The Apostle Paul commands us to take every thought captive. But what does that really mean, especially in our day? with commercials coming on, radio over here, TV over here, and you're bombarded by information. How do we guard our thoughts from the toxic things that enter our mind and destroy our relationship with God? That's today, don't go away.
Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our mission is to inspire Christians to be genuine followers of Jesus and to empower them to be active disciple makers in our world.
Well, as many of you know, Chip's our regular Bible teacher for this daily program, but today he's passing the microphone to his friend, Jenny Allen, to share her series, Get Out of Your Head. But before she gets going, Chip's here in studio now. And Chip, you wanted to jump in here and talk a bit more about Jenny and why you're so eager for our listeners to hear from her.
Well, for those that don't know Jenny Allen, you need to get to know her. And one of our commitments here at Living on the Edge. Is we want the Bible to be relevant to every audience, to every group.
so we could take the Word of God, put it in our hearts, and live out our faith. I mean, we're committed to helping Christians live like Christians. And when I see what's happening in our culture, one of my personal passions is for the next generation. And Jenny is a teacher of God's Word. We happen to go to the same seminary.
She has a ministry to women called the If Gathering. She's become not only a great speaker, but an author. And I just wanted, especially the women, to hear what Jenny has to say because they're being so bombarded by toxic thoughts in the culture that we live in. And I will have to say that though I had women in mine, it has been a great help to me. And there's not a man that will listen to this series that Jenny's going to teach for us that won't walk away going.
Well, women may struggle with that, but I do too. Great setup, Chip.
Well, I hope all of you will join us for each part of the series because we really believe you'll be encouraged by what Jenny's going to talk about. One last thing before we get to Jenny, let me encourage you to get our message notes. They contain Jenny's brief outline, all the scriptures she references, and more. These notes will really help you remember what you hear and maybe even share what you're learning. Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingonthege.org.
App listeners tap fill-in notes.
Okay, if you're ready, here's our guest teacher, Jenny Allen, to kick off this series with her talk, Taking Every Thought Captive. I believe in the power of God to absolutely not just save our souls, but change our lives. I've seen him do this for other people, and I have seen him do this in me. And I want to tell you a story about why this project, get out of your head, is so important to me. I believe we are at war.
I believe that the enemy is coming for us. And I'm sorry, if you just clicked on this and you're like, what is this? What enemy? I am a Christian and I believe the Bible. And the Bible is pretty clear that there is an enemy to God and there is an enemy to us.
And his desire is to kill, steal, and destroy. And one of the main ways I'm watching him do that in our generation is through our minds. In John 8, it talks about the enemy. And Jesus actually describes him and says he is the father of lies, that when he speaks, he lies. And that is who he is.
And so I have watched this person after person after person has believed these lies. And here's the thing, not even realize that they are lies. That's the hard part. Eventually, you start to believe they're just true. And you're dwelling on them, and our minds are a mess.
Our minds are discouraged, our minds are distracted, our minds are exhausted. And I believe there's a way out. In fact, so many of you struggle with anxiety and depression.
So many of you struggle with mental illness, or somebody that you know struggles with mental illness. And I want to address this right up front: that mental illness can be a physical issue. It can be a chemical issue that needs medicine. And medicine is a gift from God, and counseling is a gift from God. But I also believe there's another component to this.
And I want to start by reading a few verses in 2 Corinthians 10. Verses three through six. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war against the flesh. And I want to say this because I think some of us stop at the obvious things. We stop at the physical response and we stop at the emotional response rather than realizing there is another thing happening, and it is a spiritual war that is waging against us.
And it's not of flesh. There was a season of attack that came that was quiet, that was subtle. That well, I barely noticed, honestly, and it came every night at 3 a.m. And it was doubt that filled my mind and it beat me up. For month upon month.
And the bad part was, I didn't even realize it was happening. I was at war with the devil in the night. And I never said it out loud. I never told anybody what was happening for eighteen months.
Now, fast forward, I finally do mention it to people. And the second I did, my first thought was, oh my gosh, I have been under spiritual attack. Duh. I mean, it was obvious, but I didn't see it because I was not guarding my mind because I did not live with this reality that the enemy could be lying to me at any minute, that at any minute he could be whispering a lie to me that I thought was true and that I walked in and believed in and built thought patterns, toxic spirals around. And that's exactly what happened.
There was a cost. And it was to my faith. And what a great strategic move of the enemy to go after my faith. But everything shifted, and I believe that every single one of you listening, in some way, that enemy is as real to you, and those lies are as real to you. In the middle of this project.
In fact, it was even before the project began. I was walking outside. It was a beautiful day and I was all by myself. And I was praying for our generation. I do this.
