Guide Your Mind-Guard Your Heart-Grace Your TongueShembull

It is time for you to be purposeful about what you dwell on. It is time for you to make godly and holy choices that signify your brain is being sanctified, redeemed, and saved. 

If you read Philippians 4:8, the first thing to note is that you only get to think about true things! There should be no fantasy, no fiction, and no fairy tales—about your life, others’ lives, or any circumstance—in the brain that Jesus gave to you. (I am not referring to reading or watching works of fiction, including fantasy and fairy tales, that uplift, enlighten, or edify, as long as they ultimately cause you to be led to God and His truth.) It must be absolute truth alone for you to spend any time at all thinking about it. 

The second admonishment by Paul and the Holy Spirit is that your mind should focus on what is honorable. God has a high and noble purpose for your gray matter, and it includes majestic thoughts and godliness. Your mind is meant to be a grand place of noble and reverent thinking. It was never meant to be a trash receptacle for waste material from trite, superficial, or improper thoughts. 

God also made your mind to be one of the loveliest parts of your entire personhood. Your mind should be exquisitely pleasing and perpetually kind. Loveliness requires tender cultivation and exacting attention; it will require your undivided focus.

God made your brain to be a place of unmatched excellence and virtue! Don’t clutter up your brain with low-class thinking or with compromising attitudes. Raise your standard of thinking to that of your Creator.

Your thoughts should be so drenched with worship and grace that you even dream in your native tongue of godly optimism and rejoicing! Your brain should be trained to give stand­ing ovations of appreciation, words of encouragement, and expressions of thanksgiving.

When you begin to follow the encouragement of Paul, thinking true and honorable thoughts, it will turn your life into the best life possible—you will experience the abundant life.

Personal Application: 

At what point, in a twenty-four-hour period, does my mind generally lead me in the wrong way? Write down your answer. Then prepare specific verses and scriptural songs of praise and worship with which you can fill your mind at those times.