For the past two weeks, I have talked about the first two parts of loving the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. The heart is the center of the emotions...loving the Lord with all of our emotions. Secondly the soul is the center of who we are...what forms our personality. We are to love the Lord with all of our personality.
Today I want to talk about the mind. The is the place where our thoughts are. There is a little phrase that goes around in Christian circles that sin is anything we think, do, or say that is against God's will. Well, I want to challenge that a little bit. In the book of James, Chapter 1, we see the three things leading up to sin. It is plainly seen here that the mere thought going through our head is not the actual sin. What makes it become sin is what we do with it once it gets there. We can't control what comes in to our minds...oh yes, we can choose to stay out of places that will feed thoughts, but still, we can't control the air waves. James 1:14 and 15 tells us the three steps. "But each one is tempted when he is carrried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished , it brings forth death." See the three parts? It is not the thought that is sin. It is when we allow the thought to manifest itself in our minds and we are carried away by our own lust. Then that lust gives birth to sin and then death occurs by the hands of that sin.
So what happens to us when our thoughts are not under His control...when we take our mind's eye off of the Lord. Well, look at Peter. Peter walked on the water....let me say that again! Peter walked on the water!!!!!! As he was walking, his mistake was looking around instead of straight ahead at Jesus. Then and only then did he begin to sink. Joshua 1:8 tells us to not look to the left or to the right but look straight ahead. That way we can be strong and courageous. Peter was absolutely courageous in his attempts. Let's face it. He was the only disciple to get out of the boat. The rest just sat in the boat and watched as this courageous man looking straight ahead at his source of strength started walking on water.
There is a second thing that happens when our thoughts are not on Jesus, but on other things, people, and of course ourselves. It is called STRESS!!! I have to admit, and be totally transparent with you here that there is not one person without stress, and sometimes overwhelming stress. Countless books have been written on how to put up boundaries and release the stress in our lives. I think it is interesting. We think that stress is brought on by all of the things we have to do in a 21st century society. Maybe that is part of it. I certainly don't want to minimize this sinful hold on us. But I think it comes back to something that Scripture talked about a long time ago. So how do we get rid of the stress? In Isaiah 26:3 Scripture says "He will keep you in perfect peace if your mind is fixed on Him." When we start feeling stress or even sense the effects of stress, our first course of action needs to check what our mind is thinking on. Is is fixed on Him or do we have the Peter syndrome? Secondly, in 2 Corinthians 10:5, the Word says "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Wow! Do we really have that ability? YES!
The mind! The thoughts! Love the Lord with all of your thoughts! How? Look straight ahead. His eyes are fixed on you!
As always, think about it.
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