(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 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; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
2 Corinthians 10:4-6
God hates evil thoughts. When God destroyed the old world with a flood of water, He saw that the imagination of men’s hearts was only evil continually. He rebooted the earth with Noah and his righteous family. God really hates evil thoughts. When Christ returns, it will be like the days of Noah all over again. Evil thoughts and evil imaginations in the hearts of mankind. Few if any people doing good and walking in love. God destroyed the world once with a flood and will destroy it the next time with fire. All because of mankind’s stubborn refusal to walk in His holy way of love through Christ Jesus. Having the mind of Christ is our reasonable service, God says. The mind of Christ is that we would please God always by doing His will on earth. His will is that we would use our thoughts and imaginations for good, for love, for victory, for healing. Doing good from the heart is the will of God for mankind. We accomplish this by being born again through faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. We further accomplish this by being baptized with the Holy Spirit sometime after being born again. Being born again and being baptized with the Holy Spirit equips us to walk as Christ walked.
When Christ was on earth he went through a series of temptations by the devil in the wilderness. Notice that Christ did not dwell on the lies the devil was throwing at Him. He could have thought on those things, but the Word of God declares that we should think on good things. Things that are pure and lovely and upright. We can imagine Christ violently casting down those imaginations of the devil with force, the same way He drove the moneychangers out of the temple with force. Only this was a spiritual battle, with spiritual weapons, namely, the Word of God which is the sword of the Spirit. Christ replaced the bad imagination and bad words and bad thoughts with something pure, the Word of God, which lives and abides forevermore, amen. The Word of God states that we as Christians have the mind of Christ. Yet, having the mind of Christ is a continual choice to think on worthy things. This is the cost of being a Christian. We give our mind and heart over to things that please the heart of God. Laying down our faculties so that the heart of God may rejoice over us with singing.
The greek words translated pulling down and casting down in these verses can mean to destroy or demolish. That is the context of these verses. It is a VIOLENT REJECTION OF EVERYTHING THAT DOES NOT PLEASE GOD. God sees what we think upon. It hurts Him badly every time we entertain vain or worthless thoughts. He designed His Word to be in our mind and in our hearts. Imagine yourself going 5 minutes without thinking on anything perverted. Surely it is possible to do that for 5 minutes. God wants us to train ourselves to go longer and longer periods of time without defiling our minds and hearts. 5 minutes leads to 30. 30 minutes leads to an hour. One hour can be repeated 24 times so that we have victory for a complete day. We are being trained like soldiers, only our weapons are not carnal or natural, but spiritually mighty through the Spirit of God to VIOLENTLY THROW DOWN each thought that does not line up with the mind of Christ. Our lives are not our own. We are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your spirit and your bodies and your MIND, which all belong to God. He is the one who created us. He’s the one who knows what should be inside of us, in our minds and in our hearts and in our imaginations. Your body and your spirit are tools that can be used for good or for evil. Evil people will be destroyed in the lake of fire one day for using their faculties for evil. This is serious business. What manner of man or woman ought you to be in all holy conduct? Surely God and His Christ are worthy of our obedience.
The Word says we must REVENGE our past sinful conduct with RIGHTEOUS LIVING. Doing what pleases God. Dying to ourselves and picking up our cross DAILY, moment to moment. This is the only way to please God and yet His commandments are not burdensome. He is only requiring what He knows each of us is capable of doing: living a holy, morally perfect, sold-out life for Jesus and the Father. The human heart is capable of doing great things when fully committed to the way of holiness in Christ. Take great pleasure in throwing down bad thoughts and replacing them with what God says. It is written! Christ was renewing His mind with the Truth at the same time He was waging war against the devil. This is a war of words. This is a war of thoughts. It is up to US to fight the good fight of faith. God won’t fight for us, but He will fight through us as we yield to Him. I’ve seen it in my own life and I long to evermore see it, day in and day out. May God give us the mighty grace we need through His Word and His Spirit of grace to fully equip us to every good work. Be zealous for good works and good thoughts, my brothers and sisters! Make your calling and election sure by doing the will of God at all times, in all ways. If you do sin, repent of that sin and God will restore you to righteousness. Then, continue on doing good. It is a never ending battle. The devil won’t stop trying to corrupt you, but greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. The power of love is greater than the power of selfishness. Overcome the devil by putting on Christ and His mind and His thoughts. Learn to meditate on holy things. The more you practice righteousness, the easier it will be to walk in righteousness. Remember that sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. Walk as children of grace and may the Lord make your path straight in all ways, amen.