5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: Taking Your Thoughts Captive | 5 Minutes with Jesus | March 11, 2026
- Thoughts?
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- Temptations are going to come our way.
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- Are just part of being human.
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- But it's what we do with them that matters.
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- We are living in a culture
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- That is increasingly hostile to faith in christ.
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- We're also, sadly, living in a time when many who
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- Claim to know and love christ are rewriting
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- How we receive and understand
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- The word of god to make it suit what they want to believe.
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- But we get to choose how we react to that.
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- Have you ever wondered
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- What it means to take your thoughts captive?
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- I mean, i've known that verse for years,
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- But how do you do that?
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- You know, second corinthians chapter ten, verse five.
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- Paul writes, we are human, but we don't wage war as humans do.
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- We use god's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons,
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- To knock down the strongholds
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- Of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
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- We destroy every obstacle that keeps people from knowing god.
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- We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them
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- To obey christ.
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- In the new international version,
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- The passage reads like this.
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- For though we live in the world,
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- We do not wage war as the world does.
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- The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
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- On the contrary,
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- They have divine power to demolish strongholds.
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- We demolish arguments and every pretension
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- That sets a self up against the knowledge of god.
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- And we take captive every thought
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- To make it obedient to christ.
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- But what does that mean?
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- What does it mean to take every thought captive?
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- Paul is using military language here,
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- I think, to help us understand
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- How important it is to bring our minds
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- And our thoughts under god's control.
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- As our commander in chief.
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- Thoughts?
- 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:55.104
- Temptations are going to come our way.
- 00:01:55.104 --> 00:01:57.640
- Are just part of being human.
- 00:01:57.640 --> 00:01:59.943
- But it's what we do with them that matters.
- 00:01:59.943 --> 00:02:02.679
- We are living in a culture that is increasingly hostile
- 00:02:02.679 --> 00:02:06.049
- To faith in christ.
- 00:02:06.049 --> 00:02:07.884
- We're also, sadly,
- 00:02:08.318 --> 00:02:09.452
- Living in a time when many who claim to know and love
- 00:02:09.452 --> 00:02:12.021
- Christ are rewriting how we receive and understand
- 00:02:12.021 --> 00:02:15.858
- The word of god to make it suit what they want to believe.
- 00:02:15.858 --> 00:02:20.096
- But we get to choose how we react to that.
- 00:02:20.096 --> 00:02:23.099
- Paul makes it clear that although we live in this world,
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- We don't fight with the weapons of this world.
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- He reminds us that god's weapons has the power
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- To tear down lies and deception.
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- If we're going to use god's weapons, we need to know them.
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- So how do we do that?
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- Well, we spent time with the lord.
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- I know that sounds really simple,
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- And i kind of don't want to rush over it,
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- But do you know how much the lord loves
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- To spend time with you?
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- Sometimes i'll just drag a chair in the middle of the room,
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- And i'll sit down and say, i'm here, lord.
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- Just in his presence.
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- Then we get to know more by reading.
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- We read and we study god's word.
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- I don't know if you've got a good study bible.
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- There's so many great resources now online, and there's
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- So many good study bibles that you can to help you
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- Unpack and apply god's word to your life.
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- Number three, we meditate on his word.
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- Find a verse that really speaks to you
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- And write it down on a card.
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- Or put it somewhere on a sticky note
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- Where you're going to see it,
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- And ask the holy spirit to help you understand.
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- But then i think one of the things that's most important is
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- We tell god the whole truth about our lives.
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- In psalm 119, verse 11, we read this.
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- I love this.
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- I've heard your word
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- And my heart that i might not set against you.
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- So often we feel as if we have to kind of clean up our act
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- To come into his presence.
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- And although, yes, he is a holy god,
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- But because of jesus, we are invited to come as we are
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- Not in our own righteousness, but in his.
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- I love the way that jesus unpacked worship
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- To the samaritan woman at the well.
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- You might remember from that story that jews and samaritans
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- Had little to do with each other.
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- And in that culture, men did not speak to women in public.
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- So for jesus to speak to a samaritan woman,
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- He was breaking all the rules.
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- But when she asked him who had the right place was to worship.
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- Jesus told her, the time is coming.
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- In fact is here now.
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- When those who worship will worship in spirit and in truth.
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- Well, that little greek word used here for truth is aletheia.
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- You know what it means.
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- It means with nothing hidden.
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- That's how jesus defined true worship.
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- Worshiping in spirit with nothing hidden.
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- When you find yourself
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- Plagued by temptation, tell god he will not be shocked.
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- He knows you and loves you.
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- And christ has paid the full price for your salvation.
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- I read a beautiful story about czar nicholas of russia,
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- Who used to wander around his barracks at night in disguise
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- To get an accurate sense of what the soldiers were doing.
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- But one evening
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- He saw light on in a room that should have been in darkness,
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- And when he opened the door,
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- He saw the son of one of his old friends asleep.
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- At a table beside him was a loaded
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- Revolver, some money, and a sheet of paper.
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- And on the sheet of paper was a long list of debts,
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- Gambling, and other debts.
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- The total ran into many thousands of rubles.
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- That officer had used army funds to pay these debts,
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- And now, having worked to late into the night
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- Trying to get his account straight,
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- Had discovered for the first time
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- How much he actually owed, it was hopeless.
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- The pitifully small balance on hand left such a huge
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- Deficit to be made up on the sheet of paper below,
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- And that terrible total he'd written under it.
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- Who can pay so great a debt?
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- Unable to face the disgrace the officer had intended
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- Shooting himself, but he was so completely worn out
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- With sorrow and remorse he'd actually fallen asleep.
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- Well, as the czar realized what had happened,
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- His first thought was to have the man immediately arrested
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- And in due course brought before a court martial.
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- But as
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- He remembered the long friendship the young he had
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- With the young officer, father love overcame judgment.
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- And in a moment he had devised a plan whereby
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- He could be just toward the army
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- And justify the culprit.
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- So the czar took up his pen that had dropped from the hand
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- Of this weary, hopeless officer, and with his own hand
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- Answered the question with one word.
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- Nicholas.
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- The following day the czar sent exactly what was owed.
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- He paid the debt in full love, overcame judgment.
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- That's what jesus did for you and for me.
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- He has paid our debt in full.
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- When we take our thoughts captive,
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- We get to worship in spirit with nothing hidden.
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- Let me pray for you.
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- Lord, what a beautiful definition of worship
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- That we get to come as we are, not as we wish we were.
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- Thank you that you know all that's true about us.
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- And if you've paid that bill in advance
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- When you cried out from the cross, it is finished.
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- You were saying, bill paid in full.
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- So now we get to come to you in our brokenness
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- And our best days and our worst days.
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- And we received because you have paid the price.
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- Thank you jesus. we love you.
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- Amen.
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