Taking Every Thought Captive

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,"

Lately I have been under very severe spiritual attack. I am in the midst of stepping out in faith and following God in starting a new ministry, and the enemy has been attacking me every step of the way. He is going after my mind, bombarding me with negative thoughts about myself and those around me. He's been trying to convince me of some of the most ridiculous things I can possibly think of, no pun intended. I was suffering tremendously everyday. Finally I just got fed up with it. I got so mad that I said "Enough!" As soon as I made that shift to resisting instead of accepting these thoughts the Holy Spirit deposited this portion of the verse into my spirit, "take every thought captive" and "rebuke every negative thought". (In your mind you can say: "I rebuke every thought of______ in Jesus' name!" and/or "I plead the blood of Jesus over every thought of _______!") I realized at that moment that I am in control of my mind and what thoughts are allowed in there. I realized I've got to take my power back and that I have to take control of my mind. These negative thoughts were of the enemy and not from myself. I realized those thoughts had no right to be there! I pictured myself as guardian of my mind, standing guard to what I allow in and every time these very persistent negative thoughts would come I would refuse them and make them leave, over and over and over again. I knew I needed to keep persistently telling them to leave and eventually they would get to the point where they would leave me alone. This was exhausting, but I was so angry and fed up that it fueled me to be able to resist them over and over again. They came back to me every minute for at least a couple hours until I was finally had a breakthrough. They left me alone. However, I know they will come back and next time with a better disguise.

At first I thought of the door to my mind like a heavy wooden door with a peephole to look at who is on the other side. Then I realized the door is more like a revolving door where all kinds of thoughts are coming in, including ones that were poisonous, sent by the enemy, and good ones from God or neutral ones of myself. I realized I had to stand guard at this revolving door and watch out for those poisonous thoughts and when they came in force them to leave. We are like the security guards of our own minds. Sometimes we are not aware of the poisonous thoughts because they come disguised as our own or even from God. We have to judge them based on their fruit. Do they bring fear, judgment, anger, disgust or hate (or lead to these things)? We have to rebuke them. Sometimes they are disguised as neutral and neither good nor bad, but uncover themselves to be poisonous ones. These are disguised thoughts. Thoughts that are obsessive and aggressively take over our minds are most definitely of the enemy. I started having thoughts that were so hateful towards people that I realized these cannot be my own thoughts. These are evil. I realized this is not who I am as a believer in Christ to think these kind of hateful thoughts towards people. I was able to be objective about these thoughts and realize they were not my own. The demons try to overcome our minds by fear and intimidation. We have to stand up to them and not back down. We have to realize our authority in Christ. We can't let the enemy bully us. We have to confront these thoughts head on, and not back down. We have to scare them off with a holy ferocious boldness. We have to take the power back over our minds. We have to step to these thoughts, get in their face and tell them to get lost.

I am learning more and more to walk in the power and authority of God and not be afraid of anything. God is not afraid of anything and His Spirit is in us.

1 John 4:4

"You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."

We can walk in the power and authority of God because of His Spirit within us. This is a great article on understanding our power and authority in Christ: Understanding Power and Authority

We have been given the Spirit of God, which is a Spirit of POWER. This is power that is not afraid of anything! In the Spirit that is within us there is absolutely no fear of sickness, death or any devil! God is greater than any of these things. If God is for us who can possibly be against us? Romans 8:31

2 Timothy 1:7

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of POWER and of LOVE and of a SOUND MIND."

This means absolutely no fear of anything, a holy boldness and courage that comes from God Himself who is not afraid of anything!


Philippians 4:8

Meditate on These Things
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."