An Age of Untruths and our Own False Presuppositions
How do we take our thoughts captive in an age that wants to fill our minds with untruths? External influences are not the only battle we face but we also face the battle of our own presuppositions, the beliefs we’ve formulated for ourselves concerning our view of life, people, and the world around us. Let us consider how to take our thoughts captive in these areas.
Taking Thoughts Captive on our Own View of Life
We are constantly being infiltrated by messages around us which seek to shape our view of who we are. These messages tell us that we are independent, that we are the rulers of our own lives and that we can make choices and decisions which should cater to our own wills over the will of God. In Genesis 1 we see that man was created in the image of God for the purpose of serving and glorifying Him (Gen. 1:27). After God created Adam and Eve, God was personal with them and had a relationship with them causing them to be dependent upon Him to receive His instruction through their God given responsibilities (v.28-31). With this, we are able to see that the order of how we conduct our lives should be dependent upon our Creator. Man must first come to see God accurately for who He is as Creator to have a right understanding of who they are and their view of life. With God being Creator, we are to see ourselves as under His rule. As humans, we are created to hear from God; we are given unique abilities in order to hear, understand, and apply God’s Word to our lives. Being created with these unique faculties, we are ultimately created to honor and worship God. In Romans 1:18-23, we are told,
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
With our human nature, God has implanted in us a desire to worship Him but because we have instead chosen not to honor God or give thanks to Him, we have become futile in our thinking and our foolish hearts have become darkened (Rom. 1:21). Due to the fall of man, our desires are now thwarted with other aims of worship. As sinners, we have a natural bent to turn away from God exchanging the truth about Him for a lie, to instead serve ourselves (Rom. 1:25). This has incredible implications for us and how we live our lives in this world. We must fight these false beliefs about ourselves and instead seek to, “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). May our aim be to lose our “life”, the freedoms we perceive ourselves to have in it for the Lord’s sake so that we may truly find it (Matt. 16:25).
Taking Thoughts Captive on our View of Others
Considering the commonalities and differences between people, what makes people different from us is our unique abilities, cultural, societal, ethnic and racial differences. We see in scripture the appreciation and attribution of all of these seemingly insignificant details returned back to God as Creator. In Acts 17: 24-28 it reads,
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we live and move and have our being’;
Our view on the veracity of whether to have awareness and appreciation for these differences should be examined solely by their origin, from God who created them and established their ultimate purpose which is to lead man back to Himself. Our own wrong presuppositions of these differences without the right view of their ultimate purpose can cloud our judgment of what we believe about others who look and act differently than us which can also wrongly influence how we treat them as well. God has created us uniquely for His own glory and has instructed us through His Word on how we are to treat others who are also made in His image (Matt. 22:37-39).
With a right understanding of our differences, there is also a need to have a right understanding of our similarities. The Lord has formed us all similar in our nature as His image bearers. Isaiah 64:8 reads, “But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” We have all been fashioned together by the Father’s hands. We are the same in essence being formed with a soul and body and with a sinful nature (Psm. 51:5, Eph. 2:1-3). Scripture states, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22).” Our sin brings death and permeates to the depths of our hearts, which includes our mind, will, and emotions (Rom. 6:23, 1 Cor. 15:56). Because of the permeating nature of sin in us and in the world, our first line of our defense against it is our minds. Proverbs 4:23 states, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Let us be rightly informed by the instruction of God’s Word of how we see and treat others who are made in the image of God just as we are. As the Lord sees us is how we ought to see one another, uniquely and similarly made in His image. For the Lord knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust (Psm. 103:14).
Taking Thoughts Captive on our View of this World
Along with the fallenness of man, came also the fall of the world itself. Prior to the fall, from the garden we are able to see that the earth was flourishing. In Genesis 1, God created the world and at the end of His creation, He saw that everything He had made was good (v. 31). In Genesis 3:17, when the woman disobeyed God’s instruction, God said to Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Because of the fall, we are living in a sin cursed world which is now doomed to pass away. Matthew 24:25 records Jesus’ words which state that, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Having a right understanding of the culminating destruction of this world, we are not to set our hopes in this life but on God Himself who created it. Psalm 102:25-28 speaks of God saying,
“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands, they will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.”
Let us be the established children of God taking our thoughts captive with a right view of this world which is doomed to pass away and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust will destroy for truly where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Our example is Christ Himself who in Luke 4:5-8, when tempted by Satan to then have authority over the kingdoms of the world, said to the devil, “It is written ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”
Application
Finally, in our battle to take our thoughts captive, let us remember again to fight both the untruths from this world and our own false thinking by destroying arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God seen in our lives, with our views of others and from the world, and subject them to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). We are able to do this by looking to God our Creator and regularly receiving His instruction through His Word, not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewal of our mind, that by testing we may discern what is His will, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:2).
Written by Rebecca Onagoruwa
Serenity & Grace Counseling
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