the vision to transform my mind’s thoughts (pt. 1)

The first place we move away from God or toward God is through our thoughts. The devil works through our thinking more than anything else. Good thinking or bad thinking are real possibilities because God gives us the freedom to choose out thoughts.

We can’t control what is in the world but we can control what is in our own thought life. We can choose the content of what we are thinking. We can’t do it perfectly, but we can make progress in filling our thought life more and more with God’s Word and the promises announced there.

Our thinking has four parts. I’ll post on two today and two tomorrow.

Ideas
We have been forming an idea system since we were born. We have been influenced through experience, the teachings of others, and watching the behavior of our family and community. We don’t realize what is reality and what is false reality in our lives. When we look at our ideas we do a reality check.

To transform our personal idea system from one of ruin to one of goodness, we have to replace our ideas with the idea system of Jesus. This is the most difficult and painful process in life. To change our minds.

According to research, most people have their ideas firmly established when it comes to life, values, and beliefs by the time they are 12-13 years old. It is extraordinarily rare for us to change our thinking after that. It is also essential that we do in order to think more and more like Jesus would think if he were we.

What is a common idea system that moves one away from a life of radical goodness that people buy into? Anyone’s ideas are just as good as anyone else’s. No one can say they are right and someone else is wrong. There is no right or wrong, but only what you personally believe. As long as you are sincere, your ideas are valid. This idea system is called, “Relativism,” and it is very influential in our society.

Images
Along with ideas, images are what fill our minds. They are basic and concrete and they have a powerful effect. Ideas and images are Satan’s main tools against us. What preoccupies our thought life? Ideas and specific images.

Sexual images are overwhelming in society. We see sexualized images in advertisement and the media. Pleasure and power await us as we think of these images. The multibillion dollar pornography business is a huge tool that Satan uses today to build up his image kingdom.
Jesus uses images to move us from self-worship to self-denial. The most powerful image in this is the cross. To look at a cross is to sense his love, sacrifice, devotion and strength. The cross is a reminder of what he did, but it is also a beckon of hope of what he is doing.

As we are being transformed to be like Jesus, the key is to take the destructive ideas and images we have and replace them with the ideas and images Jesus possesses. We take one the mind of Christ. This is a possibility for life in his Kingdom now.

1 Cor. 2:16 (NLT)
How could they? For,

"Who can know what the Lord is thinking?
Who can give him counsel?"

But we can understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.