I’m on medicine and haven’t had much sleep lately, so I hope I can convey what I feel so excited about this morning. God is so good, all the time. I just love looking for His favor no matter how the day or week starts out just as I stated in Monday’s email. God will always come through for us if we’ll continue to walk with Him. ☺
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And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
In John 1:14 above, God told us that Jesus is the Word. When I read the Bible, I’m reading about Christ and all He’s made available for me as His child.
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Wow, my fantastic wife’s been having the Holy Spirit speak to her lately about “to the obedience of Christ.” She told me Jesus wants us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ to protect our lives.
I know that the only time I (Mark) get in trouble in my own thought life is when I don’t take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. For example, if I don’t forgive someone when I think they’ve wronged me, I’m not taking the unforgiving thought captive to the obedience of Christ which tells me to forgive everyone all the time – doing so keeps me from having a root of bitterness planted in my spirit. Jesus tells me to live a forgiving life for good reasons.
Another example is if I’m being careful about something instead of casting that “care” on Christ. I start to take on care instead of being obedient to Christ. And this kind of lesson covers all of life as outlined in the Bible. This is why it’s so important to study and know the Word of God, the Bible. If we don’t know the Word, we don’t know that we can take certain thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, and, instead, we live in bondage to those thoughts instead of living free from them to/in the obedience of Christ. Boy, this is so powerful.
In His love for us, God gave us this precious scripture to liberate us from sin’s (doing things our way instead of God’s way) grip on our lives – and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). He gave us these verses so we could live His way which leads to life instead of living our way which leads to such bondage and death in so many areas of life.
Husbands, love your wives (Ephesians 5:25) is another way I can be obedient to Christ. When I’m loving my wife, our marriage and lives thrive.
There are so many of these types of scriptures in the Word of God. When we discover them – like “be careful for nothing” – we can choose to live in “to the obedience of Christ” and live in the liberty only Jesus can give us.
This is so wonderful. Christ has set us free from the consequences of sin by showing us how to be obedient by taking thoughts captive to His truths as spelled out in the pages of the Bible.
God bless you, precious people of God.
Mark