Take Captive Every Thought

Have you noticed the confusion and unrest that is increasing every week in the world around us?  The news organizations are overwhelmed with excitement over all the news they have to report.  It seems like people are becoming more and more on edge as the security they once felt is slipping through their fingers.  As they sense instability shake the foundations they have stood on for many years, they begin to respond to those difficult changes with great resistance.  From the Middle East to Capital buildings in our own country, people are violently protesting anything and everything that sets them sideways.  It is almost like we have thrown to the wind all restraint and order for the sake of getting what I want; creating a state of disorder and confusion. It is interesting that all of this unrest is closely aligned with the entire financial crisis that the world has been going through.  As the Bible clearly states, people will serve either God or money.  Now 'money' it turns out has left them hopeless and they are searching for something to revive that hope once again.

Where is all of this coming from?  Is it coming from mere differing opinions that have clashed for years and now they have finally reached their tipping point, spilling out in anger, or is it something more defined than that?  I believe that it is something that we have seen throughout history.  It stems from the very character that Satan has demonstrated through history, to bring destruction to the human race.  He does this using a very simple and cunning weapon, particularly designed to attack our minds.  So how can we as Christians protect our minds and lives from the same attack that we are seeing in the lives of unbelievers around us?  Paul addressed this very thing with Christians in the Church of Corinth.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 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 TAKE CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGHT TO MAKE IT OBEDIENT TO CHRIST."

We cannot stop Satan from using his weapons against our lives. Critical and negative thoughts are going to come looking for a place to roost in our minds.  However, Paul tells us to TAKE CAPTIVE every thought that is set apart from the thinking found in Philippians 4.  When we treat these thoughts as something that are only passing and random, eventually we will discover that these thoughts like seeds have planted a field of anger and criticalness.  Soon our life will be like a field of thorns choking out anything that is fruitful in the Kingdom of God.  Take captive even the little thoughts of negative and critical thinking and you will find that your life will be even more blessed and free.