Bringing Every Thought Captive to the Obedience of Christ
Pray for Godly mental Discipline for the People of God, and all the means thereto. (2 Cor. 10.1-6; Matt. 15.1-19)
- Pray that the Church would hear Scripture, read Scripture, speak Scripture, sing Scripture, pray Scripture, and that such use of the Word of God would have the effect of capturing our thoughts for the obedience of Christ. (Col. 3.16-17)
- Pray that God’s people would turn off media, music, entertainment, placing such things in their proper use and diminished proportion, that their eyes would behold in a more godly and biblical proportion those things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy, beholding that “better part.” (Philippians 4.8-9)
- Pray for a competent practice of meditation among the people of God—meditating upon the Word of God, and learning by that often-neglected ordinance, how to think rightly about current events in the Church and state, and how to present our minds to the Lord as offerings. (1 Timothy 4.15; Psalm 119.48; 143.5)
- Pray that the Church familiarity with Scripture would inform all her ways, in judgment and discernment, direction for families and other social endeavors, and that the decisions and purposes set down by professing Christians would witness to that Scripture-saturation of their thoughts. (Psalm 119.99)
- Pray that our minds being full of scripture, and of the Spirit of God, we would “approve the things that are excellent” that we would be “blameless and harmless, the sons of God in the midst of the crooked and perverse nation, among whom we shine as lights in the world.” (Philippians 1.10; 2.15)
- Pray that we would have the mind of Christ, in wisdom, morality, humility, service, sacrificial love, and in all other thigs, as we are able, and as His grace would allow. (Philippians 2.1-11)
- Pray for that fear of the Lord, as the beginning of wisdom in our own thoughts—that we would fear and reverence the Lord, trust in what He has said, walk by faith and not sight, such that our affections, decisions, plans and purposes would not reek of the corruption of this fallen world and its vain philosophy, but of Christ and His heavenly doctrine—that our decisions would not be guided by the fear of men, but the fear of God. (Matthew 25.24-30)
- Pray that we would be an encouragement and help one to another in the protecting of our thoughts from the world, and giving our minds to Christ, by speaking the truth in love one to another at all times. (Ephesians 4.11-16)