Captivating Thinking

Day 15

A decade of  ministry has provided amazing opportunity to meet countless women. Sweet faces who stare back at me from a crowd of 200. Women with worn out Bibles, so worn out the only thing holding it together are rubber cement and rubber bands.

Over the years they have walked into the venue in cute capri pants with open-toed sandals to display freshly pedicured toes or long jackets and dark jeans carrying their Bibles ready to hear from Jesus. Yes I have met many women who love Jesus. These cute capri wearing, pedicured toed, dark jean wearing, Bible carrying girls have something in common other than style and a mutual love for Jesus. The girls, as well as this girl, are easily captivated by wrong thinking.

We Jesus girls allow “she” and “her” to rob of us Him.

Lysa refers to it as misguided feelings.  “She” did not sit with me in Bible study so I assume she is upset with me. “Her” son received an invitation to the special program so I automatically believe she will not have time for me any longer. “She” never responded to my email. “Her” phone number was changed and I was not given her new number. Misguided feelings: unsubstantiated events or circumstances with logical explanations that run amuck in our minds and captivate our thinking.

Misguided feelings lead to misguided responses. Misguided responses have the potential to ruin relationships, our relationship with people, as well our relationship with the Lord.

Our thinking should be captivated but captivated by truth. Paul teaches how to transform our wrong captivated thoughts guided my misguided feelings into right captivated thoughts yielded to truth. 2 Corinthians 5:10

“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.” (NIV)

“We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.” (Message)

I could not resist including The Message version of this powerful teaching. The world sets up arguments that stand against the knowledge of God. This is misguided thinking.

These arguments pretend to be truth and sounding logical, captivate us. Girls, we won’t know our captive thinking is wrong unless we know the right and freeing truth of God. When we allow ourselves to be captivated by the right thinking (knowledge of God), we destroy anything that stands in its path (misguided thinking). In the light of God’s truth, captivating misguided thinking will be torn down and smashed!

The misguided feelings will be gone, leaving us to be fully captivated by the knowledge of Christ and in the freedom that belongs to us as His child.