We’ve spent considerable time talking about evil thoughts and preventing them. This daily devotion looks at good thoughts.
Nuggets
- We can train our good thoughts to focus on God.
- We must remember the most important good and bad thoughts so we can correctly evaluate our Sanctification Road.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the How Do We Live Godly Lives? series
With this devotion, we enter the last section of Charnock’s sermon. We’ve talked about preventing bad thoughts, but how do we focus on the good ones?
I’ve had to rearrange some of the points to get the devotions to not be humongous.
“A fourth sort of directions is concerning good motions; whether they spring naturally from a gracious principle, or are peculiarly breathed in by the Spirit. There are ordinary bubblings of grace in a renewed mind, as there are of sins in an unregenerate heart; for grace is as active a principle as any, because it is a participation of the Divine nature. But there are other thoughts darted in beyond the ordinary strain of thinking, which, like the beams of the sun, evidence both themselves and their original. And as concerning these motions joined together, take these directions in short” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
Let's Put It into Context #1
We’ve been 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. Charnock has taught us
- 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.
- that we focus our thoughts by being humble instead of prideful, following God instead of the worldview, working instead of being idle, and laboring for Him.
- that we overcome our evil thoughts by burying ourselves in Scripture, relying on His omniscience and judgment, guarding our hearts and lips, evaluating ourselves, and recognizing evil thoughts, especially hating sin and resisting Satan. We do this by watching and praying.
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Glossary
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Welcome Good Thoughts
“Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable — if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy — dwell on these things” (Phil. 4: 8 CSB)
We can train our good thoughts to focus on God.
“Welcome and entertain them. As it is our happiness, as well as our duty, to stifle evil motions, so it is our misery, as well as our sin, to extinguish heavenly” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
We’ve looked at Philippians 4: 8 before as it pertains to morality. Let’s look at it through the lens of dwelling on them through our thoughts.
Our thoughts happen in our mind. The mind is a component of the soul that controls our will. It is in our minds that we process and make judgments and decisions.
Paul believed whole heartedly that we can train our minds to change from focusing on sinful thoughts to focusing on God. He called this renewing our minds.
We can’t gain perfection unless we think about gaining it. Thinking about it is meditating on it. It isn’t going to just happen to us.
We must pursue sanctification. That makes it a conscious choice that we have to think about and make a decision.
If we don’t corral our thoughts, we not only can slip further and further away from God, but that also brings a helplessness with it. Without God, everything is futile.
Our thoughts show us where we are at on our Sanctification Road. Sanctification is accomplished through our thoughts.
To do that, Pope said that we have to put perfection in its right place. When we consciously meditate on what our thoughts are, we can form new habits through our redo for godliness.
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No, we can’t do that by ourselves. God has to direct that process.
A major way we meditate is in reading God’s Word to guide us. We read it and then apply it to our lives.
Through this meditation, we evaluate what our thoughts are and show what our heart intends to do with them.
Renewing our minds brings with it a variety of obligations. It doesn’t end when the Spirit of God show us what God teaches. We have to apply that teaching to our lives.
I don’t know if I am going to say this right. We can’t just think perfection is a goal with a single action plan. It is too complex to just say we are working on being perfect.
We have to have God sanctify our thoughts, our speech, our feelings, our priorities … all the different elements that keep us from being perfect. Isn’t that a comforting thought? We’ll do it right when we make the right choices.
Our sins will be forgiven. Our character will be changed. We’ll be ready for Heaven.
- Forgiveness is, when we ask, the act of God pardoning us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments, which allows us to become holy as He is.
- Our character is our thoughts, feelings, and actions all added together.
Bray connected thoughtlessness with ignorance. God doesn’t want us to be ignorant. He not only wants us to have knowledge but also to have wisdom.
Resource
- Wisdom is an enlightened acceptance of God’s principles that leads to knowledge, discernment, and good sense that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
- Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
- 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.
- God’s goodness is His holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
Our thoughts shouldn’t be random thoughts. They should be organized to help us grow our relationship with God.
Horton contended that we need to corral our thoughts to achieve a perfect character. He wrote, “Thoughts are either indicative of character, or formative of it. Our thoughts partly result from our disposition, and partly create it.”
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What we think about will grow to have more priority in our lives. Ogle wrote, “A man’s power to help does not so much depend on his intentions as on his character and disposition.” Our character is to be like God’s — pure and holy. We should use this growth to love others more.
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Does that mean all of this will be easy? No. Satan will throw all of these thoughts into our mind when we are trying to meditate on God and His Word or try to pray to Him.
This helps us to believe that God is asking the impossible of us. He isn’t.
