Take Every Thought CaptiveSample

Many of us have silently decided, I’m unworthy! We think a strong and confident mind is for other saints. For those holier than us. We think we will always feel dejected, like a loser, or left out.

Doubt will say, God couldn’t really love me like this. I’m not good enough. I’m junk. I messed up too much. Thoughts like these will block out God’s redeeming and all-surpassing love and truth.

We can’t own what we won’t receive. All the spiritual blessings Jesus has already blessed us with (Eph. 1:3), we will refuse and not own. We will deem our perception of self higher than His. Yet when we receive God’s love, it changes our minds. Hope returns. This is mind renewal, when His thoughts about us becomes our thoughts about us. It is when His love not only works through us but works in us. It is when we receive Him as our security rather than giving in to insecurity.

We can have no part in the mind of Christ without receiving His thoughts, His heart, His washing, and His mind for us. Will we be receivers, or will we be deniers because we are so bent on keeping a flesh-centric sin identity? None of us are worthy without the saving blood of Jesus, but all of us are worthy because of it. Will we take and eat His body, no matter how arrogant and self-indulgent it feels, or will we turn away, declaring we don’t deserve it? Will we receive His helping hand or bat it away? Will we hear His voice in the wilderness, or will we keep running to our own demise? One choice connects to the heart and mind of Christ, and the other leads to a prideful death. There is no mind renewal without receiving.

Receiving means sitting and pondering. It means taking a truth and letting it become part of you. Chewing on it. Asking God about it. Seeing it on you. Receiving goes beyond the mind, directly to the heart.

Receive this: God thinks good thoughts about you. Often. His thoughts are lasting and not wavering. He keeps track of your hard days, He understands you, He notices all things about you, He is jealous for you, He wants you, and, before time began, He chose you for a specific purpose.

Join me in receiving and declaring helpful truths from His Word like these:

I am not my sin!

I walk by the power of Christ in me.

I am dead to sin and alive in Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!

I am not led by the flesh, which is death, but by the Spirit. I walk into life and peace.

You can do this, too. Own these truths. Absorb them. Speak them aloud. Don’t let go of them. Only when we take God at His Word will the Word take hold of us. Only when His Word dwells in our hearts does it become our dwelling. When His words are the words we are speaking to ourselves and to others—words of love, hope, and life—we can surely know our minds are successfully walking out the renewal process.

Mind renewal brings life refreshment! See Christ in you. Think upon His love for you. Know who His Word says you are. Look at the world through Him and His Word. Protect these things as sacred.

Jesus didn’t die for someone unworthy of His love. My friend, you are wholly, entirely, completely, and amazingly worthy of His love.

Today’s Declaration: Jesus died for me because He wants me as His. I am loved, chosen, and called! I am dead to my sin and alive in Christ Jesus.