Take the Power Back Demolished Arguments and Captured Thoughts

2Corinthians 10: 2-5 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. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 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.

We either believe what the Bible says or we do not. The Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth for the second time is not mincing his words here about spiritual warfare. Within these few verses are our keys to winning our battles through the Lord. Yet despite the verses, we sometimes find ourselves circling the same mountain or crawling through the same deserts, year after year. Remember, the enemy has already lost the battle for your soul. He knows it, God knows it, and we need to know it as well. That said; his aim is to incapacitate your walk and effectiveness for the Kingdom of God as much as possible. Jesus however came to provide us with the abundant life:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10: 10 (NKJV)

These are the two sides that have been drawn. The enemy of your soul wants to simply steal, kill and destroy. All of the positive things God wants you to experience abundantly, the enemy seeks to ruin. He wishes to steal your joy, kill your hope and destroy your faith. The sad part is sometimes we let him. Now it is true that sometimes God has us in a wilderness experience to grow or learn a spiritual lesson but many times we either walk willingly into the desert or stay longer than necessary because we do not hold these truths in God's Word as close to us as we should. We become distracted by our situations and uncertain in the storm. We can doubt. When the trials of our life come against us we can fall into the trap of thinking that our faith is enough but God teaches us:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder. James 2: 19

We need to be active participants in our Christianity. Believing in God is not enough. Knowing the Word is not enough. We can have a tendency to intellectualize the Word. We know it. We memorize it. We can do exegetical studies on it and explain our interpretations to others. But when we need to implement the Word in our lives, during our storms, we can be left with the words ringing hollow in our ears. That is often because while we may read God's Word (may) we do not do so as part of our preparation for spiritual warfare. Psalm 119 is by far the longest Psalm in the Bible and it deals with the approach we need to take to the Word of God. Within this Psalm we see the difference between merely reading the Word and internalizing it:

I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. (V 10)

  I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. (V 11)

With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. (V 13)

I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. (V 14)

  I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. (V 15)

I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. (V 16)

These are just a sampling. Seeking God. Hiding His Word in our hearts. Verbally recounting His Word. Rejoicing in His Word. Meditating on His Word. Delighting in His Word. This transcends "reading." Sometimes we can approach His Word as something tedious that we are "supposed" to do as opposed to approaching with the zeal of the Psalmist who understood that it contains the very life we seek; yet can be so elusive. It is a battle beloved and while the battle may be the Lord's we still have a part to play.

The Apostle Paul understood this in our key verses from Second Corinthians. Verse two shows that Paul has no intention of being soft on the people who have mistakenly decided to live by the standards of the world. Paul draws a distinct line between the fact that while we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. I feel the point the Holy Spirit is making here to me is that while we must live in the world, the world should not live in us. We are called out already. In fact, 114 times in the New Testament the Greek word ekklesia, is translated as the church. Ekklesia actually is translated as "a called out assembly." Going back to Psalm 119 we find one of the more poignant verses to define what our role is once we are called out:

I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me. Psalm 119: 19

We are but strangers in the world. Yet sometimes we can find ourselves becoming more comfortable with the world than we are with the Word of God. That is what Paul is saying in verse 2 and 3. There were a certain number of people in the Corinthian Church who had reverted back to the standards of the world and he had every intention of dealing with them boldly. We need to be just as bold in dealing with ourselves when we are dealing with worldly standards in our own lives. We either believe what we believe or we do not. We do not negotiate with the world. We do not debate the world; seeking for exceptions to God's Word. We cannot stop the enemy from trying to engage us. He has been doing it since the Garden. Eve could not stop the enemy from approaching her. The problem is she chose to have a conversation with him. She considered what he had to say. She knew what God had told her yet she still allowed the enemy to speak beyond his opening lie. She began to doubt what God had said. We need to learn from Eve that the enemy wants to engage us in a conversation to draw us away from what God has already told us. He wants to draw us away from God's standards into the standards of the world. Too often we engage the enemy and walk right into the desert.