We have to keep our hearts and mind focused on God. He can do what we consider impossible.
Remember, Don’t Forget
“My son, don’t forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commands; for they will bring you many days, a full life, and well-being. Never let loyalty and faithfulness leave you. Tie them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will find favor and high regard with God and people” (Prov. 3: 1-4 CSB).
We must remember the most important good and bad thoughts so we can correctly evaluate our Sanctification Road.
“Record the choicer of them. We may have occasion to look back upon them another time, either as grounds of comfort in some hour of temptation, or directions in some sudden emergency; but constantly as persuasive engagements to our necessary duty. Thus they may lie by us for further use, as money in our purse” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
Okay, these verses talk about hearts, but we’ve already established that hearts and minds are connected. So, we can generalize this to our thoughts.
If we are to remember and keep our hearts, then we do that by remembering and keeping our thoughts. Lawson connected that to keeping God’s laws and commandments.
Solomon said that we have to remember loyalty and truth. Lawson reminded us that this loyalty and mercy extends to all.
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Solomon suggested props to help us remember. The around-our-neck one is somewhat understandable.
The tablet-of-our-hearts is a little more confusing. The Homilist wrote “The soul registers every impression made on it.” This was equated to the books of Revelation that will be read on judgment day.
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Glossary
Thorne tied the law to godliness. No, we don’t need to be following the law to gain salvation. We do get to godliness by following the law because we are following God’s Will.
Think about it. The laws tell us about the character of God. We are wanting to imitate His character, so we need to follow the laws and commandments.
Proverbs 3: 3 translates to several words. It talks about love, kindness, faithfulness, loyalty, devotion, mercy, and truth. To me, all show aspects of godliness to which we are to strive. I agree with Thorne that these all deal with the well-being of men.
That, also, puts another slant on why we should remember. If we forget — i.e., not remember — we aren’t navigating the Sanctification Road to becoming like God.
Instead of forgetting, we delight in the law of the Lord. Thorne wrote, “Obedience to it is not the ground of justification, but this is attained in the work of sanctification.”
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We show our respect for the law. It has to be at the heart level. That does lengthen our days because we gain salvation and eternity.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We will sometimes obey the laws. Sometimes, we will break the laws.
We have to remember both. It does us no good to forget the bad times.
That being said, I think we should mainly focus on the obedience. We want to imitate the good.
Horton brought up the fruit of righteousness. The fruits of righteousness are the rewards given at perfection for doing God’s will and growing closer to Him. The rewards are eternal life, peace, access to Him, and hope.
Glossary
When we obey the law, we gain the fruits of righteousness. Horton wrote, “We are accustomed to dwell on the promised joys of the future world as if godliness had no promise of the life which now is, and in so doing we take all life and colour from those expected blessings.” We want to be godly now.
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Making the Connections
Pope wrote, “Christianity alone has the golden link between thought and practice.” Worldview acts of kindness have a broken link.
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How Do We Apply This?
- Use our thinking to meditate on God’s word and apply it to our own lives so we can choose Him in all we do.
- Follow all God’s laws and commandments completely.
- Choose to stop thinking about that which does not promote perfection.
- Act on God’s truth in thought, word, and deed.
- Consciously avoid evil thoughts.
- Pray to focus our thoughts on perfecting our character.
- Diligently working to train our thoughts.
- Search for and seek God
Resource
Focusing on good thoughts is not going to be easy. Satan is going to try to knock us off the Sanctification Road.
We can train our minds to focus on God. But it will take time.
Father God. We look to You to redo us to have Your godliness. In the process, help us to focus our thoughts on You. Amen.
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
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
If you have not admitted that your relationship is not right with God,
have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior,
and have not confessed your sins,
please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
Related Links
Related Links
I have created a worksheet of the questions above. Click on the button below to access it.
Don’t know what your spiritual gifts are?
Take this Spiritual Gifts Inventory
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #4
Proclaim the Gospel (Mark 16: 15)
Job Duty #6
Make Disciples (Matthew 28: 19-20)
Job Duty #1
Be a Living Sacrifice (Romans 12: 1-2)
Job Duty #2
Work Out Our Salvation (Philippians 2: 12)
Job Duty #3
Bring Him Glory (Matthew 5: 16)
Job Duty #4
Proclaim the Gospel (Mark 16: 15)
Job Duty #5
Love People (John 15: 12)
Job Duty #6
Make Disciples (Matthew 28: 19-20)
Job Duty #7
Other Duties as Assigned
(Ecclesiastes 3: 1)
It Was Enough
Vocalist: Elaine Guthals
Keyboard: Chris Vieth
What do you think?
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