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Don’t Entertain Wrong Thoughts
‘Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.’ Proverbs 4:23 NLT
When Satan sets out to destroy you, he starts by planting wrong thoughts in your mind. Jesus illustrated this when He said, ‘The laws of Moses said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say: Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ (Matthew 5:27–28 TLB)
Before you surrender to sin in reality, you entertain it as fantasy. Evil thoughts aren’t really yours until you allow them to ‘move in and rearrange the furniture’. Left unchecked to ramble through your mind, a thought can attach itself to an incident in your past or a proclivity in your present and feed on it until it’s like a tumour growing inside you. Paul warns, ‘Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)
And Solomon writes, ‘Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.’ Don’t give wrong thoughts a centimetre or they’ll take a kilometre. Evict them before they weaken your commitment to Christ and leave you in the place of regret.
Generally speaking, when we clean a house we focus on what others can see and inspect. Imagine how much mental rubbish we collect because we think nobody sits in our heads examining our thoughts. But God does! David said, ‘You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me.’ (Psalm 139:1 CEV) Knowing that should lead you to pray: ‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord.’ (Psalm 19:14 NAS)
written by Bob Gass
‘Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.’ Proverbs 4:23 NLT
When Satan sets out to destroy you, he starts by planting wrong thoughts in your mind. Jesus illustrated this when He said, ‘The laws of Moses said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say: Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ (Matthew 5:27–28 TLB)
Before you surrender to sin in reality, you entertain it as fantasy. Evil thoughts aren’t really yours until you allow them to ‘move in and rearrange the furniture’. Left unchecked to ramble through your mind, a thought can attach itself to an incident in your past or a proclivity in your present and feed on it until it’s like a tumour growing inside you. Paul warns, ‘Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)
And Solomon writes, ‘Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.’ Don’t give wrong thoughts a centimetre or they’ll take a kilometre. Evict them before they weaken your commitment to Christ and leave you in the place of regret.
Generally speaking, when we clean a house we focus on what others can see and inspect. Imagine how much mental rubbish we collect because we think nobody sits in our heads examining our thoughts. But God does! David said, ‘You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me.’ (Psalm 139:1 CEV) Knowing that should lead you to pray: ‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord.’ (Psalm 19:14 NAS)
written by Bob Gass