I pray for individuals, but I also pray for our generation. I always think about us getting to heaven together. And I think about all the people I lead and the people the church is leading right now around the world. And I just want us to do so well in our time. I want our time to matter.
And as I was praying about our generation, God brought to mind these enemies that are attacking our generation uniquely. And I wrote them down. I pulled over on the side of the track I was walking on and I typed them up. And it was seven things that I saw coming for our generation. And we're gonna talk about these seven things.
And I'm telling you, you know, it's everything from cynicism to noise to victimhood. There's a plethora of things coming for us, but I think in our generation, we're looking at some unique things that have plagued our minds and that has robbed us of the effectiveness that we could have. For the kingdom of God. I'm gonna give you a lot of science in this season because, in my studies of the brain, you cannot deny the power of God and the thing He built in our minds when you read the science of it. It all backs up the Bible.
It's crazy. All of these truths that the Bible says, like take every thought captive, that we have power over our thoughts, all of these truths. They are spelled out in science. It's true. We can change our minds.
And I want to read to you the rest of this verse in 2 Corinthians 10. For the weapons of warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. Guys, in these verses, the author of Corinthians, who's Paul, is saying, we have power to destroy strongholds.
So many of you are stuck in strongholds. That's why this matters so much. It's not because of the little bitty lie about your identity or about your worth. It's because that lie over time adds up. And so back to the science part, 80% of our thoughts are negative.
95% of our thoughts, you thought them yesterday. They're repetitive. And so we're thinking repetitive, negative thoughts every day of our life. And guess what those build? Strongholds.
They actually change our brains. They change our chemistry. Our physical brains change.
Now, yes, I believe in medicine and counseling. And no, I do not think you can just change your thoughts and all of a sudden be out of mental illness. But I absolutely believe that in disciplining and training our thoughts, that it can eventually over time change our minds. That's science. Not just for those of us that believe in science, but those of us that believe in God, he says that our warfare is not of the flesh.
It is of the spirit and that we have divine power to destroy strongholds.
So something about the power that God gives us, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you don't, I hope by the end of the season, you will. But something about knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the power of the gifts and the power and authority he's given us, we have the power to destroy strongholds.
Now, authority, that is something that I didn't realize that I had most of my life. I was a victim to my mind and I didn't understand that God had given me authority over my thoughts and I could change them. I'm telling you, let me fast forward to my story today and tell you that there are still, in fact, last night I woke up at 4 a.m., but let me tell you what I do now when I wake up. I do not let the enemy have an inch. I don't let him have a second of my mind.
I notice it now. I see when I start to spiral or think negative thoughts about God, about my life, and I interrupt it and I say no. Like, and I mean, y'all, I've gotten all charismatic in my bedroom. Like, I'm waving my arms, like, get out of here. Like, I know what I'm up against, and I'm clear about it, and I speak with authority over it because of the power of God that I know is real and strong enough to destroy it.
And, guys, I'm free. Like, I wake up at 4 a.m. and I'm no longer under the bondage that I was under for 18 months. I am free, and I believe you can be too. Verse 5: We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God.
That's what was happening. Lofty opinions were being raised up against the knowledge of God. And every lie that you have believed, every fear that you have had, every worry and anxiety that you have had, these are all opinions raised up against the knowledge of God. Because if our knowledge of God was full and complete, guess what? He is not a God of fear.
We would never fear. Fear is not of God, it is of the devil. And every lie that we give an inch, it will take a mile. It will take a mile. And for some of you, it has taken years.
It has taken so much of your life.
Some of you, you're here praying for hope. And some of you are like teetering on that edge of giving up your faith. And I just want to say, I'm here to fight for you, that there is an enemy and that he is fighting for you. And I am here because God loves you and because he also is fighting for you. And that there are opinions raised up every day in our minds against the knowledge of God.
And our God says that we have the power to destroy them. to destroy strongholds. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Jenny Allen is our guest teacher for the series Get Out of Your Head. And real quick, if you'd like to learn more about Jenny's popular book that this series is based on, keep listening after the teaching.
Chip will join us in studio with all the details, so be sure to stick around. But for now, let's get back to Jenny's talk. Paul says next in that verse, that opinions raised up against the knowledge of God that we destroy them. And then he says this: and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. you That's how we change our minds.
Romans says it this way, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by What? How do we change? All of us want to change. How do we change? And Romans says, by the renewal of our minds.
Guys, this is the crux. Of our lives. Our minds are the crux of how we will live, who we will love, what we will do with our lives. Our minds hold the power and the key to our lives. I remember my daughter did a lot of study.
