What Are You Thinking?

READ: 1 KINGS 3:5-12; 2 CORINTHIANS 10:5

God did an amazing job when He created humans. Our brains alone are made up of about 100 billion nerves that communicate in 100 trillion connections, controlling all of the systems in our bodies and allowing us to communicate, think, and reason.

But, because our world is broken by sin and death, sometimes our brains give us the farthest thing from wisdom. Our thoughts run wild—often with lies about who we are—influencing our feelings and actions.

For example, let’s say you enter a room. Everyone looks at you, then goes back to what they were doing. Wild, lying thoughts might go like this: “Everyone just looked at me. Nobody came over to talk to me. They probably hate me. I should just go home.” Then you might go stand in the corner because you think you don’t belong.

If you can capture those negative thoughts, you might be able to see the situation like this: “They all looked at me, but nobody talked to me. They might be just as nervous as I am. But Jesus loves me, and He loves everyone in this room. That table only has two people. I’ll see if I can join them.” Instead of standing in the corner, you choose to participate by showing Christ’s love to others.

But how can we change our wild thoughts? We can’t. We need God’s strength and wisdom, found in knowing Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:2-3). In 1 Kings 3, Solomon asked the Lord to give him wisdom, and God was pleased. He’s pleased to give us wisdom too (James 1:5).

God will greatly increase our wisdom when we read His Word, the Bible, because it shows us who we are in relationship to Him, our Creator. It tells us the good news of how Jesus can give us freedom from sin and death—and how that wonderful truth affects every area of our lives.

Capturing your thoughts to obey Christ can help you over and over as you go through life. Tell yourself truth from God’s Word instead of letting your wild thoughts push you around. • Robyn Mulder

• Step 1: Take out a piece of paper and try writing all of your thoughts down for five minutes or so. Read over them and see which ones line up with God’s Word and which ones are just wild, lying thoughts.

• Step 2: Below what you have just written, take each wild thought and rewrite it as a Christ-captured thought.

We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5 (NLT)