Key Bible Verse: We demolish 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. (2 Corinthians 10:5, NIV).

Bonus Readings: Matthew 5:29; Romans 6:11-14; Romans 8:5-7; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Ephesians 2:3; Philippians 4:6-8; James 1:13-14; 1 Peter 4:1-6

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The movie A Beautiful Mind traces the life of genius mathematician and Nobel Prize-winner John Forbes Nash Jr. (played by Russell Crowe), who is tortured by paranoid schizophrenia.

Nash was a genius mathematician studying at Princeton and seeking to discover a truly original idea. He explained his concept of equilibrium in his 1950 dissertation, "Noncooperative Games," which eventually earned him the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics.

While a student at Princeton, Nash began to experience paranoid schizophrenia. Several delusional characters left him unable to discern reality from hallucination. His paranoia climaxed while Nash worked as a professor in the early 1950s at M.I.T.'s Wheeler Defense Labs. Nash was recruited to decipher Soviet codes for the U.S. government, but following his initial experiences with code breaking, he descended into a delusional world where he thought he continued to work for the government.

During this time, Nash's wife, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), admitted him to an institution that diagnosed and treated his disease. After shock therapy and medications left him unable to think through math problems, care for his young son, or be intimate with his wife, Nash determined to get off the medications and reason his way through his severe mental illness. His determination to overcome his illness led him to re-establish his relationship with Princeton and eventually to resume teaching.

In 1994 Thomas King (Austin Pendleton) from the Nobel Committee met with Nash to assess his mental state and determine if he would be a suitable Nobel laureate. In their conversation, Nash said to King tongue in cheek, "I am crazy." Then more soberly, "I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I just choose not to indulge certain appetites."

In a way, we all fight delusion. Satan is the father of lies, and he likes nothing better than convincing us to believe him. Daily we are presented with information that is intended to lead us away from God. Like Nash, we must learn not to acknowledge the lies and put our mind on a diet.

As 1 Corinthians 10:5 says, we need to take every thought captive to Christ. We do that by getting to know what he says in his Word. A friend of mine who is battling leukemia sees self-pity as from Satan. Whenever she is tempted to feel sorry for herself, she cuts off that line of thinking and instead finds reason to praise God. She has learned what it means to take every thought captive in Christ.

Another friend has long battled an addiction to pornography. Each time he is tempted to fall into old patterns, he starts saying verses he has memorized to combat this temptation. He knows he can't allow a moment of weakness in this area to take hold in his life.

Many Christians battle materialism. The world defines success much differently than Jesus does. Until we firmly adopt his outlook on life, we will be sucked in to thinking we need more money and possessions to make us happy.

No matter what the area of struggle is, we need to capture every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

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