|
The Importance of Thoughts
Consecrated Thinking Whatsoever things are true, ... honest, ... just, ... pure, ... lovely, ... of good report, if there be any virtue, ... any praise, think on these things.—Philippians 4:8 Benjamin Barton Thoughts are more important than the words you speak, or the acts you perform; your place in the kingdom depends on your thoughts. Thoughts are the beginning of everything. This whole universe began when God thought of creating it. Thoughts are the seeds we plant to make things grow. We are growing a crop called character. Paul referred to the Corinthian church as “God’s husbandry,” in other words, God’s farm. There is great diversity among farms. Some look prosperous, others show signs of neglect. It is so with individuals. One has a character like a nicely cultivated farm with patience, love, zeal, godliness, earnestness, and other grand qualities on display. Another character may be like a farm overgrown with weeds. One sees envy, jealousy, malice, strife, and other evil fruitage. Just as seed must be planted to raise a crop, thought is required to develop a desirable character. A seed is such a little thing, yet it can produce a large plant. Likewise, thought is a little thing, yet so much grows from it. The apostle Paul referred to this: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7,8). In the parable of the sower, some seed fell by the wayside, some upon stony ground, some fell among thorns, and some on good ground (Matthew 13:3-9). Jesus said the good seed was the Word of God, which is a collection of thoughts which God put into book form for our edification. There we read what God thought respecting sin; what he thought about the angels; what he thought about Jesus; what he thought about the resurrection, and about the wicked. Our Bible differs from other books in that it contains God’s thoughts: “My thoughts are not your thoughts … For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my … thoughts [higher] than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8,9). Paul said he planted and
Apollos watered (1 Corinthians 3:6). By this he meant he had planted certain
thoughts in their minds which they did not have before. Apollos watered or
encouraged those thoughts, and God will eventually bring about the growth and
fruition. Planting seeds refers to thinking thoughts. Two Kinds of Thoughts There are two kinds of seeds: the good which produce helpful things like food and flowers, and the bad which produce injurious plants such as thistles and weeds. Likewise, there are two kinds of thoughts. Good thoughts produce patience, godliness, humility, gentleness, meekness and faith. Bad thoughts produce jealousy, malice, hatred, envy, strife, ungodliness, and all sorts of evil things (cf., James 1:14-16). After planting a good seed, there is a need for cultivation, fertilizing, and careful attention or it will not produce much. That is the way with good thoughts. It is not enough to stick good thought into a corner of your mind, and expect it to grow. One must work over it, cultivate it, and water it if one expects it to grow. It is different with bad seeds. You do not have to labor to make them grow. Stick them in any corner of a garden and they will immediately start to grow weeds. It is that way with bad thoughts. The work of a successful farmer is to make the good seed grow, and discourage the bad seed from growing. So Christians must encourage the good thoughts to grow, and keep the bad thoughts from growing. When a plant goes to seed, it produces more seed like itself. Likewise if one encourages, waters, and cultivates good thoughts, they will grow and produce a prolific harvest of good thoughts. But plant a bad thought, and it will eventually go to seed and one will have even more bad thoughts. Plant Good Thoughts Neither good nor bad seed will do anything unless it is planted. A good thought will never amount to anything unless you think it, nor will a bad thought harm you unless you think it. There is a vast difference between a thought and thinking a thought. To plant a seed, you must bury it. To think a thought is like planting seed. A good seed is of no value unless you plant it, and a good thought is of no use unless you think it, welcome it, entertain it. To distinguish between thought, and thinking a thought, consider Jesus. After he was baptized by John in Jordan, he immediately went into the wilderness where he was without food for forty days. Near the end of that time, when he was hungry, Satan suggested a thought to his mind: “Command this stone that it be made bread” (Luke 4:3). Jesus refused to entertain that thought: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). He refused to think that thought. The seed was handed to him by the evil one, but he did not plant it. We are not to blame for our thoughts, but we are to blame for what we think. If a good thought comes to our mind, we are not to be commended. But we do deserve the approval of God if we think the thought, if we plant it. So also with bad thoughts. If someone puts a bad thought into our minds, we are not to blame. But it is different if we welcome it and think about it. As the Scriptures say: “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Notice that it does not say: “As a man’s thoughts are, so is he.” This is the idea expressed by the apostle: “He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8). Sowing to the flesh means thinking thoughts out of harmony with God’s will, thoughts in keeping with the spirit of the flesh. Entertaining such thoughts is sowing to the flesh and that will result in corruption. Suppose in a little garden patch of corn you took a handful of weed seed and scattered it about. That would be sowing corruption and you can expect to reap corruption. That does not mean you would get no corn. You are likely to get some, but you would have to work harder to make it grow. Some of the nourishment that should go to the corn would go to the weeds. Thus if a wrong thought comes to mind, if we plant that thought, we are sowing corruption. We make it harder for ourselves to get into the kingdom. When the apostle said, “He that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting,” it meant if a thought comes to our mind in harmony with the Spirit of God, and we think along that line, we will reap everlasting life because we are sowing the good seed. How important it is