divine battles and taking thoughts captive

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that set itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

2 Corinthians 10:3-5, NIV

I've been thinking a lot about what this verse has to say lately. What does it mean to wage war differently from the world? What does it look like to use the divine power we have access to for demolishing strongholds? How do we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ? There's just so much in these few verses to think about and to dive into.

Most followers of Christ are well aware that we are engaged in a spiritual battle, and that means our earthly ways of doing things doesn't work. So, how do we engage in this battle? How do we fight the battle with these weapons that "have divine power to demolish strongholds"? The divine power we have access to it the truth of God's Word. We are most effective in the spiritual battle we're engaged in when we are in the Word regularly and filling our minds with God's truth. Satan and his cohorts cannot stand against God's truth. God has given us the truth that we need to defeat Satan in his attacks on us, but we have to learn that truth in order to be able to effectively use it.

The truth of God's Word is also how we demolish strongholds - those places in our lives where we have believed Satan's lies and have given him power over us. We cannot destroy these strongholds without bringing the truth against them. God's truth has incredible power and we need to be learning how to use it in our lives.

Probably the part of this that I have spent the most time thinking about in the last few days is the part about taking every thought captive and making them obedient to Christ. How do I actually do this? It seems like such a big thing to do . . . and a hard thing to do. And yet, the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that it also comes down to knowing the truth of God's Word well. When I know the truth of God's Word I know when my thoughts are not what is pleasing to Christ. This is when I take that truth that I know and use it to bring my thoughts back to what I know is God's truth. As I better learn God' truth, my mind is transformed and every thought becomes more obedient to what pleases Christ.

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, the have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that set itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ."

-2 Corinthians 10:3-5