WHAT DO YOU THINK?
How often do we say?
“I think...” or…
“I can't stop thinking about...”
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Do you ever wish you could stop thinking?
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Every moment we are awake we are thinking.
We cannot help ourselves.
Sleep gives us some respite but even then, our brains are at work sorting all those thoughts out!
One of the major things that defines us as human beings is our capacity to think.
The French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) said: “I think therefore I am.”
Our ability to think and speak with words sets us above all other creatures.
Animals have instincts and can observe – primarily to find food, to protect themselves for survival, and to reproduce, but they do not have words to think coherently and creatively as we humans do.
This is because we are created in the image of God who is the Eternal Thinker. Everything we see around us in nature comes from God's thinking, His imagination, His desires, and His thoughts.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
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Although we got the capacity to think from being created in God’s image, the problem is that since the Fall that image is broken - our thinking is corrupted.
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“The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (Gen 8:21);
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“The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.” (Ps 94:11);
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“Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity.” (Is 59:7);
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“The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord.” (Proverbs 15:26)
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Although our minds are a battleground, Jesus reveals that the problem is not in our brain but in our heart -
“From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts.” (Mark 7:21)
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“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
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What do you think?
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The Bible says that as a man “thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7
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The real you and the real me is what we think in our hearts
– thoughts that no one else knows about
– except you and God.
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That is the real you!
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Do you like that person?
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Paul did not like himself in that sense so we are in good company if we feel the same. In Romans 7 Paul very honestly talks about the struggle between his higher thoughts as a Christian and his fleshly desires and says
“Oh wretched man that I am - who can deliver me?
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And then he concludes: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
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As Paul shows us there, Jesus provides us with a way to bring our fallen minds into line with the mind of Christ…
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In another place, Paul recommends that as soon as unholy thoughts, sinful desires, and unclean imaginations start to come to mind we can choose to replace those thoughts with…
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“Whatever things are true,
whatever things are noble,
whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely,
whatever things are of good report,
if there is any virtue and
if there is anything praiseworthy
—meditate on these things.”
(Phil 4:8)
Try it – it works!
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“God be in my head and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes and in my looking;
God be in my mouth and in my speaking;
God be in my heart and in my thinking;
God be at my end and at my departing”
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This short hymn was originally in French and comes from the late 15th century
and appeared in English in 1514 in a Book of Hours
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