The Plumbline

We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. (2 Corinthians 10:3-4) Have you ever noticed that there is a war going on in your mind almost all of the time? It is a battle between faith and fear, trust and doubt, unrest and peace. Most of life's battles are actually won or lost on this very battlefield. When we learn to use God's word as a weapon, we learn how to battle well and win! One important thing we must realize - Satan is trying to shape our lives one thought at a time - this is how we are given over to deception. What is your strongest thought today? You will actually move toward your strongest thoughts. Believe it or not, the life we have today is a reflection of the life we are thinking. It is more than 'positive vibes', though. Whatever we allow into our minds is what will eventually come out of our lives in words and deeds....

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.  (Marcus Aurelius) I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works. (Psalm 77:11-12) Whatever it is we choose to think upon the most will eventually manifest itself in our words and actions down the road. We may not consider the influence of those thoughts until we find ourselves acting in some way contrary to the way we should have acted, but when we truthfully consider what led to the 'not so great actions', we cannot neglect to see how our thought life influenced them. The 'recollection' of memories is not always a bad thing, nor is the consideration of certain truths and wise counsel, but when we dwell too long upon stuff God tells us to avoid, we are going to see ne...

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8) Fix your thoughts - this certainly is a telling statement as our thoughts have a way of getting away from us in rather short order, don't they? What we think about matters. What we ruminate upon over and over again will eventually cause us to make the right choices, or it will lead us further down the road of wrong choices. We cannot afford to be 'unaware' or 'willy-nilly' in our thought life. We need our thought life to be disciplined and determined. While this is not an all-inclusive list of what we are to think upon, it is certainly a "telling" list that could help us see what we have been thinking upon and whether those thoughts are doing us more harm than good. Positive, true, and honorable words and actions actually stem from positive, true, and honorable thoughts. God is faith...

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8) Have you ever taken notice of how easy it is to get your mind working in the wrong direction? It doesn't take much effort to drift down that bunny-trail without a care in the world, until all of a sudden you see how 'deep' it is! God tells us to 'fix' our thoughts - not like fixing your car, but to 'consider attentively'. When our minds go down the bunny-trail, there isn't a whole lot of 'attention' being paid to where we are headed. In fact, we are a bit aimless in those thoughts. We allow them to dictate the journey rather than us determining the journey. We are to give our minds 'attentively' (on purpose, with determination) to think about who Jesus is and what he has done. What did he do while he was here on ...