How to overcome our patterns of poor thinking by examining Scripture

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Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. - Philippians 4: 8-9       

Sometimes it must seem as if our mind is trying to kill us. No matter how much we try sometimes, our thought patterns seemingly work against us. We proclaim a desire to be happy but then choose to focus on that which makes us miserable. I say choose because it is always a choice beloved. The world will sell you on the victimization mentality. Nearly every type of once normal behavior is now being classified for you to feel better about whatever quirks we may have. The very things that make us different as human beings are now classified into disorders and medicated. The end result of this is to take the locus of control off of ourselves and onto something outside of our control. That makes us feel better about the things we are actually choosing, including sin.

Yet why then do we choose it? Why do we choose to keep our focus on that which makes us miserable? Human nature. We are bombarded with negativity within this world 24-7. Good news is always relegated to the back pages while the sensationally depressing grip us on page one. But beyond human nature it is the limitations we have as humans that truly dictate these destructive patterns. We also rely upon our emotions. The world sells us on the "if it feels good, do it" mentality. Our thought patterns become corrupt and there we can find ourselves, depressed or in defeat. Simply put, we do not have sufficient information to make the life decisions we have to make. We rely on our own strength, wisdom and knowledge and then are woefully disappointed. Who does have sufficient information?

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. -- Revelation 22:13

God is the beginning and the end. He sees all that was, that is, and that will ever be. How beneficial would it be to know the outcome of every decision we could ever be faced with? Our God knows and His spirit lives within us!

Let's take an hypothetical example most of us can relate to; a failed relationship. We can invest a serious amount of time with someone only to see it fail. How many failed relationships have led to depression, anxiety, or a host of physical and mental issues? The devil gets a hold of us and starts to whisper that the failed relationship somehow speaks to our value as a person. This despite the truths we already know:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. -- Psalm 139: 14

Yet as believers we know that God has seen the beginning and end of every situation. Thus, God has seen the outcome of that relationship and it either would not be beneficial for us or would not have brought Him glory. We know that God is not working against us:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. -- Romans 8:28

In what things? In ALL things. That means in everything you are involved in, God is working for your good. Including that failed relationship. Instead of lamenting, we should be praising God for saving us from a situation that He knows would not have ended well. But instead we focus on our flawed thought patterns and our emotions which often betray us.

This is why God gives us instruction in the key verses today to combat these tendencies we all have. Working backwards in the verses we see the goal we are all seeking -- that the God of all peace will be with us. Isn't that what we all truly want in this life -- peace? We spend our days seeking it in our marriages, our workplaces and even our churches. Realize today that the world wants to sell us a peace too. Jesus drew the distinction:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. -- John 14: 27 (ESV)

Not as the world gives. The peace the world gives is fleeting and false. It may last for a little while but soon enough it will evaporate. The peace of God transcends all human understanding. When we are rightly in the will of God there is a peace that this world cannot penetrate. This is what we need so desperately to combat the poor thought patterns we have as humans. To be at peace with our decisions because we know they are based solely upon God. But next in the key verses we see the condition that has to be met"

We must actually put into practice what we have learned about Christ, heard from Him and seen in His life. Realize these are three different things. We learn about Jesus from our academic pursuit of God; from attending sermons or taking classes for example. What Jesus is saying here is that He cannot merely be an academic pursuit. There must be a reason behind the pursuit. Far too often we can sit through an excellent, Holy Ghost filled sermon and then two hours later be unable to remember what it was that was imparted to us. We can go to church without a pen and paper to take notes -- what if God wanted to say something to us that day? Something that could change our lives? Simply put we can get so acculturated to the church style that we no longer go expecting to meet with God! That should be the purpose every day we wake up but especially when we go to church! If you are not meeting God every time you go to church either you have lost your expectancy or you need to find another church. God is not just something to study; He is someone to develop a relationship with -- that is how peace is cultivated. That is how we combat our poor thinking. What is the purpose of hearing a sermon about how to build a strong marriage, shouting hallelujah, and then going home and forgetting everything you heard? What was the purpose of that sermon in your life? Jesus is saying we must take what we learn and apply it. Knowledge without application is useless.

Secondly here God is saying that we need to put into practice what we hear from the Lord. Wait a minute preacher, I don't hear from God. Really? Perhaps then you are not listening. Every day I walk outside His creation screams to me how great He is! Are we pursuing to hear from God? Do we have any kind of devotional life? Do we have any kind of prayer life? Are we reading the Bible daily? Do we spend a few minutes each day in quiet worship? These are all ways to hear from the Lord. If our Christianity is reserved only for those moments we are at church and even then we are not bothering to take notes, I agree it would be difficult to hear from God. But He is speaking to us if we are His:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father's hand. The Father and I are one." -- John 10: 27-30 (NLT)

