We Shape The World

March 10

What we think, we become. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we shape our world. Anonymous

There is a great and profound truth expressed in today's quote; it is one that is stated in the Bible in even more specific and positive terms. In Philippians 4:8, the Apostle Paul says, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and there be any praise, think on these things."

The point is that we are what we think. That is why it is crucial that we don't allow ourselves to succumb to negativism. Our thoughts can pull us down. Those who would try to tear us down, the evil one himself, would have us to think negatively and thereby relegate ourselves to despair and despondency and depression. Those attitudes of mind are destructive to spirit and soul and emotion and body. The one who, "comes to steal, kill and destroy," John 10:10, uses those tactics to undo a believer and to make him his own worst enemy.

Of course the negative circumstances of life can drag us down! Of course the adversity we encounter can challenge us in the deepest part of our self-hood. Of course the unkindness of the people around us can badger our self-confidence and make us question our right to joy and peace and love...but these are tools of the enemy! These are not the threads from which our Jesus would weave the fabric of our lives but they are the moths that would corrupt the fabric of our lives!

Our Lord would build us up! Does He condone our sin? By no means. He hates sin. That is why He gave Himself to eradicate the power of sin from the lives of His fallen creation! And in having given us the means of having our sin erased, the Word tells us that we cannot leave the space that sin once filled empty, for if it is not filled with the good things—the lovely, the true, the honest, the up-lifting things of life—the evil things will return with a vengeance! (See Matthew 12:44.)

Negativity is rather like a disease that seems to have been cured but flares back in an even more devastating onslaught! It must be totally healed, it must be totally under the blood of Jesus—and there must be nothing left of it to recur another day! So must the negativity of sin and its consequences be completely under the blood of Jesus so it cannot beset the blood-bought child of God another day. How is this accomplished?

First, by receiving in faith the complete cleansing that Jesus' sacrifice for our sin provided for us. We must believe and be sure that HE has done a complete work, an effectual work—and it is complete and effectual for ME! Jesus didn't die just for the sin of the world, HE DIED FOR MY SIN! I must believe that. Then I must act upon that belief. I must comport myself as “more than a conqueror,” Romans 8:37. I must live my life as the child of the King of kings and Lord of lords. How do I do that? By taking control of what I think! Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

I cannot appropriate all that HE has for me if I do not believe in my mind that it is for me. If I indulge negative thoughts about myself, I relegate myself to a shadow of the fullness HE desires to give me! I must think about those lovely and glorious truths that separate me from my past life, from my sin. I must allow the sweet songs of salvation and love and truth and joy to drown out the sounds of accusation and condemnation from people who allow themselves to be instruments in the hand of the evil one toward the destruction of believers who are Christ's!

All we are begins with our thoughts! With our thoughts we shape our world!