Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways.
Out thoughts make us break us. I can do a hundred pushups if I don’t think about it. If I think about it I can barely do 40. A rat experiment is a great example. A scientist put a rat in a jar filled with water. The rat swam and swam for 15 minutes then gave up and sank to the bottom. He retrieved the ray with a net and quickly revived him. A day later he put the same rat in the same glass jar and the rat swam for 60 hours! The mind will keep you going and the mind will make you quit.
Genesis says that in the time of Noah men’s thoughts made the world so rancid that He had to cleanse it. Their thoughts were filthy and sins followed. Thoughts. God’s thoughts or the ‘god’ of this world’s thoughts.
What we think about, and how we think, is just as important as praying, congregating and reading the Bible. Last week we talked about the renewing of your mind. If you spend all your time dwelling on God and His goodness, there is your heart. You will be transformed into His image by the renewing of your mind. If you spend all your time dwelling on evil, there is also your heart, and you will be transformed as well, in a very bad way. Our treasure, in this day and age, is time (or lack there of). Put your heart in heavenly things, by investing your time into the Kingdom of God things.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (Matthew 6:21)
SIn, our sinful nature, how we sin against each other and how we sin against God all begins in our thoughts. Thoughts and imaginations are closely intertwined. We can control our thoughts if we want to.
“We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
What you think about when you’re alone says more about who you truly are than anything else. Have you ever been around someone who just seemed kind of slimey? It’s usually because their thought life is out of whack, and they are being transformed in a bad way.
Micah 2:1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Wickedness starts in our imaginative thoughts, and the end is always death. These are fatal conditions because the sins they lead to take over your whole existence.
Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Enough negativity. We’ve all been there to one degree or another before we were saved. Then we got our souls saved, got baptized, went to church, and lived happily ever after, right? No way! Our souls got saved but our brain matter didn’t. They still have the addictions, vices, filth and worldliness programmed into them. Once we get saved we are not ‘sinless’, but we will ’sin less and less’. We still have the ‘old man’ tendencies as Paul talks about in Romans 7, but the more we think about Jesus and heavenly things the more we transform in a good way, to be like Jesus. We even begin to smell like Him!
2 Cor 2:15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
When we get saved, our struggles are not over. Not even in our lifetimes. There are still lots of struggles, and victories. (You can’t have a victory if you had no struggles) and we will continue to struggle all our lives as we are being transformed into Christ’s image, slowly but surely, one painful step at a time.
2 Cor 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Once we receive Jesus into our hearts, for our salvation we begin the good fight. We fight by renewing our mind. We renew our mind becoming transformed into Christ’s image by becoming so ‘heavenly minded we’re no earthly good’ (not possible coincidentally, but necessary to try).
Set your mind on the things above, and the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:6-9)
Minds are hearts are thoughts and imaginations. Hearts (not blood pumps) and mind (not the grey matter). Our new God thoughts in our minds and hearts shape us, and lead us to live Holy, consecrated lives unto the Lord.
Keep your thoughts on the Lord this new year, 2023. Love God, hate sin. Take the beam out of your own eye (if you are sincerely trying to do so, you won’t have time to worry about the splinters in your own eye). Be the type of Christian that encourages people to want what you have, to get saved and to have an abundant life like you have.
Your thoughts become your feelings . Your feelings become your words . Your words become your actions. Your actions done repeatedly become your habits. Your habits become your character and your character becomes your destiny.
Romans 16:19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice, But I wish you to be wise as to what is good, and simple-minded as to what is evil
Pray for me for wisdom and planning skills as we prepare for a bi-lingual pastors retreat down here (Jan 18-19) with Steve Madsen, Cornerstone Livermore California
Winnie and I are wishing you the Happiest of New Years!
If you feel led to give to get a tax deductible before the year end, remember it’s matched!