Verse four from the key verses has Paul reminding us what our weapons are! A passive observer does not have need for weapons beloved. Again, we are to be active in our Christianity. Our weapons are not of this world. The key word in this verse however is divine. The world might have their weapons and their solutions to problems, but they pale in comparison to weapons and solutions that are divine in nature! Our weapons and solutions come directly from God Himself! Too often we find ourselves in the middle of the storm and we seek help from the world. We seek our solutions from the world. We are in the middle of the battle and we seek out the weapons of this world to fight our battles. We seek therapy instead of prayer. We seek medication instead of praise. We seek revenge instead of mercy. We seek retribution instead of grace. We trust what we see instead of what we believe. God has warned us about this as well:

We live by faith, not by sight. 2Corinthians 5:7

It is not surprising that we find this verse also in Paul's second letter to the Church at Corinth. When Peter walked on water he was able to because he stepped out of the boat in faith. Once he relied on his sight he saw the waves and he began to sink. So it can be with us as well. We walk by faith but when the storms get rougher we can start seeing the waves instead of Jesus. We start believing the waves instead of His Word. We can begin to lean on what we see instead of what we believe. God has also given us guidance for that as well:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6

This is not a suggestion from God, it is a command. It does not say trust Him with most of your heart but with all your heart. It does not say acknowledge Him when things are going well, but in all your ways. Our own understanding is not divine. It is of this world. The reference to making your paths straight actually means He will let them be known. You want to know the way out of that desert? Are you seeking the harbor in the tempest but don't know which way to go? God will make your paths known. He will show you. But in all of your ways you must acknowledge Him first.

And that starts with understanding the weapons which God has armed you with. While we live in the world, the world does not live in us. His weapons are divine and in verse 5, we see the keys to our role in the spiritual warfare the enemy seeks to engage us in. First we must demolish any argument or pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. The New King James Version says we must cast down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself above God. Note that language. That is what the world does. That is what the solutions of the world are. They are high things trying to exalt themselves about the knowledge of God. Who makes these arguments? Who proposes these pretensions? Certainly they can come from the enemy and he can whisper them into your life. We should also be on guard against them coming from other people; even other Christians. It is difficult for us to always see that we are using a worldly solution. The bottom line is if a solution in your wilderness is not from the Word of God then it is in opposition to it. It is set up against it. God is telling us here that we are to cast down those arguments.

But Paul also realized that sometimes the enemy comes from within. Sometimes it is our thought life that is the problem. We can enable our problems with our thought life and our self talk. Someone who is depressed does not expect to feel good. Their expectations then become realized. Their self-talk is defeating in nature and overtly negative. The thoughts multiply and breed within us. The person suffering from addiction thinks they cannot break it. Their self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as they continue to try to wield the weapons of the world to solve a problem only God can solve for them. The person suffering from anxiety spends today worrying about tomorrow. They awaken with a negative thought and they allow it to grow and fester. Their self-talk is "I can't..." or I will never..."

In all three of these scenarios the person has abdicated the control of their life to the wilderness they are walking in. If only we could as easily abdicate that control to God! We cannot have our thought-lives run our real lives. We cannot entertain the thoughts that are not aligned with God. Paul says here in verse 5 that we must take captive every thought and make them obedient to Christ. What a powerful verse to remember and implement in our lives. Every wilderness we might be in or any sin that might tempt us begins with a thought. When David saw Bathsheba, he had not sinned. Once he allowed his thoughts to set themselves up contrary to God that was when his sin was born. Likewise, our thoughts are not sins but what we do with them will decide our fate. We must take every thought captive and make it obedient to God. If it is not obedient to God then we are to not entertain the thought we are to cast it down.

We either believe what the Bible says or we do not. There is a war going on and it fought in the spiritual realm. The enemy is trying to make you irrelevant for Christ. His weapons are of this world. His solutions are of this world. But they are all set up to exalt themselves over God, as Satan himself tried to do once before. God cast him down from heaven beloved for trying to exalt himself above God and so we must also cast down whatever is being set up in opposition to God. The abundant life awaits for those who walk in His power. We obtain that power by abdicating our control to Him; not to the thoughts or arguments of this world. Take the power back today and turn it over to He who is sovereign in your life. God Almighty.

Reverend Anthony Wade June 25, 2009.