Taking Every Thought Captive
No. What we think influences what we do. It's like my Instagram feed. All these amazing Bible pages make me feel so motivated to study and illustrate my faith, but my own Bible doesn't have space to make so many notes and drawings. The more I looked at other people's journaling Bibles, the more I wanted one, the more I thought about it and started to stress over how to get the money for one.
This same thing happened last year when I was filling my mind with things that would make Jesus cringe big time. We're talking gross things; things that encouraged being gay, hated on Christianity and made death look kind of appealing (I'm talking mostly about sin because it leads to death, but yeah, I was suicidal for a spell).
And the same thing happened in grade one when everyone else had a zhu-zhu pet and I didn't (I got a zhu-zhu, don't worry, but I wanted it so badly that I drove my parents crazy for one.)
My mom had started saying "the things you fill your mind with is what you begin to think is ok." And it took a few weeks of hearing this for it to really sink in.
The more I read fan fiction that supported the gay lifestyle or made premarital sex look desirable, the more I wanted it. I became so desperate for that feeling that I dug myself a deep hole of sin and still, a year later, am struggling to get out.
"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 10:5
You can look the part, show up to church in your Sunday best, every hair in place, looking like the perfect Christian girl, but God doesn't care about how you look. He cares about your heart. So, when you're getting dressed for church (or not, because quarantine got me looking like a whole mess), do you just go through the motions? Do you put on a mask and try to make up for last night's sins?
God can see past your mask.
So, how do we take every thought captive? Whenever you notice that you're going down a rabbit hole, away from Christ, straighten yourself out. Go sit upstairs with your family so you won't do something you'll regret. Read your Bible and genuinely pray. Write out a list of verses on cards and keep them in an envelope by your bed and read them when you're feeling tempted. Write them again and again until you've squashed down the lies (I love buying cute notebooks, so if you do too, go get a cute one just for this purpose). But seriously, turn back to the path and follow Christ. And prayer really can turn things around, but you have to work at it. You can't just say "yo, Jesus, please don't let me do this" and expect your heart to do a full 180 turn. Put down whatever is making you feel this way and pray. Pick up your Bible. Set a timer for 10, 20 minutes and listen to Christian music or pray or read. If you can, get an accountability partner or someone you can call when you don't feel like you can say no.
That's a long paragraph and I think I repeated a lot of things, but maybe that helps get my point across.
"My eyes are always on the Lord, for He will pull my feet out of the net."
Psalm 25:15
Coffee and Bible Time has an amazing podcast about stopping sin cycles and I've listened to it so many times, it's truly inspirational and I highly recommend their podcast.
Try to fight these lies that lead you to sin by finding Bible verses and memorizing them.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."
