Release The Captive Minds
Did you know that our greatest battle is that of the mind? Our mind is our soul, not our spirit. When we are born again, it is our spirit that comes to life. The Holy Spirit joins Himself to our spirit and we become one with God, (I Cor. 6:17). The regenerated spirit expresses itself through the soul, which is the mind, emotions and will. Because the soul is used to doing things its own way, it must be brought into submission by being made obedient to Christ. This is a process that involves renewal, sanctification and deliverance.
The soul, (psuche in Greek), controls the body. The mind tells the feet to walk, the arms to lift, the finger to point, etc. The tongue says what the soul tells it to say. If the mind is full of negative thoughts, then the tongue will speak negative words. For the life of God to be fully experienced by the believer, the soul must be transformed. Here is where the battle begins. Paul told the Colossian church to be careful not to be taken captive by philosophies, human traditions and elementary spirits of the world. What you hear goes into your soul and will be the basis for your decisions. The enemy’s strategy is to take control of the mind. He desires to establish fortresses, (mindsets, paradigms, etc.), from which to defeat the intentions of the Spirit. A captive mind is a mind that compulsively goes where it should not go. It argues against the Word of God and resists His Will.
The state of our soul is revealed through our attitudes. An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, events, activities, ideas, or just about anything in our environment. Attitudes reveal our thought patterns. There is an instrument in aviation called an “attitude indicator”. It shows the position of the plane to the horizon. When the plane is climbing, it has a “nose-high attitude” and when it is diving it has a “nose-down attitude”. So goes the saying, “your attitude determines your altitude.”
Just as the attitude of a plane can be changed by the pilot making some adjustments, so we must make adjustments in our thinking to experience the abundant life that God so desires. We are to set our minds on things of the Spirit, (Rom. 8:5-7). We are to be continually renewed in the spirit of our minds, (Eph. 4:23). We are to have the same mind, (attitude), as Jesus, (Phil. 2:5). John Maxwell said that: “we are only an attitude away from success.” My father-in-law used to say: “A chain is as strong as its weakest link and the mind is as strong as its weakest think.”
Wanting to change our mind is not the same as doing it. Being set free from a captive mind begins by what you listen to. Jesus said to, “Pay attention to what you hear,” (Mark 4.24). To the degree or measure we give attention to the Word of God, is the measure our mind is adjusted. With a renewed mind, right decisions are made and our life is transformed.
Scriptures to meditate on:
II Cor. 4:4; 10:4-5; Psalms 19:14; Phil. 2:5; Rom. 12:1-2