to think right things! “Whatsoever things are true … think on these things.” If a thought comes to your mind that is not true, crush it. Exaggeration is simply the result of entertaining untruthful thoughts until an untruthful disposition is developed. While we do not want to entertain an untrue thought of anyone or anything, let us be careful not to entertain untrue thoughts about God. The thought may come, “Suppose God would not give us the grace we need in a difficulty; possibly he will desert us.” That is an untrue thought, because he has stated, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). He says that “he will supply all of our needs, according to the riches of his grace” (Philippians 4:19). The apostle said, “No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). These are only a few of the passages a Christian has to rest his faith upon. If we entertain the thought that God is going to desert us, it will begin to develop the weeds of doubt and soon we are overwhelmed by our unworthiness and conclude that God will desert us when we least expect it. If that happens, our faith is gone. That shows how dangerous it is to entertain an untrue thought of God. We want the faith that will not entertain a thought that God will be untrue to what He has said. Whatsoever things are true, think on these things, and do not for one moment think of the untrue things. If untrue thoughts come to your mind, crush them, resist them. “Whatsoever things are honest, think on these things.” A child of God has a different conception of honesty from the people of the world. The world considers everything as honest that does not rob another of money, property, or what belongs to him. The Christian has a higher conception of honesty, for everything he has belongs to the Lord. His eyes, his ears, his tongue, his hands, his feet, all are the Lord’s. The Christian considers it dishonest to take that which he has given to the Lord and use it selfishly. It would be dishonest to let my hands engage in anything that would be displeasing to the Lord, or my feet to take me to any place I could not go with the Lord’s endorsement. The dishonesty is not in doing a thing merely, but in allowing yourself to entertain the thought. If a thought comes to us that is not quite honest, ask the Lord for help to crush it. Then you have gained the victory. “Whatsoever things are just, think on these things.” A Christian has no right to do what God would not approve, no right to endorse an unjust thought. An unjust thought is one that is inconsistent with justice. For instance, it would be unjust to think God will make an allowance for your imperfections and weaknesses, but will not do the same for others. It is unjust to think others should not be harsh when judging you, while you are harsh in your treatment of others: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:1,2). If we realized that God measures to us as we measure to others, what allowances we would make in our relationships! Let us be careful in this. As we are just in our thoughts of others, the Lord will think similar thoughts of us. It will be an evidence that there is a place for us with the Lord in the kingdom. “Whatsoever things are pure, think on these things.” The world thinks any thought not terribly immoral must be pure, but that is not the standard for us. Any thought is impure if there is any selfishness, pride, envy, jealousy, or malice in it. Many in the world do things that are absolutely wrong, yet they are sure they are right. Eventually they come to a place where one could never convince them they are wrong. Let us be careful that we think only on “whatsoever things are pure.” “Whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things.” If any thought comes to our mind that is so unlovely that we would not like others to know about it, we must not entertain it. I have often thought how careful we would be about what we think if God had made us with glass heads, so others could read our thoughts all the time. But in fact we all have glass heads. The devil can read our thoughts and knows what temptations to put before us. He looks and sees what thoughts we entertain. Then he says, “I see now where he is weak; I can trip him up now.” The devil would be working in the dark if he did not have that knowledge. Let us be careful, whenever anything unlovely suggests itself, that we do not think on these things. Resist such thoughts; put them down. “Whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things.” We are not to think on whatever the neighbors may say. Whatever God has given a good report on, “think on these things.” You say, “I have to think about my family.” We find a good report of that in the Bible: “If any provide not for his own … he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). As we go to the Bible, there is a good report on the kind of thoughts that have to do with caring for our families. If there is any thought we do not find a good report of in the Bible, do not entertain it. “If there be any virtue, think on these things.” This suggests that we are to think thoughts that will help make us a better Christian. Do not think any thoughts that will not have that effect. The way to keep wrong thoughts out of our mind is to think good thoughts, virtuous thoughts, that will be helpful. We often find people distracted, almost to the point of desperation, because they cannot get rid of bad thoughts. Bad thoughts come and we strive frantically to drive them away. You will never get rid of bad thoughts that way. If a wrong thought tries to come in, put a good thought in its place. The word virtue is not used here in the sense of the opposite of vice. It means having something helpful in it, that which would strengthen and fortify us for our Christian battles. “If there be any praise, think on these things.” If you find that God would praise you for thinking certain things, “think on these things.” If you find you can praise God better as a result of them, “think on such things.” In these words, we have the rule for attaining skill and success as a Christian. Whether or not we have a place in the kingdom and the degree to which we help our brethren, depends on what we think about. This seems simple, but few want to do it. There is nothing more important to impress on your minds than the lesson of this passage: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” |