Taking Every Thought Captive & Making Them Obedient To Christ
I wish and pray with all of my heart the Lord would show me how to help everyone standing for marriage restoration understand how VITALLY important it is to TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE AND MAKE IT OBEDIENT TO CHRIST! With more time and experience in marriage restoration ministry, I understand that even more myself, and that’s why I know how important it is to help others understand it as well. Anyone who has visited the site much at all knows how greatly my life was impacted one day when I read the following verses from Revelation 12, even though I had read them at least several times before; because they say:
9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ”Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
It was totally mind boggling to me that the Lord would equate the word of our testimony with the blood of Christ, especially in terms of its ability to defeat and overcome the works of the devil! I feel like I could write a book about this topic, and maybe some day I will, because there is SO much contained in these verses! Obviously, our testimony is VERY important, and since it has the power and authority of Christ to overcome Satan, don’t you know he’s going to do his wicked best to destroy our testimony? Don’t you know he’s going to use his evil power to stop us from speaking words (the WORD of our testimony) that give glory to our Lord and Savior? So when WE ALLOW HIM to convince us to TALK about, focus on, or react to our situations and disappointments instead of relying on the AWESOME, omnipotent power of God, our Father who loves us so much that He sent His beloved Son, Jesus, to die a horrible death on the cross for us so we’d have access to the SAME power that raised Him from the dead,, WE accomplish his purpose. And when we’re standing for the miracle of marriage restoration, WE CAN NOT AFFORD TO DO THE DEVIL’S WORK INSTEAD OF BEING A VVESSEL FOR THE LORD’S WORK AND GLORY!
The following passages of scripture show us VERY clearly that we are fighting a spiritual battle AND how to claim the victory Jesus died to give us, so I urge everyone to read them and meditate on them. Ask the Lord to help you understand them and to show you how to apply them in your lives and situations:
Ephesians 69
11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
2 Corinthians 10
2 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world.
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 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.
Yes, our situations are facts that can’t be denied in the earthly realm, but they are also arguments and pretensions setting themselves up against the knowledge of God, and we MUST DEMOLISH them, which we do ONLY by taking EVERY thought captive and MAKING them OBEDIENT to Christ, who is the WORD of God, and in whom ALL things are made and exist, as the following verses from John 1 reveal:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.