I awoke this morning and the enemy was trying to convince me that people were against me.

How was he doing that? Thoughts.

How do I know my thoughts were not the Holy Spirit? The thoughts were accusatory and made me feel rejected, defeated, and guarded. The Holy Spirit always leads us to hope.

How do I know the thoughts were not mine? I have the mind of Christ. My thoughts align with Christ.

So what do you do when you are bombarded with thoughts of defeat, fear, worst case scenarios?

1. Identify the source. Remember anything that causes you to fear, steal your joy, kill your dreams, destroy your day is not from God. And since you have the mind of Christ, it is not from you either.

2. Disrupt the thought. When you find yourself meditating on lies, stop. Tell yourself, “These are not my thoughts. I have the mind of Christ.”

3. Take the thought captive. (Melissa, that is just churchy jargon. How do I do that practically?) Well Paul actually advised us to take every thought captive AND make it obedient to Christ. In the Greek, captive means to lead away. So we lead our thoughts away from the lies and to the truth.

Find truth in the word and then meditate on truth. Begin declaring the truth with your mouth. You can’t say one thing while thinking something else. Say what God says in His Word. Lead your thoughts away from destruction, away from death and lead it to life, to hope.

This is not a one and done activity. Bombard the thought with truth. Rapid fire truth at the lies. Say it over and over again. Every time the thought tries to get a stronghold in your mind, declare truth.

An example: As I said, this morning the enemy tried to convince me I would not succeed because someone was against me. But the truth is:

“There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.” Proverbs‬ ‭21:30‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I meditated on this truth until the other thought made no sense. My reality became, “What God has for me is for me and no one or organization can thwart his plans for me.”

I lead my thoughts from feelings of defeat to feelings of victory.

Okay boys and girls, here is your homework. Go take those negative thoughts captive. Lead your thoughts away from negativity and lead them to hope.