| The Christian Life | June 1942 |
Consecrated Thinking
“Finally, brethren, 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, if there be any praise, think on these things.”—Philippians 4:8
FROM thought comes action, habit, character, and finally our destiny. The place we will have in the Kingdom of God will depend upon our thinking, plus, of course, the grace of God. The ability to think is important because it is one of the things which constitute man an image of his Creator. The Scriptures often mention God’s thoughts: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8,9) We see then, that God thinks, and when He created man, He gave him the power to think. Man’s thoughts are not as high as God’s thoughts; nevertheless, they are important.
When God created the sun, the moon and the stars, He did not give them the ability to think. When He created the mountains, the lakes and the rivers, He did not give them power to think, either—they were not in His image. When He created the lower forms of animal life He did not make them in His image. While they have some power of thought it is not the same as man’s nor is it sufficient to constitute them in His image. When God made man and angels, He gave them power to think, so in Isaiah 1:18, through the prophet, He says, “Come now, and let us reason together.”
This power to think is important, whether in God or man, because everything is the product of thought. The entire universe grew out of thought. Sometime in the past, God had a thought that He would create a universe; that He would make stars and worlds; that He would create trees and plants; that He would make angels, cherubim and seraphim; that He would make different kinds of living creatures upon the earth; and that He would create man to have dominion over them. So God began the process of creation and all things came from that original thought.
Everything that man has done began with a thought. We cannot too highly appreciate the value of thought. No wonder the apostle says, “Think on these things.” To illustrate, we might say that our minds are like little gardens. We are all raising crops, as it were. The crops we grow in our garden we call character. Sometimes in driving through the country one finds a farm overgrown with weeds and very unsightly. So some characters, like neglected farms, are overgrown with malice, hatred, envy and strife.
Then, as we drive along the road, we sometimes find a farm where everything is in excellent order. The rows of corn and potatoes are straight and free of weeds; the fences are all well kept, the buildings nicely painted, and one is impressed with the beauty of that farm. So with some individuals. We see a beautiful, straight row of humility, another of meekness, still another of forbearance, long-suffering, etc.; thus we see Godliness growing thriftily; together with faith, brotherly kindness, zeal, etc. It is, indeed, like a well-ordered garden.
At other times, as we go along the road, we see still another kind of farm. The larger part is overgrown with weeds, but in one section is a patch of corn, well kept and growing nicely. What a contrast that patch of corn presents with the rest of the farm. So with some characters: they seem like the farm that is overgrown with weeds. But despite their ungodliness, pride and selfishness, they have a measure of sympathy, as it were; and how refreshing this is amidst the unsightly surroundings. So we are all like gardens and our minds, our intellects, are like the fertile soil, productive of character. This is the thought expressed by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 3:9, where se says, “Ye are God’s husbandry.”
SOWING AND REAPING
In every garden seeds must be planted in order to grow a crop; so the seeds from which our character grows are our thoughts. The apostle suggests this in Galatians 6:7,8, saying, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” The apostle, in another place, wrote: “I have planted, Apollos watered,” alluding to thoughts.—I Cor. 3:6
Jesus, in the parable of the sower who went forth to sow, said, “Some seeds fell by the wayside, … some fell upon stony places, … some fell among thorns; … but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.” (Matt. 13:3-8) Jesus explained that the seed represented the Word of God. The Word of God is God’s thoughts recorded for our edification. Concerning this we read in Psalm 139, verse 17: “How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!” In the Bible we have God’s words or thoughts concerning the creation, sin, man, angels, what God thinks about the willfully wicked, the redemption of our race, the resurrection and restitution. As we take these thoughts from the Bible and plant them in our hearts and minds they bear fruit.
There are two kinds of thought-seeds which we may plant in the garden of our minds, even as there are good and bad seeds that may be planted in a literal garden. Good thoughts produce patience, gentleness, kindness, temperance and Godliness. Bad thoughts produce a very different kind of character—one which manifests itself in ungodly traits such as envy, malice, hatred, strife, etc.
Planting these seed-thoughts in our minds, however, is not all that is necessary in order to have them grow and produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The good seed planted in our minds must have proper care. It must have sufficient water, sunshine, fertilizing and cultivating. This we do, not only by continuing to think upon the thoughts of God, but, also, by painstaking efforts to put those thoughts into actions so that our words and our deeds may be Godlike.
Quite a different situation presents itself, however, in connection with bad thought-seeds which we allow to enter and remain in our minds. Thorns and thistles and weeds seem to grow without any special attention being given to them. And so man in his imperfect, fallen state is as prone to sin as the sparks are to fly upward. In other words, the evil thought-seeds will need to be rooted out, otherwise they will grow even though uncultivated. They will flourish in our minds unless every possible effort is made to not only uproot them but to keep the space left by their uprooting filled with God’s thoughts.
Seed produces its own kind. A little dandelion plant in one corner of a lawn, if allowed to remain to grow and go to seed will soon crowd out and kill the grass of the entire lawn, making it nothing else than a dandelion patch instead of a lawn. So it is with evil thoughts. However, if we encourage and cultivate the seeds of good thoughts they will produce more and more of the good fruitage of Christian character.
