Playground or Prison?
Every moment of the day, we must decide if our minds will be a playground for the enemy’s thoughts or a prison. When he injects thoughts of hopelessness, fear, doom, despair, jealousy, do we allow those thoughts to frolic freely in our minds or do we take them captive and make them obedient to Christ? When the enemy accuses us, lies to us, condemn us, do we spread out a blanket and have a picnic with those thoughts or do we send those thought to death row and take that blanket and smother those thoughts until they are lifeless?
Is your mind a playground or a prison for the enemy?
Paul instructs us to take every thought that rises against the knowledge of God captive and make it obedient to God. How do we do that?
1. Recognize the enemy’s voice. If the thoughts you are having make you feel guilty, condemned, less than, hopeless, discouraged, fearful, anxious it is not God speaking. It is not your soul speaking. It is the enemy.
2. Once you recognize the source of the voice, do not partner with it. Do not allow your words to agree with it. Your words have power because God has given you authority to decree and declare things into existence. Therefore do not give your power to the enemy by agreeing with him. Do not repeat his thoughts with your mouth.
3. Take the thought captive by casting it out and taking authority over it. Say things like, “Fear you are not my master. I take authority over you and cast you out of mind in the name of Jesus.”
4. Make the thought obedient to Christ. Declare who the Bible says you are. Have scripture at the ready (put them on index cards, write them on your mirror) and declare what God’s says about you. “I am accepted I the beloved. I am forgiven. I am loved.” Meditate on things that are pure, lovely, virtuous.
5. Worship. Worship creates a hostile working environment for the enemy. Not only have you taken him captive, he has to then watch you as you give God all the glory instead of him. That’s cruel and unusual punishment.
Is your mind a playground or a prison for the enemy’s shenanigans? You choose.
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 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 10:4-5 NIV
http://bible.com/111/2co.10.4-5.niv