She wanted to be a neuroresearcher, and so she basically was all through high school and middle school. And she would bring me all this stuff as part of what prompted me to do this project. And she said, Mom, what we know about the brain today, the writers of the scriptures would have said the mind every time they said the heart.
So that means that a majority of the Bible is about our minds. That every time it says heart, it also is talking the seed of our emotions is found within our brains. And so when you think about our minds and our hearts and how much of scripture is about it, continually it says guard our heart, our mind. It says, take captive our thoughts, that this is an active process, that we are not reluctantly thinking about whatever the heck we want, but we are actively fighting to believe truth, to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He sets before us this call.
to single-mindedness. To complete consumption of God and His love for us and His goodness over us. And as we fixate on Him, The things of this earth grow strangely dim. That's like the old hymn that you used to sing in Sunday school. This is how we change.
Verse six, being ready to punish every disobedience. When your obedience is complete, this is warfare. And Paul knows it, and that's why he writes that this is warfare. And he speaks of things like destroying every lie, every opinion. Y'all, we have to take this bull by its horns.
And we haven't. Candidly, we have not. You bring your friends together because it's going to take an army of people surrounding each other and saying, we're not going to let each other believe these lies anymore, but we've got to take this seriously. We've got to take this seriously. I know some of you, you just tuned in, you're like.
Guess what? Fun and happy are on the other side of this. I'll tell you that right now. Like, I have never been more joyful. I've never been more free.
I've never been more grateful. I've never been more peaceful than I have as I have done war. with this part of my life. Proverbs twenty three seven says this for as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. Y'all, this is our lives.
The sum of our lives will be rooted in what it is we think about. And we never think about our thoughts. You think anywhere from 9,000 to 60,000 thoughts in a day. In a day. And when was the last time you even noticed what it was that you were thinking about?
So, today I want you to do something. I want you to pull out a piece of paper and I want you to start writing down your thoughts. And I'll tell you, we're going to take you through a process. If you want to go download it right now, we have an anxious thoughts guide and we're going to give you a mind map that you can fill out and start to notice your thoughts. And you can print a bunch of copies and put them by your bed and just start to notice at night when you go to sleep, what is it that I thought about today?
Notice if it's around 80% negative because this matters. This matters. Our brains are physically changing depending on what we think about. You think about what you're grateful for, your brain shifts. You think about what you dread, your brain shifts.
And we can win this war. I believe it. I believe we are looking at more freedom in our generation than we have previously had. And I believe that that can happen in our lives individually as we actually believe truth. And so I'm going to fight for you to believe truth.
And I cannot wait to see what God is going to do through this. I do not want you to halfway engage with this. We need people to fight for us. We need to understand what it is to have these weapons that God says have the power to destroy strongholds.
So we're going to war, y'all. Come on. Invite all your friends. I mean, you could gather in a living room. You can each get the book and you can listen to this almost like a Bible study.
I hope that that's what this will feel like. Invite your friends and let's see what God does. I want to pray for you. God, I want to thank you for this community. I want to thank you for a microphone.
It feels like an honor. It feels like a sacred, incredible honor that I get to be in their ears, in their minds right now, and that I get to fight for them to believe truth. God, I do not take that lightly. I believe that this matters more than we can understand, more than I can understand. And I feel your love for them, God.
I feel that you want them to live more free than they are right now. And I believe, God, that almost all of them have been believing some lie. They've been believing some lie that has crippled them, that has made them afraid, that has made them anxious, that has made them depressed. And I believe, God, you want to set them free. And so today, God, I pray.
I want to pray huge prayers, but I also want to pray small prayers. I want to pray that they'll have a glimmer of hope. I want to pray that that hope would be real and realized. And the big prayer I want to pray is that you would set them free, that they would have their eyes opened and they would see in a new way the enemy and what he wants for them and that they would have nothing to do with it. They would go to war.
They would fight better than they ever have. In Jesus' name, amen. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Jenny Allen was our guest teacher for this program, Taking Every Thought Captive, which is from her series, Get Out of Your Head. Chip will join us in just a minute to share his application for this message.
Let me ask you: what drives your thought life? What influences the way you think? Is it anxiety, loneliness, insecurity? Whatever it is, do you feel trapped by it? Like no matter how hard you try, your mind drifts back to these harmful patterns.
In this series, author and speaker Jenny Allen calls out seven toxic thoughts that derail our connection to God. Discover the powerful antidotes God's given us to break free from these dangerous mindsets. Join Jenny to learn what you can do to fight and win the war for your mind.
Well, before we go on, here's Chip.
