Ephesians 4:17-24
Verse 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
Another thing the helmet of salvation does is help us protect our thinking. If we have a proper understanding of what salvation means to our lives, we should have an easier time keeping our thinking in line with the Lord and His ways. Society likes to act as if it is ok to let your mind run wild, never checking it regarding topic or images. Part of the “follow your heart” ideology is about doing whatever you think up to do. But that isn’t the teaching of Scripture.
Our thoughts reflect what is really happening in our hearts and that knowledge should cause us to pause and evaluate what we allow our thoughts to linger on. One of the ways our thoughts are influenced is by what we allow in through reading, watching and hearing. The time we allow those things to stay on our minds and when we allow them to take root, they will start to affect how we see the rest of life.
If we fill our mind all week with happy, loud and fast music because it brightens our spirits we may find ourselves losing an appreciation of the hymns we sing on Sunday. They will not give us the same euphoric feelings and therefore cause us to pay them less attention, allowing our minds to wander instead of focusing on the words we are using to praise the Lord. Or maybe we become so enticed by the TV or social media we start missing our quiet times of prayer and Bible reading. Or various other examples of not making choices with eternal benefits.
Unless we make the decision to regulate our thinking through the lens of our salvation we will find ourselves being ruled by our thinking instead of us ruling it. This wasn’t a new thought for Paul, he had written in a letter to the Church in Corinth, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) Knowing the power of salvation allows us to fight the thoughts which derail the thinking God wants us to have.
Making It Personal
How much control do you have of your thoughts? Where do you struggle with guarding your thoughts? What things are you involved in which feed bad things into your mind?
Making It Personal Kids
How can you control what you think about? Do your thoughts sometimes contain things Jesus wouldn’t like? What influences your thoughts?
Closing Prayer
Father, we confess we aren’t as intentional about controlling our thinking as we should be. Please give us the wisdom we need to choose what is best in our thought lives and the strength to guard our minds thoroughly. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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