We can control our thoughts when we take it outside of ourselves. This daily devotional looks at looking to the heavens and raising our praises to God to help us control our thoughts.
Nuggets
- Contemplating the beauty and majesty of our world can calm our thoughts and give us peace.
- Praising God helps us to control our thoughts.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the How Do We Live Godly Lives? series
We can be so insular at times. That doesn’t help when we get locked into the thoughts in our heads.
There are times we need to break out of that. We can do that by contemplating on the heavens and praising God.
We are looking at Charnock’s sermon entitled The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts to show us how to cleanse, a.k.a. sanctify, our thought processes.
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Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Using Objects for Spiritual Influence
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8: 3-4 ESV)
“Draw spiritual inferences from occasional objects. David did but wisely consider the heavens, and he breaks out into self-abasement and humble admirations of God (Psalm 8:3, 4)” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
Contemplating the beauty and majesty of our world can calm our thoughts and give us peace.
This has long been a favorite verse of mine. What I see David saying is look up. We see a big, beautiful sky. Sometimes, it is blue. Sometimes gray. Sometimes black.
At times, there is not a cloud in the sky. At other times, we can have fun picking out shapes in the clouds.
Move on beyond that, we find stars, moons, and other planets. That leads to galaxies, black holes, and nebulas — along with a lot of other stuff.
God created all of that.
And we think He can’t handle anything that comes up in our lives? Wrong!
David knew that He could rely on God. Witherspoon wrote, “The words carry a general confession of the influence of Divine Providence upon every event, and in particular with respect to salvation, or deliverance from impending danger.” Providence is God’s acts of meeting the needs of His creation.
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We can be confident that God will provide for us. God is omnipotent. Omnipotent means God is all-powerful.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
When we contemplate all of this, it should help us simmer down our thoughts. We aren’t in this alone. We are in this with Someone Who is much stronger than us.
When we contemplate how trustworthy God is, we can control our thoughts and be content.
Using Praise to Secure Blessings
“Salvation belongs to the Lord; may your blessing be on your people. Selah” (Ps. 3: 8 CSB)
“Glean matter of instruction to yourselves, and praise to your Maker, from everything you see; it will be a degree of restoration to a state of innocency, since this was Adam’s task in paradise” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
Praising God helps us to control our thoughts.
Another way to corral our thoughts is to praise God. Praising Him brings blessing upon us.
Blessings don’t mean just gaining material possessions and happiness. Birch said that it was “not merely when we have what we wish, but far more when we do not wish what we have not.”
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Salvation is the greatest blessing that we can be given.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We have so much for which to praise God.
Parker gave us a great way to determine if we are being blessed. He wrote, “When you feel that you must do more work, God’s blessing is upon you. Be sure of that confidence. When you want to be idle, God has withdrawn from you because you have withdrawn from Him.”
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I get that. When we are gung-ho for God, work isn’t work. It is a joy — it is praise. We feel Him there every step of the way.
When God isn’t there because we have turned away, it is a struggle. It is work. There is no joy.
Kennion had an interesting sermon entitled The People of God. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was declared to be the people of God.
In the New Testament, Jesus clarified that. He said that we must individually become children of God. Kennion wrote, “We are redeemed, not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ.”
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We have to become children of God to fully praise Him and know His blessings. He won’t bless us if we are not following His laws and commandments.
Making the Connections
Okay. Let’s recap the previous two devotions for a second plus add in what we’ve said here. Charnock has taught us so far that we cleanse our thoughts when we return to having a strong relationship with God. We can do that by studying the Scriptures, meditating on God, contemplating on His creation, and praising Him.
What all of this is telling me is we need to focus on God. We look up; we dig deep into His Word; we surround ourselves with Him.
I know. That can be hard when we are in the midst of all the chaos. It is also hard when we are hurting because we just don’t see a purpose or an end.
How Do We Apply This?
Through it all, we have to focus on God. We have to do more than what we regularly do if we feel we are in a really bad spot.
If we do daily devotions, we have to do a deeper dive into Scriptures. We have to schedule extra prayer time.
For the past three years, I’ve gone on two-day retreats by myself. I don’t think I am going to get to go this year, and that makes me very sad.
We have to find our way to shut ourselves off from the world and focus fully on Him.
Lord, I Have Shut theDoor
Vocalist: Elaine Guthals
Keyboard: Chris Vieth
Meditating on God means thinking on Him. We do that by praising Him and acknowledging Who He is.
Father God. We praise You. We honor You. We will focus our thoughts on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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