Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Friday October 19, 2007

What have you been thinking this week? How about today? Does this sound like questions from accountability group? Probably, so I will move on.

The Bible states in Proverbs 23:7

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:"

The context is dealing with associating in a fellowship setting with those with an "evil eye" meaning that the focus of their life is evil continually and they do not have your interest at heart. The truth is the evil eye, the focus of persons life originates in the heart, thus evil thinking with intense feeling or commitment to the evil imagined.

Hence my question, what have you been thinking?

In front of my eyes each day as I write I have a three stage purpose statement which I use to try to set in motion in the life of whomever reads the piece. Think. Feel. Act. In the living of a fruitful and meaningful life these three are essential.

That we are to as Paul, have the mind of Christ, is touted throughout the New Testament and the ideal for the Christian it to have Christ think His thoughts through your mind. More than we can ever comprehend is involved in Philippians 2:5,

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:"

The context insists the mind of Christ is redemptive rather than destructive.

The battles we fight and win or lose depends to a large degree on what we choose to think in our minds and hearts. The battlefield of the mind as Tim LaHay calls it is the plain on which we really live our lives. The human mind does not naturally think the thoughts of God. We are too much like the writer Somerset Maugham when he admitted:

"If I wrote down every thought I have ever thought and every deed I have ever done, men would call me a monster of depravity."

Ole Somerset is right on with this statement. God's word certainly paints a picture of human depravity and the media adds color to this debauched state each day.

Through Christ we must learn to permit His mind to control ours using the scriptures as the manual for successful thinking, feeling and ultimately, acting. One of the old preachers stated it graphically when he wrote,

"The hand does not reach for that which the heart does not desire."

Larry Lilly Copyright (C) 2007 Use with Credit

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