We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
–2 Corinthians 10:5
How do we confront wrong thoughts? First of all, we should refuse to feel guilty when wrong thoughts come into our minds. Second, we need to resist allowing those wrong thoughts to linger. That leads to tactic number three: we need to recognize wrong thoughts and replace them with God’s thoughts. Let’s say a burglar knocks down your front door and makes his way into your house. You may not have any control over that, but once he is inside, you are certainly not going to fix him a pot of coffee and allow him to take up residence in a spare bedroom. Instead, you are going to do everything you can to get him out of your house as quickly as possible. That is what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 10:5 when he wrote, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Once wrong thoughts are in your mind, you need to recognize them as wrong thoughts, and then replace them with God’s thoughts.
How do you know if a thought that comes into your mind is from God or Satan? A few weeks ago, I gave you three filters for evaluating the messages you receive–including the thoughts that come into your mind. Ask yourself:
- Is this thought true?
- Does this thought motivate me toward faith and obedience, or toward fear and disobedience?
- Does this temptation in any way contradict the clear teaching of God’s Word?
The problem is, after recognizing a wrong thought, most of us just do everything we can not to think about it. But that approach is absolutely useless in spiritual warfare. It is not enough to recognize wrong thoughts; we need to replace them with God’s thoughts. That is exactly what Jesus did when He was being tempted by Satan in Luke 4. Satan said, in essence, “You do not have what You need to be satisfied in life. Why don’t You turn these stones into bread?” Did Jesus try to put that thought out of His mind? No, He responded to that wrong thought with the right thought by quoting from Scripture: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone’” (v. 4). Jesus did the same thing for the other temptations Satan put into His mind–He replaced those wrong thoughts with the right thoughts from God’s Word. That is how we “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
