Latest / Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit / 66. Take Every Thought Captive Before It Takes Over

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66. Take Every Thought Captive Before It Takes Over · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Corina: As a Christian leader, it can be hard to turn your mind off. You're thinking about the people you lead, the decisions you need to make, the problems that you're trying to solve, the conversations that didn't go well and what might happen next. Before long, your thoughts can start running you instead of you leading them. Today we're talking about how to recognize when pressure is taking over your thought life and how to come back into agreement with God's truth so that you can lead from peace instead of pressure.
• 0:30
  Josh: If you're tired of leading others while secretly battling doubt, discouragement and mental warfare
• 0:35
  Corina: and you want practical tools to renew your mind and walk boldly in your
• 0:39
  Josh: calling as a leader, you're in the right place. Welcome to Believe and Become.
• 0:43
  Corina: We're Josh and Corina your spirit filled coaches here to help you overcome those limiting beliefs and lead others confidently.
• 0:50
  Josh: If you're ready to hear God's voice more clearly, to step into your purpose and find joy and strength in the
• 0:55
  Corina: everyday silence, those Bible app reminders judging you from your lock screen and let's jump in.
• 1:07
  Josh: So we need your help. Believe and become super fans to get the word out there. Leave a review, send it to all your friends if you're watching on YouTube, like and subscribe. Share this with anybody that you think this message would be helpful for. We need your help to get the message out so that everybody can get their minds renewed with the truth and live the life that God has called them to and not be stuck anymore. So we need your help. Get the message out there. Share it with all your friends. We really appreciate it. Thank you so there was a time in my life when we were leading worship at our church. We were worship pastors, I was a manager at my work, I was trying to lead. Our family had a lot of what felt like big leadership responsibilities and we had a lot of blessings. And even in the midst of all these great things happening in our lives, I had this recurring thought. I would wake up every morning, get in the shower and think my life stinks. And really that was just partnering with this discouragement and the pressure. It was just like felt like everything was weighing so heavily on my shoulders. Nothing was ever going to change and it was just this recurring thought. It would pop up regularly throughout the day. And what I found is that I needed to actually take authority over this recurring thought because it wasn't from Jesus. It wasn't the truth. The truth was I had a great life and he was helping me and strengthening me through every response responsibility that I had and what he led me to was to just recognize when these thoughts were happening, say, I'm not going to agree with them anymore, and then replace them with the truth that actually I'm blessed. I have a great family, I have a great job, I have everything that I need. God is providing for me. And as I went through that process of not just trying to stop the thought, like I tried that for a while. Oh, I'm just not going to think that anymore. Don't think that that's not from Jesus. That didn't work. It actually probably made it a little bit worse. But once I found that I could recognize the thought and replace it with the truth, that was what really started to change my thought life. And I could get traction in overcoming those negative, reoccurring thoughts that were just happening automatically in my life.
• 3:24
  Corina: I think as leaders, whether you're leading your home ministry, your business, there's so much responsibility that we carry and we don't maybe realize how much of that we're internalizing. And it can really quickly become overwhelming. I can't do this. Everything falls on my shoulders. And my life stinks. Right? Because it feels like too much. And I've so been there as well. That feeling of, I just can't do this, and mine obviously looked different than yours. But just being able to partner with the truth for what God was actually saying, that's huge.
• 4:05
  Josh: As a leader, we carry a lot of weight. We have a lot of responsibility. We have the people in our lives. We have all the different decisions we need to make. The expectations from the outside, what people are expecting you to do, or the outcomes. They want a certain thing to happen or they want to be successful even. We put pressure on ourselves. That's probably where the most pressure comes from, is like, I need to perform, I need to do something. I have all these people depending on me to come through. Right. And that can really weigh down on you. And it causes these thoughts to pop up, like, I have to fix this. What if I make the wrong decision? I'm going to mess it up. What do people think about me? If I don't solve this, it's going to fall apart. Like, if I'm not in charge, if I don't do it, nobody else is going to do it. And these are actually all lies. We weren't built to carry that burden. Jesus said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. He wants to co labor with us. He wants to take those burdens from us. Yeah. And we actually just need to pay attention to Those thoughts that we're having, sometimes they're even kind of subconscious percolating, like you might have emotions that pop up. Those are great clues to going, okay, is there some pressure that's weighing on me that I'm just not addressing in my life? So when you get emotional, you have an outburst or you're responding in a way that's not typical of yourself, then you need to go clue in and go, oh, God, what is going on in me? Help me figure this out. Holy Spirit is beautiful at just bringing these things to the surface and helping us deal with them.
