How can I take control of my thoughts?

"C. E. C." We deeply feel for you. We do not at all believe you have committed the unpardonable sin. It is quite right that your conscience should be exercised before God as to your very thoughts. You have only to give yourself to earnest prayer and waiting upon God for entire deliverance from those horrible thoughts which so afflict you. Ask Him so to fill your heart with Christ, that there may be no room for aught else. May He give you full victory, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. There is a very wide moral difference between a person who treats evil thoughts as intruders, and one who entertains them as guests — between one who only seeks to expel them, and one who provides them with furnished lodgings. But the most effectual safeguard against evil thoughts is to have the mind fully occupied with good. Some one has truly said, that "the secret of peace within, and power without, is to be only and always occupied with good."

"The helmet of salvation" is protection for the mind, for salvation gives the ability to have a true viewpoint for reasoning, although again it involves being led by the Holy Spirit and subjection to the Word of God. Philosophy ignores the need of salvation and flounders in uncertainty. A Christian is to reason, not as does the world but as one now saved from the world's vanity and pride, and who will be saved totally out of the world. Thus he may triumph over human "arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor.10:5). But, as with every article of armor, it still requires heart-exercise to put it on and keep it on.

In Romans 12 we are taught that in presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, we prove the true character of the will of God. Every member of our bodies is to be at the disposal of God for His will. The bodies of the victims on Jewish altars would nevermore serve the will of any but God alone: thus, our bodies, not dead, but living, are nevermore to serve sin; but are ever to be at God's disposal. This is a holy service, acceptable to God; intelligent service, not dictated by the will of the flesh, but in obedience as led by the Spirit. Consonant with Galatians, verse 2 exhorts us not to be conformed to this world; and it is by avoiding conformity to the world that we are delivered from it. But something more is required to achieve this; we are to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so as to prove that the will of God is good, perfect, and acceptable. The mind plays a very important part in our lives. If the mind is occupied with the things of the world, we shall be conformed to the world; but if the mind is engaged with the things of God, the mind will be renewed, and we shall acquire new habits of thought; we shall think in different channels of thought, and the life in result will be altogether different. This is of immense import, and we do well to ponder it. Anything of the world that enters the mind; whether its literature through the eye, or its music through the ear, yields its quota to conforming us to the world. Does not the blood on the ear of the leper tell that we have been separated from this world, and the blood on the ear of the priest tell that God has claimed us for Himself by the death of His Son? God's will is not acceptable to the worldly Christian; it condemns the things he is seeking to enjoy. Such may believe and speak of the good and perfect character of God's will; but only those who have been transformed by the renewing of the mind, have proved experimentally that the will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect.

We are the subjects of divine mercy. We deserved nothing, but we are enriched with practically everything. If the sense of divine mercy takes possession of our hearts, then we shall see that our bodies, which were the vehicles in which sin wrought and dominated us — that were used by us to express all our sinful wilfulness — we must now present as a living sacrifice, something wholly and livingly devoted to God — to be absolutely at His disposal, set apart for Him and His service and acceptable to God, seeing it is our reasonable and intelligent service. In the sixth chapter, where we get very similar truth, I believe we get the verb yield used in a twofold way — first, the Kingdom as an accomplished fact, absolutely yielded, then secondly in a more present sense, going on yielding. Has a moment ever been reached in our histories when we have been brought to the point of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice — something now devoted to God — set apart for His use, never to be recalled? It is our only reasonable service. That is the body — the next verse speaks about our mind. Be not conformed to this world — be not fashioned according to this age. You say, He is going to talk now about our dress. Well, Suppose I do! I know we are very largely the victims of the fashions, yet we should be careful to dress as becomes godliness. But after all it is not primarily a matter of dress, it is a matter of the mind. "Be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We get down beneath that question to a more fundamental matter. Be not fashioned in your mind according to this age. There are terrible fashions in the mind regions — the scientific world is full of fashions. Scientists seem to be the greatest devotees of the goddess fashion that you can find anywhere. No Parisian fashions exert their sway over minds in the way that the scientific fashions do. We are not to be fashioned according to this age, but rather transformed; we are to be non-conformists in this sense, not reformists — but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God begins at the citadel, in the very centre of our beings. Some may say, Be practical and tell us how to get our minds renewed. Soak them in the Word of God prayerfully, in dependence upon the Spirit of God. As we progress and prayerfully study the Holy Book it is wonderful how our minds get shaped according to God. We unlearn our own thoughts, we begin to imbibe divine thoughts. Thus our minds are renewed and we prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, we say, it is such a perplexing thing to decide, what is this will of God? The point here is not that you may discover, but that you may prove the will of God. How do you prove a thing? You put it to the test. A person tells you that if you put certain chemicals together they act in a certain way — you prove and test it and it works. It is not mere theory, it is proven in every day life — it is a practical proposition. In the same way you and I are to prove what is the will of God, and as we prove what it is we shall discover it is good, acceptable and perfect. We shall of course learn incidentally that our own wills are bad, and imperfect and very disastrous. Naturally we love our own wills — you and I are to have our wills removed that we may prove and carry out in practice what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How much is our Christianity purely a theoretical thing? How much have we proved, experimentally proved, the blessedness of the will of God? We shall experience it if we present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him, and if our minds are not dominated by what the world thinks.

