fear she has is not from God because he says that he does not Give us a spirit of fear, instead he gives us a spirit of power, of Love and of a sound mind !

So when we have thoughts what ever they may be remember to take them and arrest them like the bad guy in a movie and compare them to Gods word.

Ask the lord to give you strength and help you overcome your thoughts

Man its hard when you get sucked into a cycle of thinking and thinking , the reason I share this with you all is because just the other day there was something very serious that I just couldn’t stop thinking about and i leaned over and said “ Hey Kel what do you think about this” And her response to me was this verse

2 Corinthians 10:5 “5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

after she shared that with me I was like dang i am dwelling on my thoughts waaayyyy too much

Keeo your eyes on Jesus Lets Pray