Bringing Every Thought Into Captivity and Making Them POW's

Bringing Every Thought Into Captivity and Making Them POW’s

Bringing every thought into captivity is what I thought we as Christians were supposed to do when our minds are bombarded with thoughts that run counter to God’s Word. This statement is true however, I discovered in a recent study that bringing every thought into captivity doesn’t go far enough.

2 Corinthians 10:5

⁵casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

In addition to bringing every thought into captivity, verse 5 tells us to bring those thoughts into the obedience of Christ. I’ve read 2 Corinthians 10:5 many times but I saw this verse in a different light just recently. The negative thoughts that the enemy sends our way are to be put to work for us. They should be brought into the obedience of Christ.

Life As a POW

From what I understand, Prisoners of War suffer beyond anything that you or I can imagine. They live lives literally as slaves to their captors. POW’s are forced to work for their captors in whatever way their captor sees fit.

2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. According to Websters 1828 dictionary, the word obedience or obey means:

To comply with the commands, orders or instructions of a superior, or with the requirements of law, moral, political or municipal; to do that which is commanded or required, or to forbear doing that which is prohibited.

This is what we are to do with the thoughts our enemy brings our way. We are to force them to comply with our orders or instructions. Simply speaking, we are to force thoughts that contradict what God says, to comply with what God says. So what does this forced compliance look like?

IFTTT – If This Then That

Please allow me to get techy for a moment. In my social media endeavors, I use a service called IFTTT. IFTTT stands for If This, Then That. The IFTTT program links two different services or programs together. IFTTT triggers an effect when an action is initiated. For instance, if I post to Twitter, I can program the IFTTT software to post a different item to Facebook. If this happens, then that will happen.

An example of forcing a negative thought into the obedience of Christ would be to field the thought and make that thought trigger the opposing train of thought. The negative (the headache you’ve had for the past 3 days is probably a tumor) is captured and triggers the positive response out of your mouth (by Jesus stripes I am healed according to 1 Peter 2:24). IFTTT – If this happens, then that is triggered. Get it?

A dart from the enemy is: I have no money and I’m going broke…

The IFTTT trigger would be:

My God shall supply all my need according to His riches in Glory (Philippians 4:19)

A dart from the enemy is: I can’t do this job…

The IFTTT trigger would be:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)

A dart from the enemy is: I’ll never be delivered from this situation

The IFTTT trigger would be:

The angel of the Lord encamps around and about them that reverence Him to deliver them (Psalm 34:7)

The IFTTT principle is actually how we fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). Our fight is fought with our words. Our words have the ability to stop our thoughts in their tracks. You cannot think a negative thought and speak a positive word at the same time.

There is literally an IFTTT trigger in the Word of God for every thought the enemy could possibly bring our way.