• 5:43
  Corina: And we know that 2 Corinthians 10:5 reminds us to take every thought captive. We don't fight the way the world fights. We don't have to yell, we don't have to scream. We don't have to, you know, get mad at people or take our frustrations out on those around us. We actually can take up our authority and we can grab hold of those thoughts and we can make them obedient to the mind of Christ. And because you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, and he carries the mind of Christ. And so you have access to God's thoughts. And I love that, that it doesn't say, don't think those thoughts, right? Like it's, it's not like, stop thinking the bad thoughts or whatever. It's. Or never think that again. It's grab them when they show up. Because we actually get to direct our lives with our thought. The Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart, mouth speaks. And so if you're full of good stuff, good stuff is going to come out of you, and that's going to lead you in good directions. If you're full of negativity and bad stuff, that's what's going to come out, and that's going to lead you in a certain direction as well. And so we get to take charge of those things. Bad thoughts will come, negative thoughts, anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, angry thoughts. These things come because we're human and we're susceptible to them. The goal is not to never have an anxious thought, but it's to know what to with it when it comes, and especially in your leadership. Because if you start to just, if you start to entertain those negative thoughts about the people you lead, that can blow up real fast because we, we will kind of nurture those things and it begins to bubble out of us, and then it flows into the atmosphere that we're creating in our home, in our ministry, in our workplace. And it can become toxic. And so it's so important that we grab hold of thoughts and make them obedient to the mind of Christ.
• 7:39
  Josh: Our brains actually are wired to give us some of these thoughts that will happen automatically or these feelings. And some of those are actually designed to just keep us safe. So there's nothing wrong with you if you feel disappointed or you feel upset or angry or stressed, any of those things, those are actually normal responses that we're having just because of the way that our brains work. But the thing is, those aren't actually, they don't have to be the truth and we don't have to agree with them. We get to actually take control of those thoughts and feelings and we can turn them around, we can change them, we don't have to agree with them. And we're going to actually give you a few steps that you can take, practical steps to recognize those thoughts. We're going to renounce them and we're going to replace them with the truth. But if you are struggling with these recurring types of thoughts, are you feeling a lot of pressure or maybe you just feel a little bit hopeless in your life? Go to our website joshandkarina.com coaching and you can take our free Hope quiz. It will help you identify one area of your life where you might be struggling with your beliefs. And then you can schedule a free 15 minute session with one of us to go over those results and come up with a plan for how to move forward to overcome those areas where you're struggling. And so just go to our website, joshacarina.com coaching take our free Hope quiz. We know that it will help you in your journey to overcome these limiting beliefs, the lies and those reoccurring thoughts that we all struggle with. It's just a part of life. So check that out.
