We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5
Satan’s plan is to deceive us and lie to us about God’s love for us and who we are in Christ – our true identity. He is actively trying to plant spyware in our minds. If he succeeds, he wins the battle for our minds and we become less effective (or not effective at all), we suffer needlessly, and our work in the Kingdom is less effective. Paul urges believers in his letter to the Corinthian church to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In other words, be active in our thought-life, even vigilant, in rejecting lies and deceptions and instead embrace (believe) and retain the truth of who God says we are through Jesus Christ.
I had lived a defeated life for the majority of my Christian life because I did not believe God – and my choices and behaviors reflected that to the detriment of others and to myself. Our problem so often is that we are ignorant of the spiritual battle going on for our minds. Satan cannot get to your heart—that is the complete domain of Jesus Christ, but satan can deceive us and play mind games on us. If we’re not paying attention, spyware gets in. It digs in and makes a home if we don’t kick it out. Then, it invites it’s spyware relatives to come visit – and since they have no manners they stay as well because they are uncontested. Now our mind is fertile for these lies and deceptions and they spread to infect and inflict as much damage as possible. We can eventually become depressed, angry, bitter, defeated, and worse.
Spyware also gets introduced and planted into our minds through no choice of our own. It may be a childhood trauma, or a painful rejection that was laced with lies, etc. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and he has no qualms with attacking the innocent.
We have a spyware detector!
Thank God, He has given us a built-in spyware detector – the Holy Spirit Who lives in us and gives us discernment so we can actively reject satan’s lies and deceptions.
But we must train our ears and our minds to listen and discern from the Holy Spirit, believe, and obey. He always tells us the truth! Then we can walk in victory and joy and peace. The other choice is to ignore the Him (rebel, disobey). If we don’t believe what scripture says and obey the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we let the spyware in to have it’s way in our mind.
We are called to love one another by seeing Christ in each other and “calling out” the true person that Christ is uniquely in us. We can help one another delete the spyware of lies and deceptions, whether the damage is self-inflicted or not. We need to “see” the Spirit of God in each other and lovingly challenge one another to be true to who we are with encouragement, obedience, truthfulness, confession, and forgiveness. It takes practice to see each other correctly, good behaviors and bad, and to love each other the way Christ does, but it’s effective in deleting spyware! The Truth is what sets the captives free.
