I'm Taking Captives!

"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
It's doesn't really matter to me, I love to eat both.
But that's not my point.

What comes first, thoughts or actions?
Romans 12:1-2 tells us to offer our bodies as worship and to be renewed through the transformation of our minds. The two (body and mind) are inextricably intertwined.

So why not look at this whole "thought and action" thing in a more holistic way?
2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us, "... we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

In some situations our actions are instinctive. They just happen without thinking.
I don't have to think about the action of breathing. It just happens.
I don't think about grabbing my kids arm when he/she steps into traffic. It just happens.

But in many areas of life, especially where our values and character is involved, our actions follow our thoughts. And so, we must take action on our thoughts. It goes something like this...

First, we take the thought CAPTIVE.
We think something that is not glorifying to God, others or ourselves.
So we actively name the thought.
We bring into the light.
We confess the thought to God, who already knows the thought. (God doesn't need the confession, we do!)
If necessary we then make confession to the offended party.
We may need to confess to a spouse if there has been a betrayed of our vows in our thoughts/actions.

Now that it's captive, we take ACTION.
Now we must think about how we make the thought obedient to Christ.
We re-train, rebuke or correct the sinful, selfish thought. Maybe we right it down, and the steps require to re-wire a thought pattern. They say it takes about a month to make a new habit in many cases, so take month and make this your new habit.
Every morning take that thought captive.
Then make it obedient to Christ.

This past week I worked on taking few thoughts captive. I actually thought I could have them beat before I returned to London. But I now realize it's going to take more action, and more time. But it's always worth it to bring our thoughts into obedience.