Since the divine instructions to us are that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds, we may well enquire how we may get our minds renewed. The answer is, by getting them formed according to God's thoughts and forsaking our own. And how shall this be? By soaking them in God's Word, which conveys to us God's thoughts. As we read and study the Word in prayerful dependence on the enlightening of the Spirit of God, our very thinking faculties, as well as our way of thinking, become renewed.

The renewed mind needs proper food and exercise. It will have an entirely new outlook, based not on the desires of the world around, but on the will of God. “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Rom. 12:2) Nourishment comes by the careful study of the scriptures, which can fully equip the man of God for every good word and work (2 Tim. 3:17). In so far as we let our renewed mind be formed and strengthened by the irrigation of the Word and the sunshine of the love of God, the wiser shall we become in every way. We have referred to the mind acting like an editor of the impressions we receive and storing up only such as are worth recording for future use. How blessed to have as the guardian of the very gates of the mind, an editor who is informed with divine wisdom and who can, when necessary, act as a ruthless censor!

God's word is a protector from sin- if hid in the heart. Read, taken seriously, meditated upon, remembered - all are involved in hiding in the heart. Again this takes time, but it helps to protect us from sin. The Lord Jesus provides the perfect example of the use of God's word when under temptation- for each of Satan's temptations He was able to respond with the appropriate scripture - He not only knew the scriptures, of course, but understood how they should be applied, which verses were appropriate in which situation. How vitally important it is that we hide the word in our hearts, there is no better protector from sinning.

Do you remember it says in another place, "leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5: N.T.). The Greek word for "Leading captive" here is an entirely different word in Greek to that used in 1 Cor. 9:27, for "bring it into subjection." This word in 2 Cor. 10 is taken from a word that means 'to throw a spear.' Perhaps it is because our thoughts are so elusive, so very hard to get hold of to lead captive, that the Spirit. of God uses this word telling of throwing a spear. But, thank the Lord, not only is it possible to lead the body away as a slave, but even to lead captive every thought to the obedience of Christ; and that is, I suppose, the very hardest of all.

But while the Lord always answers the cry to Him for help and will give you the victory over your fitful self, a responsibility rests on your own shoulders. If you treat the matter lightly and make no efforts of your own, you will find that evil thoughts are more frequently present with you, and that their presence is not distasteful to you. The apostle Paul speaks of "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). He no doubt refers to the thoughts of the Corinthian saints, and He seeks to restrain their fleshly imagination by presenting to them the pure truth of God.

We have also a remarkable verse which is enlightening on the subject of thoughts which lead nowhere. Paul wrote of the manner of his service that in it he brought every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5) The picture this suggests is of a number of horses roaming at will, but captured one by one and all harnessed together into obedience to the driver of a chariot. All that energy which had been dissipated in aimless wanderings about the field is now co-ordinated under the guidance of one hand. How much mental energy will run to waste unless it is yielded in obedience to Christ!