The key here from the text however is that when we do hear from Him, we must actually do what He says. We are often too obstinate in our walk. We think we hear from God when what we hear agrees with what we want. When it disagrees we think it must be indigestion, or that we now need to seek ten confirmations before listening. We need to be obedient to what he says to us beloved. Additionally, we need to remember that we do not need to "hear" from God directly on matters He has already told us about in the Bible. Why? Because He NEVER contradicts His Word. So if we were to find ourselves for example in an adulterous relationship today we do not need to pray to hear from God or seek His will. He has already told us what we need to do -- we just need to start being obedient to His voice. Can you imagine hearing a direct Word from God Almighty and then choosing to not listen to it? As absurd as that sounds we do it all the time! We read His Word which tells us what to do and not do and we disobey. Scripture says that the entire Bible was God-breathed -- it is His -- He wrote it! Here is what He is saying today:

So you must live as God's obedient children. Don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn't know any better then. -- 1Peter 1: 14 (NLT)

God is saying He understands our poor thought patterns before we came to Christ. Heck, we simply didn't know any better! When describing the great and lost city of Nineveh to the Prophet Jonah God described the inhabitants as people who cannot tell their left hand from their right! God understands our condition when we are unsaved! It is after we come to Christ and we have the Holy Spirit of God residing inside of us that He is expecting a change in the way that we think. We cannot fall back into our old ways of living or thinking.

Lastly, we need to put into practice what we see in Christ. When we read the Scripture about the life that He lived, what do we see? He is the model for the behavior and thought patterns we should be seeking. The Bible says we are being transformed into His image every day but on the inside, what are we choosing to stay focused on? What are we emulating? Are we still enamored with this world? This world is passing away according to the Bible and we see it with each passing day. Crimes being committed that we never would have heard about just ten years ago. Two cases of cannibalism in the United States in the past week alone. The master of this world is Satan and his efforts are starting to come to bear across this country and this world. But Jesus says do not focus on that -- remember He has already overcome this world. He says focus on what you see in Him.

What I see in Jesus Christ is the remainder of the key verses. First I see a God who is true. The Bible says let God be true and every man a liar. This world will sell us one miserable lie after another. Smoking disguised as pleasure. Drinking disguised as being cool. Adultery disguised as no big deal -- there is actually a website now that specializes in connecting two people seeking to commit adultery! Damnable lies from the father of lies:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. -- John 8: 44 (NIV)

The devil is not bilingual. He only speaks lies. This world is false while Jesus Christ is true. We need to think about what is true. When I look at Jesus I also see someone who is pure and noble and right. Once again, the opposite of what I see in the world. The world is contaminated with disease and impurity. The world is morally depraved where Christ is noble. The world is simply wrong. The world has great marketing, don't get me wrong. It can sell itself well but only if we are looking to buy. We should no longer be consumers in this world. The Bible says we are merely sojourners, traveling through this world to our true citizenship -- in heaven.

When I look to Jesus I see someone who is lovely and admirable. Lovely to look upon because there is nothing unappealing in whom He is. Sinless, spotless, blameless. Someone to admire. Here is the truth we forget every day -- His Spirit lives inside of us! Yet we can mingle with the ugliness of this world over the beauty of Christ. We can sing about His loveliness and then go right back to the filthiness of this world. Then we wonder why we cannot get victory over our own thinking! It is because our mind is not where it is supposed to be. We mix too often with the ugliness and then try and shake it out of our mind. It doesn't work like that! We need to spend our time focusing on the list found in the key verses.

Lastly, in Jesus Christ I see someone who is excellent and praiseworthy. This world doesn't really embrace excellence anymore. In this world of political correctness it is deemed to damaging to a child to tell them the truth about what they need to work on. There is a striving for mediocrity. Well, Jesus did not come to earth to bring us a mediocre life -- He came to bring us an abundant and excellent life. Maybe not how the world defines abundance, with the lies of material wealth and riches but rather with being able to live in the transcendent peace of Almighty God. Look at what we give praise to in this world. Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in Mets history yesterday and as a fan, I was very happy. But praiseworthy? Jesus Christ died on a tree so that I could be reunited with my Creator and have eternal life now and avoiding eternal punishment later. THAT is praiseworthy. Jesus is praiseworthy. Everything else falls way, way short of the mark.

I am not suggesting that this is easy. Our thought patterns are engrained within us through years of reinforcement and the world system only furthers that reinforcement. As with everything, God expects us to strive for what is right. He does not expect overnight miracles -- only He is in that business. When we strive to correct our thought life and our focus we are seeking the peace of God. We can seek this by not treating Jesus as an academic endeavor we can study for and forget. We can start to heal our thought patterns by putting into practice what we have learned about Jesus, what we have heard from Him directly, and from what we see in who He is.   Jesus Christ is truth to the lies of the enemy. He is noble to the immorality of this world. He is what is right in a world that is so wrong. He is pure to the world's contaminations. He is lovely to the ugliness and admirable to the wretched. In a world selling mediocrity He is excellence and where everything else is but a mere shadow before Him -- He is always worthy of all of our praise. If we want to correct our thought patterns it must start by thinking about Christ alone. To Him be all the glory -- forever and ever, amen.

Reverend Anthony Wade - June 2, 2012

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.