Healthy Thinking Discipleship is a journey that includes being transformed by the renewing of our minds so we can come to know and understand the way God thinks – his desires for us and for the world. 2 Corinthians claims that, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world…they have divine power to demolish strongholds…” (10:4). Yet what kind of strongholds does Paul say we are taking down? “…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” (10:5). As part of our series here at St Martin’s St James on prayer ministry, inner healing and e mo t i o n a l h e a l i n g I h a v e a s k e d Christchurch counsellor and author Belinda Stott about taking our thoughts captive (‘stinking thinking’) and making them obedient to Christ (healthy thinking). Here is some of her top tips;
In my role as a counsellor, I have been helping clients take their thoughts c a p t i v e f o r mo r e than a decade now. In some ways, this field chose me. In my twenties, a combination of counselling, deliverance, great mentors, loads of books and conferences, fasting, prayer ministry and a huge amount of time journaling and talking with God healed me from a large fear of rejection, patches of depression and anxiety, and struggles with belonging, worth and identity. The transformation from insecure, sad, depressed and anxious to stable, hopefilled, optimistic and peaceful was so incredibly liberating I felt compelled to pass that on to others. In the process, my life has become a testimony to the claim of 2 Corinthians, that “God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulations so that with the comfort we have received we may