Well, thanks, Dave. And I'm joined here today with Jenny Allen, our teacher for this series. And Jenny, thanks, first of all, for doing this with us. You know, we are committed to reaching the next generation, and God has given you such a stewardship to reach, especially young women and young moms. But get out of your head, first of all, that's sort of a crazy title for a book.
What are you hoping to accomplish in this series? And maybe you could give us a little bit of the behind the scenes. Like, where did this series come from? How did it turn into a book? And maybe most of all, what do you hope God will do as our listeners hear this series get out of your head?
Thank you, Chip, so much for having me. And yes, it is a crazy title. But I believe everyone is resonating with it because we know that we're all stuck in our heads, right? I think the timing of this conversation is so important because many, many people have struggled with anxiety or depression or even. just fearful thoughts that maybe they don't feel like are a big deal.
And yet They are, and they're holding us captive. And Jesus says that we are to take our thoughts captive, they are not supposed to take us captive. Captive. And yet we've been on the defense with our thoughts and feeling like we can't control them. And what scripture calls us to is an offensive strategy that we are supposed to.
fight back that we are Given Divine weapons that destroy strongholds, Second Corinthians 10 tells us.
So, I want to know what those strongholds are in my life, and I want to know what the divine weapons are that God's given me so that I can fight back. And I hope and believe that so many of you listening care about that too.
So, hopefully, this will massively encourage you that you are not a victim to your thoughts, but we are actually given dominion over our thoughts. We're not given dominion over everything we feel, but we are given dominion over our thoughts. That's a place we have the ability to control.
So, why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we fight back against the enemy? Which I believe this is one of the greatest battlefields. Today, of the devil. He hates us and he wants to destroy us, kill, steal, and destroy from us.
That's what scripture tells us.
So, where is he doing that? He's doing it in the crevices of our minds, he's lying to us. Scripture tells us Jesus clearly says he's a liar, that he hates the truth, and he wants to confuse everyone with his lies. And we've fallen for it. And I just say we fight back.
Great word, Jenny. And let me encourage all of you listening to get a copy of Jenny's book, Get Out of Your Head. You can do that by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org.
Well, Chip, before we go, you wanted to wrap up this program by sharing a few final thoughts about what Jenny shared today.
Well, thanks, Dave, and thanks, Jenny. I really would say. that this has been a passion for me for a very, very long time. To go back into my earliest years as a Christian, I think the first at least two or three years I thought trying hard was how life change occurred, and I had issues I could not overcome. I mean, I struggle with lust, I struggle with pride, I struggle with insecurity.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I've. you know, arrives in all those areas, but I can tell you willpower. And willpower alone does not work. And what I love about what I hear Jenny doing is she's going to help us identify. toxic thoughts.
Um the enemy came to kill and to steal, and destroy. And contrary to the movies or popular belief, he rarely does it in really scary ways with, you know, like super phenomena that you've never seen before. His messages are lies. Lies about us, lies about God, lies about the future, lies about security, lies about happiness, lies about things will never change, lies about our past.
Well, you'll never overcome it. Lies, lies, lies. And what I love is hearing from a young woman who's living in a world that I don't live in, not just generationally, but, you know, I've got a wife and I have a daughter, and I see how women are bombarded by very specific, toxic lies, I think even more than the rest of us. And so let me just encourage you, stay with us on this journey. You can hear she's a very passionate, dynamic teacher.
She holds to the scriptures. She believes in God's word. And I can't wait to be on this journey with you as we listen to Jenny teach. And at the end of the programs, I'll be back to talk about my takeaways and maybe a couple thoughts that I think will help you. Looking forward to all that, Chip.
Hey, before we go, I wanted to let you know Living on the Edge depends on listeners just like you to help us continue to encourage Christians to live like Christians.
So would you consider partnering with us on a monthly basis so others can benefit from this ministry? To set up a monthly donation, call us at 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate, and thanks in advance for doing whatever God leads you to do. And lastly, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now.
And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has been able to provide encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever before.
So thank you to those who support us with your prayers. God is doing amazing things.
Well, be sure to join us next time as our guest teacher, Jenny Allen, continues her series, Get Out of Your Head. We live in the noisiest generation that has ever been. No generation has had to deal with more inputs than ours.
So, what does it look like to shift this spiral? And we're watching this spiral of an emotion hitting a thought, a thought hitting a behavior, a behavior hitting a relationship. And those spirals are going through our minds all the time. And what God wants to do is, He wants to shift the spiral from a negative spiral that's spiraling down. He wants to shift it to one that's going up, one that is going toward Him.
But that interruption and that distraction that constantly has you pulling away from God, that distraction is our responsibility. We have a choice to change the way we think. but we have to choose it. Until then, this is Dave Druy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.
