Greetings, 

Feelings are a funny thing. If you could control them it would require a lot of energy. God designed our autonomic nervous system to operate without our attention. Of course there are things that we can do to mitigate our feelings, but controlling them is impossible. A thought pops into our head and automatically has attached to it a hurt or a joy that was associated with a past experience or trial. It isn’t the thought or the feeling that gets us into trouble with our feelings. It is what we do shortly after we think and feel. 2 Corinthians 10:5 reveals a tool that every believer should work to master, that is taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Every sinful thought and every hurtful thought. Every time a thought pops into our minds and causes an emotional response that isn’t Christ-like we must train our minds and bodies to capture that thought, measure it against Christ’s standard and choose instead to think and act as Christ would given that thought, emotion or situation.

You see, it’s that’s easy. (Thick sarcasm implied)

It isn’t easy at all. Our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9) 

I tell myself and my children regularly, "you don’t have to act how you feel." That's a simplistic way of remembering that my body is to be controlled by me and given to the Lord as a sacrifice. Taking hold of our emotions and actions is a difficult task and we can’t succeed on our own. The Lord is with us so we shouldn’t be dismayed, He is our God; He will strengthen us, help us, and uphold us in his righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).

Believing that means putting it into action. Trusting the Lord is not a passive action. Trusting the Lord is taking thoughts captive. Notice, Paul does not say to the Corinthians, hold your thoughts captive until you either forget about it, or until it dies a slow painful death. He says take it captive to the obedience of Christ. It means actively sacrificing those thoughts to the Holy Spirit so He can transform, what we would “naturally” do with them, into what is supernatural, obeying what the Lord calls us to do regardless of the situation. 

I believe this is how the Holy Spirit molds us into the image of Christ. The more we deny our natural urges, taking them captive to the obedience of Christ, the more we respond to trials and triumphs in a Christ-like way. The more obvious the impact of Christ on my life, the more people want to know about this Jesus that transforms people.


Love ya,
Chris