Thoughts of the Heart

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7) So we have to zealously guard our hearts, for from it flows the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Simply: our thoughts guide what we do, which defines who we are. And our attitude toward life determines how we understand it, and live it.

The Puritans had it right, and practiced it daily. We examine ourselves rigorously "...to see if [we are] in the faith...that Christ Jesus is in [us]." (II Corinthians 13:5)

That means looking over our deeds, certainly, to see if we have done what is right. I consider it means even more examining our operative thinking rigorously, since it is the parent of our deeds. As Jesus said, a bad tree can't produce good fruit.

On trial are our "thoughts of the heart:" the attitudes, assumptions, and purposes by which we operate.

Christians obsess about their minuscule deeds: "Can I have a beer with this man without damaging my Christian witness...?" Christians seem to pay no attention whatever to the operative thoughts they let into their hearts. How else could they have drunken so deeply of the "spirit of this world" ?

Here, as in all other considerations, foolishness is a moral quality. Christians have been profoundly foolish, especially in their politics...tithing their mint, and dill, and cummin, they have neglected the "weightier" demands of the gospel for justice, truth, and mercy.

May God open the blind eyes of the self-satisfied, hypocritical American Church !!

Transformed

Sunday School recently was reading Romans 12.

Its context is the great choice every Christian must make: to be "transformed," and not "conformed" (v. 2)

To be "transformed" is to be changed: in this verse, away from going along with ("conformed to") the world. More important is the question of what we are changed to. Here, we're told it's to a mind "renewed" to prove (test, examine, approve) the perfect will of God.

The change is to what is called in Phillipians 2:5 "the mind (or "attitude") which was also in Christ Jesus." And we know what that attitude was. The mind that was in Jesus was to do the will of the Father. (John 5:30)

As a man, Jesus had a choice to make. Every man has the same choice. With Frank Sinatra, some choose to do it "My Way." Scripture tells us instead to choose as Jesus chose: to do it God's way.

God's very clear about the choice. In Isaiah 53, He says that "going astray" is exactly "turning to our own way. He says that that is how He defines "iniquity," sin. Do you want to agree with God, and not go along with the world ? Start by using God's definitions. Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus: what God says a thing is, is what it is.

Have this attitude too. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our way: He says so in Isaiah 55. Human thoughts and human ways are never going to get it right, for one unchangeable reason: no human thought is God's thought, and no human way is God's way. The only way to ever get it right, is to view things as God Himself views them. That starts with making God's definitions our own: and it becomes our operative mindset as we do what God Himself does ("My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working," said Jesus), the way God Himself does them.

That's the choice Jesus made. It's the choice every human being has, to make.

But at least Frank Sinatra was honest about it. The world never is. The enemy cloaks his thoughts and ways in humanly-attractive forms. Going our own way is "independent-mindedness." Seeking our own good is "self-responsibility." Greed (to quote a movie-character) is good !

None of those were Jesus' attitudes. Yet many Christians operate by the world's thoughts and do things the world's way...and claim they follow Jesus.

Many Christians need to repent deeply, and seek the mercy of the King they continually offend !