Thursday, March 22, 2007

What are you thinking?

What are you thinking?

I am constantly bombarded with thoughts. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but nonetheless I am always thinking. What about you? What is the state of your mind? Do you think happy thoughts, sad thoughts, simply meaningless jibber-jabber? The truth of the matter is that we all think and we are always thinking. Maybe a few of us aren’t thinking to clearly, but thoughts are going through our heads.

Do you ever think about what you are thinking? Do that few a few moments………..
What is going on inside of your head?

I think that we as Christians need to be better at checking our thoughts. Especially due to the fact that our lives are shaped by what we think. The Bible, in Romans 12:2 and Ephesians 4:23, says that in order to change we must renew our minds, or simply change what we think about. Think about it, if you fighting a problem with alcohol abuse then going to a bar every night is only going to make it worse. If you have a problem with lewd and lustful desires, then watching movies that are full of sexual innuendos is not a good idea. The old adage is true, what we put into our minds will eventually come out.

The awesome thing is that the same is true for walking with the Lord. When we begin to fill our minds with the Word of God, guess what happens… it will come out! When we place ourselves in the midst of others walking with the Lord, we are encouraged to walk with the Lord as well. The battle for our minds is crucial! Satan and his adversaries are doing everything they can to control our minds and what we think about. Look at the way Satan is controlling the media that inundates our society. We are flooded with the ideas of sex, drugs, partying, etc. [Please don’t hear me saying that these things are bad. They are actually good in their proper context. (sex inside of marriage, drugs to heal illness, party to celebrate friendship, love, etc.)] However, these things outside of their context will destroy you.

Advertisements are geared to make us want a product, whether good or bad. The media of our day knows that what we think about will eventually come to fruition. Why do you think that McDonalds shows the best looking cheeseburger you have ever seen, or why does Victoria’s Secret only use the best built and best looking models. They are on a quest to get their product into your mind so that you will want it. This is not a new strategy. It has been going on since the beginning in the garden with Adam and Eve. The Serpent “helped” Eve to see (think) that the fruit was actually a good thing. It wasn’t a good thing before, but now all of a sudden it is. The serpent knew that if he could make her look at the fruit in a different light she would give in to the temptation. It is the same way today. Satan knows that if he can get our mind fixated on sinful things then we will give in to them and not grow in our relationship with the Lord. That is his strategy; he will deceive you in any way possible.

So what do we do? We MUST take control of our minds and decide what we think about. Paul tells the Corinthians that, “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 Cor. 10:5)

Jesus told the Pharisees, when asked what is the greatest commandment, to “love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matt. 22:37; Mk. 12:30; Lk. 10:27) We must guard our minds from the world that we may love God with our minds as well as our heart and soul.

It is obvious that our minds and the thoughts that they think are very important. To experience true peace of mind we must win the battle for our minds!

The battle for our minds is a fierce one, who is winning your battle?