The Battlefield
What You Think About Matters
Here’s something the Enemy doesn’t want you to understand:
You don’t have to take ownership of every thought that enters your mind.
I know that sounds strange at first. We tend to assume that what we think is who we are. But the ancient Christian tradition has a more nuanced and more liberating view than that. The Greek word “logismoi” — used by the desert fathers and echoed in Paul’s letters — refers to assaultive thoughts that come at us, not from us.
The thought that whispers you’re a failure. The thought that tells you you’ll never change. The thought that says this isn’t worth the effort. These don’t necessarily originate with you. And you don’t have to agree with them.
This is the battlefield.
Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that our struggle “is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world.” He’s not writing science fiction. He’s describing the daily, real experience of every man who has ever tried to live a life of faith and found that something inside keeps fighting against it.
The first target of the Enemy is always your identity in Christ. If he can get you to doubt who you are — a beloved son of God, created with purpose, redeemed and being redeemed — then he doesn’t need to attack anything else. The house collapses from within.
But here’s the good news: Jesus has already won the war.
The Enemy knows this. He fights on anyway, but his strategies are limited. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says our weapons “have divine power to demolish strongholds… 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.”
Take captive. Notice the military language. This is not passive. This is not simply “thinking positively.” This is a trained, disciplined practice of examining thoughts as they arise and asking: does this agree with what God says is true?
There are five stages to how a thought can take root and become a stronghold: assault, interaction, consent, defeat, and obsession. The place to stop it is at the first stage — when it assaults you. If you begin to interact with it, to entertain it, to negotiate with it, you’re already losing ground. I know this from the inside.
One Saturday evening I returned to an old sin pattern. I knew it was wrong before, during, and certainly after. The accuser told me, “See, you’ve done it again, because this is who you really are.” And I thought he was right. However, I still went to church that Sunday. As I sat in service I thought I should go to the altar and pray for forgiveness, even though I didn’t think I deserved it, and, in a real sense, I didn’t even want it. That is what the Word tells me to do. So, I did it. While I was praying, asking for forgiveness I didn’t think I deserved, I had an image of the Father holding me in His arms and I was screaming in his face, “You can’t forgive me, I won’t let You.” He simply replied, “Child, I already have, why haven’t you?”
That is the victory we already inhabit. We are not slaves to every thought that assaults us — we can take them captive, examine them, and redirect them toward what is true.
Philippians 4:8 gives us the alternative target for our minds: “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable — think about such things.”
This is not spiritual escapism. This is training your mind to dwell where strength grows rather than where weakness takes root. What you set your gaze on, you move toward. Fix your eyes on Jesus, as Hebrews 12 says, and you’ll run the race marked out for you. Fix your eyes on your failures, your inadequacies, your fear, and you’ll spiral into them.
The battlefield is in your mind. You must train it. We rarely rise to the occasion but fall to the level of our training. The assault doesn’t come when you’re strong.
During my long run yesterday, in which I was already not mentally strong going in, the assault came hard. A recurring thought I didn’t want. I chuckled, “really picking your spot, huh.” I didn't fight it harder or try to muscle it out — I prayed. "Lord, forgive me of my sins. I know I haven't been as attentive to you as I should be. Forgive me for that. Help me to cleanse my mind. In Jesus' name I pray, amen." It worked.
The battlefield is real. But so is your armor. Put it on.
Start Here:
Use the journal to examine your thoughts. Test them against the truth of Scripture and practice redirecting them to whatever is true, noble, and right.
Next week — what you give your attention to is what you worship. And the Enemy knows it.