"Think About" What We Think About

Long periods of not worshiping our Heavenly Father, not reading the Bible, not praying and doing sinful things or just dealing with it; all of this will make a Christ-follower weak and sometimes sooner than later, depending upon a person’s age, history and physical surroundings.  These things seem to weaken the soul and make one more susceptible to fear, failure, doubt and physical sickness.

To stay strong in our faith requires regular and continued praise, prayer, meditation on scripture and the fellowship of other Christ-followers. It seems, for those I have talked with over the years and for myself, that we can begin to feel the affects of the dark cold discouragement of this world if we let more that three days pass without actively engaging our spiritual-life.   Holy Spirit is strong enough to encourage and keep us during times of temptation to sin or be fearful if we are consistent with these spiritual activities.

Satan, the enemy of all mankind, does pursue us like a roaring lion; stalking his prey. He roars or rather his messages of fear or temptation are meant to shock us and get us to panic. He is looking for possible weaknesses to exploit in our relationship with Holy Spirit and our Father in Heaven.   His primary weapon is “thought”.  We must “think about” what we think about. What we think about should match the scriptural test for our thoughts according to the writer of the book of Philippians. He says this, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” This is found in Philippians 4:8 in the New Living Translation. Fairly simple stuff but very powerful, however it does require us to “think about” what we think about. Maybe we take a day and just write down the most common thoughts we seem to be thinking over a couple of days. It might be revealing.

Those other thoughts, you know the ones that are not true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy of praise; well I see them as “battery acid for the mind”. They eat away at the very things in our life that we value the most, like our commitments to those we love, our passion for life and even our self-esteem. They slowly destroy all the good if not checked on a daily basis.

To help myself, I like to practice the following. When I lay my head on my pillow at night, I like to think of at least 10 things that I experienced that day that caused me to be grateful for my life. I usually drift off to sleep with a grateful heart at around number 5 to 7. Try it.

It may work for you and remember,

Be Life Giving,

Alex Anderson

©2012 by Alex Anderson

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