• 9:14
  Corina: Let's talk about some action steps. Like Josh just said, we're gonna recognize, renounce and replace. So the first thing you wanna do is to recognize what you're actually carrying mentally. What is the load that you are feel? What are you replaying in your mind? Is it conversations? Is it just maybe meeting? That didn't go very well. Think about what you're trying to solve right now because even if you're maybe not consciously thinking about it, your brain's still working on it. And I think this is a really important question. Is this actually mine to carry? That is a really good question to ask yourself. But to sit with Holy Spirit on and ask him, God, is this my burden to carry and allow him to speak into that place. Because often I think most leaders would say, yes, right? We'll go, oh, yeah, I'm the one. If I don't do it, nobody else is going to do it. Right. We often think that, that we have to do it. But so many times there are people all around that can help. There are others in your environment that can do these things or take charge of these things, and sometimes better than you can, which I know blows your mind as a leader. But sometimes there are people God puts. Brings people into your life who can do some of these things that feel really big and heavy. And so it's important that we ask the Holy Spirit to show us what is actually mine to carry. And then we work on kind of delegating the rest. But listening and recognizing is the first step, because simply noticing the pattern can often just help interrupt it. If I recognize, oh, I've been replaying this conversation in my mind over and over, I didn't even realize it, I'm going to stop that. I'm going to ask God to give me a new conversation to have with this person, or I'm going to just surrender that to him. When we recognize it, we can actually dig into it a little bit more. And then we can find freedom in that.
• 11:15
  Josh: Yeah. And I like to just say it out loud what I've recognized. If there's an emotion, say, I'm feeling frustrated, I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling disappointed. Because that helps us actually step outside of ourselves, step outside of our thoughts, and then we can look at it more objectively. And even that is useful in breaking that cycle of reoccurring thoughts or emotions. So if you're having a thought of, oh, I'm replaying this over and over in my mind, that conversation. Say that out loud. I keep replaying this conversation over and over and over. Holy Spirit, why am I doing that? Help me to break that pattern. But saying it out loud is actually very, very powerful for breaking that cycle.
• 11:57
  Corina: That's really good.
• 11:59
  Josh: And then the second step is we're going to actually renounce the lie that we're believing. We're going to renounce that feeling or emotion. Like, once we validate it, we say, okay, our emotions are valid. I'm feeling this emotion, but I don't have to live with it. I don't have to agree with it. I don't have to partner with it, feed it, and let it grow into something huge. I can actually just say, I don't agree with it. I renounce it. So I love to say I recognize you reoccurring thought. I renounce you in Jesus name. I'm not gonna partner with you anymore. So once we've recognized the thought, the emotion, maybe the false belief that we've been partnering with for too long, we're gonna actually ask the Holy Spirit, what's the lie that's causing this belief, this thought, this emotion to keep coming up? And we're just gonna listen, write it down, and then we can renounce that lie, break agreement with it. So say I renounce the lie that I have to carry all the weight, that I'm the only one in charge, that if, no, if I don't do it, nobody else will. I renounce that lie. I break agreement with it. Thank you, Jesus, for removing it from me. Thank you that I don't have to believe that anymore. And once we dig down into the beliefs, that's actually the most important part, is to find what belief is causing my reaction, my emotion, this thought that's happening, what's the lie that's causing that belief? And then we can get rid of it. We give it to Jesus, he takes it, and it's incredible what happens. Yeah.
• 13:29
  Corina: So once we renounce the lie, then like Josh mentioned in his story, we want to replace it with the truth. You don't want to just say, like, oh, I'm never thinking that again. That really doesn't work. What we want to do is we want to reroute that neural pathway. We want to replace what has been living in your brain, and we want to encounter God for the truth. And so we ask him, okay, God, you've shown me this lie that has been fueling these thoughts. What is the truth? You want me to know about this situation? I like to do it in an exchange. I give you this lie. What do you have for me in return? Because he will always give you the truth. He will always give you something better than what you're giving to Him. And if it helps, you can, as you're renouncing the lie, you can kind of visualize yourself nailing it to the cross or handing it over to Jesus and allowing him to take care of that for you, but invite to speak the truth over you. Because as we hear him, as we encounter him, as we maybe see him giving us the truth, then we can begin to partner with that truth. We can begin to declare that truth. You can take that truth and speak it over yourself every day. I don't have to carry this. Jesus is carrying my burden for me or his Yoke. Is easy and his burden is light. And I'm partnering with him as he teaches me how to walk with grace. You can begin to partner with the truth in with your words and as you go about your business. And then when those thoughts start to creep back up or they try to come back in, you actually have something to fight with. And so we always want to replace the lie with the truth. And it could. It might even look different, like the enemy might tempt you to think about it in a different way. Might kind of. That lie will start to creep back in, and so you can begin to recognize it and cut it down at the root. And that's what we really want to do, is we want to get to the root and pull it on out and replace it with truth so that you can start to build new, healthy strongholds in your mind. And that will change the way that you think about what you're facing right now.
• 15:40
  Josh: Yeah, we wanna just be prepared with the truth. That's our ammunition to take out the lie. Cause it will try to keep popping back up. Those negative thoughts and feelings are gonna pop back up again. Be prepared. Have your Bible verse ready, have your declaration ready, have the truth ready that God has revealed to you so that you can battle it right away. You say, you know, I recognize that thought's trying to come back. I renounce it and I'm replacing it. This is the truth that God has given me. And we use our words to do that. The power of our tongue to release life over ourselves. And I also, like, just like Corina was saying, we imagine giving the lie to Jesus and then asking for something in return. I love to just ask God, give me a picture, what does the truth look like? Because then we can use both sides of our brain, that we can use the word, the word processing side of our brain, the logical side of our brain as we use our words to retrain it. But then we can also imagine what does the truth look like? How has God created me? What is the gift that he has given me? Sometimes the truth looks like a beautiful present, or it looks like some God gives us all these amazing pictures of what the truth looks like. And then you can imagine that as you're saying in your declaration, use your imagination to see yourself embodying that truth. And God will lead you in this process. The Holy Spirit is beautiful as he leads you through this process of recognizing, renouncing, and replacing. And then you get to choose to use that to reprogram your brain until that becomes automatic. That becomes your Default your new normal for how you think it really works. It actually works. And we've tried it, we've practiced it, and we've seen so many of our clients, their lives completely changed because God shows up with his beautiful, beautiful truth that sets us free.
• 17:28
  Corina: I actually love that we get to do this with our clients, that we get to walk them through this process of recognizing, renouncing and replacing. And this is actually something that I was able to participate in with a counselor who walked me through this process. And when we got to the the picture part, she's like, okay, ask Jesus what he has for you. And I just saw him holding a heart and it was my heart, but it didn't, it wasn't an anatomical heart. It was like a, you know, 3D red heart with, you know, lights shining out from it. And he was holding it in his hands. And I told her what I saw and she was like, that's exactly the picture that I saw. She knew exactly what I was seeing because she was seeing the same thing. And that's what I think is so powerful about walking through this process with someone else because you get that confirmation of O. Oh yeah, that's exactly what God is saying. And you have somebody there to help you hear when you can't hear, to guide you into different questions. And so we just love to do that with our clients. We would love to invite you to take our Hope Quiz. Schedule a 15 minute session because we want to see as many people free as possible. So go to joshandkarina.com coaching take our free hope quiz and set up a call with one of us.
• 18:48
  Josh: Right now. I just feel God's grace coming upon you, you to start to recognize those thoughts, start to recognize those patterns, those emotions. He's going to give you grace to do that and to just take authority over those, to renounce them and then to replace them with the truth. The Holy Spirit is giving you his supernatural power to put this process into practice in your life. And just every day say, okay, Holy Spirit, help me recognize the thoughts that I've been partnering with that you want to break off of me. And he's going to help you through the process. He's going to help you do it. And it takes some time, it takes some intentionality, but he makes it easy because he is so beautiful, the Holy Spirit is so beautiful in helping us to recognize lies that we're believing, renounce them, and replace them with the truth. So we just bless you as you walk this process out and incorporate it into your leadership. Every single day. He's breaking off all of that weight. The pressure's off, and his presence is coming into your life to set you free.
• 20:02
  Corina: Hey, friend. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds to share this podcast with someone who may need encouragement or practical tools for fighting their battle?
• 20:12
  Josh: Then rate and review this podcast. Help us spread the message of transformation far and wide.
• 20:18
  Corina: All right, time to walk back into the noise with peace, purpose, and maybe a tiny bit of guessing.
• 20:23
  Josh: We'll meet you back next Thursday for another episode. Bye.