Daily Devotion March 18--Taking Captive Your Thoughts

March 18

2 Corinthians 10:5

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

I don't know about you but my thoughts have been all over the place lately.  When you read so much conflicting information you can see that so many emotions are being expressed in the world around us today--fear, anger, hopelessness for example. But these aren't the only thoughts we need to take control of daily.  Pride, arrogance, jealousy, sinful thoughts, negative thoughts must all be taken captive.  The mind is powerful and it seems as though sometimes we have no control over where our thoughts go.  Sometimes Satan tries to get in our head and we must rebuke him and these thoughts.

We have God's Word to guide us in the process.  The Bible tells us in the first part of Proverbs 23:7:  For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.  What are we focusing on?  Are we letting the things of the world so overtake our thoughts that we forget all of God's promises?  Giving all of our cares over to God is a great way to take our thoughts captive.  Sometimes when things seem to be spinning out of control, I find myself singing the old hymns that have always been a part of my life since childhood.  I can find a place of calm and rest by allowing the words to take the place of anything negative going on in my head.

We must each take responsibility for  changing our thoughts.  We must focus on the right things; on the good things. So very often I hear the voice of my grandmother as she would encourage us to change the subject of a discussion that she knew was leading us down a wrong path.  "Let's talk about something else" she would say.  She knew how to take thoughts captive and she was guiding us to do the same.  When we find that we just can't get our thoughts under control, we need to go the Lord in prayer about them.  We need to tell Him that we know we can't handle this on our own, that we need His help to refocus our thoughts.  Don't let the lies of the world take hold in your mind.  God is still awesome.  God is still powerful.  God is still in control.  Trust in that and think on those things.

As we go through the day, let us always strive to keep our mind focused on God and take captive those thoughts that threaten to make us doubt Him.