Right-Thinking

Did your teacher ever tell you to, “put on your thinking cap”?  Mine did, and her challenge was to really-really think about what’s coming next!  Today, the older-me wonders what ever  happened to that thinking-cap.

Spiritual confusion – do you suffer from it?  Sometimes, usually in the middle of the night, a thought or idea comes to me absolutely crystal-clear!  Before long, however, I’ve chewed and reasoned on it so long it’s no longer so clear; human reasoning has set in -- maybe I imagined it, perhaps you dreamed it, that doesn’t make sense, or don’t rush into this.  My own “wisdom” has distorted its clarity. “Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear.” (Oswald Chambers).  An effective tool of Satan’s is to divide and distort our thinking, causing confusion.  He gets us preoccupied with other things and lures us to think as the world thinks – independently of the Word of God.  He uses cultural values and false belief systems to trip us up and snare our thinking with the intent to cause doubt and manipulate (just like Eve in the Garden, Genesis 3).  Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “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.”  These “speculations” refer to mindful calculations and thoughts that undermine and stand against God’s viewpoint.  Clearly, Paul warns us of such destructive thinking in this mind-battle.  So (practically speaking), how do we make prisoners of our destructive thought patterns?  The simple answer, not necessarily easy answer, is obedience!  When God tells us to do something, with all due respect to Nike, just do it!  Time spent pondering God’s Truth changes His Truth; It doesn’t change, It’s settled (“Forever, O LORD, Your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens.” Psalm 119:89).   When we know what God has said in His Word and obey Him, we make His Truth internal and personal; His Holy Spirit empowers us to live the Truth.  Yes, I know this is deep but divinely solid counsel.  We’ll need those thinking caps if we are to think with “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), and we’ll need “boots on the ground” to live in His Truth.  The result is real faith, a saying-to-doing faith, and it begins with … right-thinking!