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What's in a Thought?
by Larry Armstrong What's in a Thought? Larry L. Armstrong Read: Matthew 26:21-28 Does your mind become a jumbled mess sometimes? Mine does. I fill it with too much now and again. Appointments, details of my church's activities, sermon preparation, family concerns, ideas I want to write about. When I was going to a study conference once, my mother said to me, "Someday your head is going to bust!" As you allow legitimate ideas to enter your mind, things you ought to think about, it isn't long before somebody asks you to consider another thing, and overload may occur. You're thoughts are influenced subtly by the media as well as friends. Advertising is carefully aimed at you so that in the back of your mind you're influenced to buy a particular product the next time you need fast-acting soap or tasty soup or an entertaining song. What you read, see on a billboard, hear on the car radio becomes part of the content of your mind. Your subconscious thinks about it more than you realize. It also contributes to your mind's overload. In The Practice of Godliness, Jerry Bridges wrote, "Our minds are mental greenhouses where unlawful thoughts, once planted, are nurtured and watered before being transplanted into the real world of unlawful actions." Few crimes are ever committed without a criminal considering whether he might get away with it. Even crimes of passion have some basis in prior thoughts, vague imaginings or wishful dreams. As thoughts filter into you from the outside world, you pick up all sorts of notions, good and bad. This is why careful analysis of what you read in a magazine or watch on television is critical. Expose yourself too frequently to wrong notions, and you'll eventually act on them. Witness the child pornographer or the adulterer, the thief or tax evader. Each has been shown in courts of law to have started their bad behavior with exposure to a medium that shows or discusses the wrong activity in a tantalizing way. Fill your head with too many thoughts of misbehavior, and you'll misbehave. Jesus spoke to Peter, who was urging him not to think about death: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men" (Mt. 16:23, NIV). What's in a thought? The germ of a deed. Sooner or later you'll act on a bad idea to which you've become insensitive. You may begin by thinking lies are evil, but train yourself to consider some lies as permissible, and where will your self-deception stop? The reverse is true also. Flood your mind with wholesome and valuable and praiseworthy ideas; you'll work hard to produce the same kind of behavior. What you put into your brain sooner or later leaks back out! Application: Be sure you balance your reading and television viewing with useful information or entertainment. Assess the content of all you put into yourself. Prayer: Holy Spirit, teach me the ways of Christ, and preserve my thinking by filling me with wise and useful ideas. Amen. Copyright (c) 2010 by Larry L. Armstrong Larry L. Armstrong is author of Patience: Harvesting the Spirit's Fruit and other books and ebooks. He's pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Jeannette, PA as well as a speaker for FaithProbe seminars. Find out more at www.FaithProbe.com. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |