On Thought…
How important is 'thought' to our walk with God?
Firstly it is so important that it is named as one of the 3 instruments of our life by which we can love God. God great desire is for our love. How do we love God? We love God 1. with our heart, 2. with out soul and 3. with our mind! If we want to love God we must use our minds. We cannot pack our minds away and say 'I will be a Christian with everything else but my mind is our own!
Mark 12:28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
31The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Secondly, it is so important that the great sign of our unity and community is when our minds are together on something. What does this mean? It means not so much that we agree on everything but that we agree on the important things.
Acts 4:32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
Thirdly, the mind is so important that sin looks to influence the mind first. If we will give over our minds to sin we have given over all.
Romans 8:6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Finally, it is so important that when we are renewed by the work of the Holy Spirit that renewing work touches first our minds. This is where God chooses to work - up where we think!
Romans 12:1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.
2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Romans 12)
Three rules of the flesh…
- We are what we eat and we act according to what we think about.
Phillipians4:8Finally, 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. (Philippians 4) - Sticks and stones may break my bones but thoughts can do much more lasting damage.
(i.e., thought has the capacity to disable our emotions and will and so to hurt us much more deeply - eg. Self image, self-esteem, joy, fulfilment, belonging, love - all these and more can be robbed by thought quicker than they can by physical abuse.) Therefore when we begin dealing with problems in the emotional and volitional area we usually need to start by examining our thought life.
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: (Proverbs 23v7a KJV) - Don't build your house on the sand and look very carefully at what you build you thoughts on.
All thought rests finally on the strength and validity of one's presupposition.
Three rules of the Spirit…
- Every thought not brought into submission to Christ is a thought turned against us.
5We 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 Cor 10)
Thought like everything else in human life thought must become obedient to God. This does not imply that we have to think only in certain ways but it does imply that some thoughts are true and some false. God is for truth and God is for life. I suspect thoughts that honour this are good thoughts. In the end, however, God will be the judge of these things and the only thing that can truly give us assurance in regard to the correctness of our thinking is an on going relationship with God. - Christ is the key to understanding who God is and how God works - look to Him first.
9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14)
Christ is the key the Christian thinking about God. This means that all thought about God needs to be measured by it's relation to Christ. To know Christ is to know God.
What are some of the things we learn about God from Jesus?
a.) That God's love is for all people regardless of wealth or status. (Went into Galilee)
b.) That God's rule is not primarily political but personal. (The KoG is within you)
c.) That God is indeed Lord of all Creation - nature miracles. - God is the presupposition behind all rational thinking. What is rational thinking? Put most simply it is the idea that there is an order to the universe which we can perceive with our minds. Now this does not mean that Christian have a mortgage on that order. It doesn't mean that only our minds can perceive that order but it does mean that since there is order there must be an Orderer!! In other words that there is someOne behind the order. One things we know for sure. Order does not magically materialise out of chaos. It simply doesn't happen.
This means then that if there is order, if we can see order then there is a Person behind the universe.
Psalm8:1-O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
3When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
5You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
6You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
7all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
9O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)
Godly thinking is a communal activity
God is above thought but not above using thought.
Right thinking always begins with submission to God
DRAWING
Every thought not brought into submission to Christ is a thought turned against us.
2 Cor 10:5We 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.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Draw a thought that is currently on your mind or one that recurs.
What does it look like?
What else is in the picture?
Write some descriptive words about this image.
How does it feel?
Where is the power, the barb in this picture? The bit that gets you.
Describe this. Name it. Feel it
What would it look like to make this thought obedient to Christ?
On another page, picture this thought in relation to Jesus.
What is going on here? Encounter Jesus
Feel the feelings as Jesus comes into this picture.
He is bigger. My thoughts are not your thoughts. I need not understand how this can change, but I can trust that you will do what's necessary and I give you permission.
Write your prayer of submission: my thoughts are not your thoughts. Let them go. Ask for forgiveness.
What does Jesus give you in exchange? What is His promise to you?
Write down the higher thought.
Or write some wise advice about your thoughts.
Or What do you need to focus on and be thankful for in terms of Phil 4?
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, 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.
Faith as Rational
The problem:
One of the most common accusations levelled at the Christian faith and, indeed, at religious faith in general is that it isn't rational. In other words, it isn't something that falls within the limits and boundaries of what some might call reasonable thought. Three basic complaints often accompany this accusation.
The first is that since faith deals with an object (God) who is not accessible by ordinary rational thought faith cannot be said to be in any way rational.
Secondly, Since God is said to exist 'outside of nature' then no evidence will ever be found for His existence within nature.
Thirdly, since the above are true then knowledge of God and religious truth in general is not testable by science and so one cannot claim this sort of knowledge to be rational in any modern sense.
Of course this is only a very small summary of the various claims of those who deny the rationality of faith but it does cover the basic issues. This first answer deals with the first objection, namely, that because the knowledge of faith deals with something outside of the natural is cannot be like other forms of rational knowledge.
1.The knowledge of faith is not nearly as different from other forms of knowledge as is often thought. It can be shown to be as consistent with rational thinking as knowledge gained through scientific method.
The knowledge of science also contains elements of the unknowable:
The reducing of true knowledge to that which is scientifically testable is arbitrary i.e., it doesn't have a good reason. Why is this? In the first place there are clearly some realms of knowledge apart from religious knowledge not accessible to scientific investigation and which are still taken very seriously by those who would deny the veracity (truth) of faith. Love, beauty and desire are all forms of knowledge not clearly accessible to the scientist. More than that, however, there are other realms of nature which contain boundaries no scientist may pass. One of these is described by the scientific theory known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which basically states that you may know only one of two things about a subatomic particle - either you may know its position or its momentum - but never both! We also know that Black holes in space are bounded by something called an 'event horizon.' Theoretically we know that this must exist because we know that there is a wall around each black hole from which nothing escapes. We know that this 'wall' exists and that past this sits the black hole but we will never be able to test this knowledge because beyond the event horizon no scientist or scientific instrument may go. Again there are scientific theories which describe this wall but what is clear from these theories is that even science must deal with knowledge it can never test or prove.
2. The knowledge of science is also provisional: A further objection is made to the veracity of faith on the grounds of its 'provisionality,' (its incompleteness). But on these grounds science itself struggles and it does so because every ten years or so huge amounts of what was once called knowledge by the scientific community is overturned by the very scientific process that created it and replace by new scientific knowledge. The question then arises - was the scientific community irrational in their assumptions about the accuracy of that knowledge in the first place or… was it in fact a rational thing to believe in something that wasn't fully understood. This is, of course, what happens all the time in science. The very nature of science dictates that many if not most results are provisional so that what is believed with science isn't quite the truth but almost is and, in the main, we're happy with that.
A classic example of this is what happened when Einstein's theories replaced those of Newton in physics. For years Newton's work on gravity and momentum were considered perfect. Nothing could explain the movement of the planets and the solar system better. And yet when Einstein came along that wonderful work of Newton's proved to be stunningly wrong. And the question that arises from this and the many many other examples of this sort of thing in science is this - was it rational to believe in something that was so wrong?
3. That religious knowledge is incomplete doesn't make it irrational:
Is religious knowledge incomplete? The answer is, of course, yes! Does this then mean that it is irrartional? Only if one is prepared to accept that other belief systems are complete and that simply isn't the case. For example, if the physical laws described by Newton were charted on a dart board where the bulls yeye measured completeness then what he said came pretty close to the bulls eye - but not quite. Of course, everyone thought it was the bulls eye till Einstein came along - then we suddenly saw just how far off he really was. But his theories weren't way out near the edge of the board - they were somewhere near the centre. What is clear is that before Einstein we weren't as close to the bulls eye as we thought. So scientific truth may well be rational but it still must work within the limits of its own method, limits which require it to be open to the fact that much of what it calls knowledge is, in fact, an approximation to the truth, i.e., it is, to some extent, incomplete. And this is precisely what belief is. It is knowledge that takes into account the idea that while we may know something, our knowledge is imperfect and incomplete and yet we are prepared to trust ourselves to that knowledge. It is somewhere near the bulls eye but not quite there.
This, of course, is taken for granted by the New Testament. Those great verses in 1 Corinthians 13 lay out clearly the nature of Christian faith.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 12)
'We know in part…' Faith, in a very rational way accepts the limits of its knowledge and yet is still prepared to trust itself to that knowledge. Science, it appears, does the very same thing. It accepts the provisionality of its findings and yet trusts in them all the same. This is rational but no more so that faith.