Guard Your Mind
Hey everyone! It’s your girl Julie, back with another segment of “Salty & Lit,” a faith-based blog teaching young girls and women what it means to be salty and lit and how to live them out according to Matthew 5:13-16.
Let’s pray:
Father, You are so good. Thank You for being kind. Thank You for your patience in teaching us how to take thoughts captive. Help us to renew our minds by standing in Your Word. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
“I’m afraid of how they will feel..”
“I’m afraid of…”
“I’m afraid of…”
These are the thoughts that have been running in my mind lately, but I’ve been growing through the experience of renewing my mind, which is taking a thought captive and aligning it with God’s truth according to 2 Corinthians 10:5. It says this, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (ESV).”
Oftentimes, we have thoughts running in our minds, and we don’t know where they came from. They could come from the enemy (Satan), the media, a friend, a family member, loved one, yourself, God, or somewhere else. If we’re not mindful of the thoughts we have, we could end up living our lives based on lies, which is why it’s important to take thoughts captive, but what does it mean to take thoughts captive? I’m glad you asked!
Taking thoughts captive means the following: acknowledging a thought and literally submitting it to the Lordship of Christ. But you might ask how do you actually do that, Julie? Again, I’m also glad you asked that lol.
Here are action steps to take thoughts captive:
Take Observations of Your Thoughts (Think about what you’re thinking about).
In order to take thoughts captive, you have to be aware of the thoughts you’re having → that’s called metacognition (the ability to think about what you’re thinking about) in the field of Psychology. Thoughts come rapidly, and humans think many thoughts in a day ~ 6,000 a day (Raypole, 2022)! So it’s one thing to think thoughts, but it’s a whole different ball game to actually acknowledge the thought you’re thinking. Remember, we’re in a fight sister (bro, if you’re reading this), so the enemy is going to try to attack you in your mind, so you have a choice on what to do with your thoughts: accept them, ignore them, or take them captive.
Choose What You’ll Do With a Thought.
Sometimes, we give thoughts too much of our attention, and sometimes too, thoughts are just distractions. Imagine we spent time caring about every single thought, we wouldn’t have time to do other things in our lives! In Matthew 6:27, Jesus talks about the fact that worrying won’t do us well. In fact, He says, “Can it even add a moment to your life?” When you worry, you are wasting time because you’re fixing your attention on something that doesn’t need that much attention from you.
Think about a pesky fly. You know how sometimes, when you see one near you, you just start swatting and giving it all of your attention? And then it’s like you give it even more attention because now it has all of your attention. I think of that with thoughts. Sometimes, you may need to swat, but other times, you can let it pass. When we let thoughts dominate, we can start to dwell on those thoughts and accept those thoughts even if we didn’t want to at first.
Test It Against Scripture.
In order to test thoughts against Scripture, you need to know Scripture. As “salty and lit” women, we are women of the word, in the word, and who live by the word. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, Jesus used Scripture (God’s Word) to fight against Him. The first response Jesus gave Satan is this, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). That means, though we live and eat food, that’s not the only thing that should feed us. God’s Word feeds us. When we meditate on it (hello “Dwell!”), we’re able to fight against the darts of the enemy.
Sis, we’re in a fight against an enemy who doesn’t want us to win, but the truth is we’re already victorious through Christ Jesus. My love, let's take thoughts captive and bring them under obedience to Christ, so we can live the lives God called us to live as salty and lit women and men.
Let’s pray.
Father, You are so good. Thank You for teaching us to take thoughts captive. Help us to be mindful of the thoughts that come to mind, knowing they can come from different sources. Help us to take them and compare them against Your Word. Help us to understand that every thought that is not like You, we can take them captive and bring them under obedience to the name of Jesus Christ. Help us to know You more. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
With that being said, don’t forget you are loved, salty, and lit! 🧡