IMPORTANCE OF THINKING GOD’S THOUGHTS
It is one thing to have a thought and quite another thing to plant it, that is, to encourage a thought by impressing it deeply upon our minds. We have a wonderful illustration of this in the case of our Master. At the end of the forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry and Satan came to tempt Him. His first temptation was that He command the stones to be made bread. Satan thus put this thought-seed into Jesus’ mind. But Jesus refused to plant that seed—encourage the thought or suggestion. He promptly rejected the thought, saying, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4) If Jesus had meditated upon this thought in the sense of partially wishing that it would be the Heavenly Father’s will for Him to perform this miracle in His own interests, He would have been planting the seed. There is a lesson here for us. When a thought comes to mind which is not in harmony with the Lord’s will, we should not plant it. We should refuse to harbor it. We are not to blame for the thought, but we are to blame if we entertain it.
Probably many of the Lord’s people make the mistake of feeling anxiety over bad thoughts when, in reality, they are not to blame for them. Many of the evil thoughts come from the adversary. By these evil thoughts, Satan endeavors to tempt us. Temptation means that Satan has offered us a seed to plant, but in God’s strength we should refuse to entertain it or allow it to take lodgment in our minds. Satan gave a wrong thought to Mother Eve, but her failure and sin were not in the thought itself, but in the influence she permitted that thought to have over her—it found lodgment in her mind.
Not all the evil thoughts which present themselves to us come from the adversary. Some are the result of past arid present environment; some from seeds planted in earlier life. Let us emphasize that the entering of the thought into our minds is not the sin, so far as we are concerned, but its acceptance and encouragement, its cultivation by us constitutes the temptation to sin. In other words, the thought is the temptation of sin. Thinking the thought is the sin. The same principle holds true with good thoughts. We deserve no special credit for the good thoughts that are presented to us, but we do receive the approval of God if we harbor those thoughts and try to cultivate them in the soil of our minds where they will grow and bring forth fruit to God’s glory.
THOUGHTS BEAR OUTWARD FRUITS
Good thoughts not only bear fruit in our hearts and lives—fruits of patience, gentleness, mercy and love, etc.—but also bear fruit for the blessing of others. To illustrate, suppose one is traveling on a train and a good thought comes to his mind that he will give a tract to a lady sitting nearby. This is a good thought because it is in harmony with the Spirit of God. As soon as that thought is entertained it has been planted. When a favorable opportunity presents itself this seed-thought having been planted in our minds, produces action, and we give the lady the tract.
Thus that good thought begins to grow and has already brought forth fruit more valuable than all that the effort costs. Possibly the lady begins to read and shows interest and thus the sowing continues to bear fruit. Perhaps, on the other hand, she throws it out of the car window, not being particularly interested herself. Even then, we can rejoice in the hope that possibly it may be found by someone on the track who will be glad to receive the message. Thus the thought continues to bear fruit. No matter what the lady does with the tract, or what happens to it if she throws it out the window, we have received a blessing from the planting of that seed by the resultant enlargement of our own hearts and lives.
When planting seeds in a literal garden there is always the possibility that some of the seed will not grow. So it is with the thought-seeds which we plant. In the case of the good thought we panted to the effect that we would give the lady a tract, possibly when the opportunity comes we feel that we cannot act in harmony with our thought, because pride or fear or other influences hinder us from translating that thought into action. We planted the seed but it did not grow. However, this makes it all the more important that we plant this kind of a seed again and keep on planting it until it grows and develops the fruitage, that will be for our own blessing and the blessing of others.
Perhaps after planting the good thought-seed concerning the giving of a tract we permit other thoughts to find lodgment in our mind. The thought comes to us that people are looking our way; they will think I am a crank; perhaps I will lose my reputation if I give the lady this tract; in all probability she won’t appreciate it, anyway. These thoughts are all along the lines of the flesh. The flesh is not desirous of doing such things. It does not wish to be conspicuous in this way. The entertaining of such thoughts constitutes just that much of a sowing to the flesh.
But does that mean that we will be lost? No, it means that we have sown bad seeds among the good. It would be like scattering dandelion seeds in a beautiful flower garden. It wouldn’t necessarily destroy all the flowers but it would mean a lot of extra work in bringing those flowers to maturity, and in getting rid of the undesirable dandelion plants that resulted from our sowing of that seed. How important it is, then, that all the seed-thoughts we sow are of the good sort, and not the dandelion type.
“AS A MAN THINKETH”
Thought habits are so important in God’s arrangement that He tells us in Proverbs, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7) Yes, we are what we think. God knows that sometimes we do things we do not wish to do, and we say things we do not wish to say. He realizes the thoughts we entertain, the thoughts we harbor—these are the ones that really express the sentiments of our being. That is why St. John, repeating the principles of Jesus, wrote (I John 3:15): “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” (Matt. 5:22,27,28,43-45) This means that he entertains murderous thoughts toward his brother. It means that the thoughts planted in his mind were thoughts of murder. As God views it, the real sin of murder does not consist in the final act alone, but in the thoughts that lead to that act.
This is why we read in I John 5:16, “If any man see his brother sin a sin.” This is a rather strange expression. How could anyone sin a sin? When one thinks of doing wrong that in itself is a sin, but when a sin is actually committed, that is sinning the sin. Thus we see that in God’s estimation we are what we think—the thoughts we entertain.
In this same way, those who think of doing right are in God’s sight actually doing right, provided, of course, they do all in their power to accomplish the right which it is their desire to do. If we are thinking sincerely that we would like to give the Lord a million dollars if we had it, these thoughts express the real desire of our hearts, but God may test the sincerity of our thoughts in this connection by noting whether or not we give the few pennies that we can give. Only thus could the good thought of giving a million dollars be caused to grow and produce fruit.
Another good illustration of the power of thought is that of Judas who betrayed the Master. He had been thinking of doling that and finally his thoughts developed into action; and because he planted these evil thoughts and permitted them to grow, he was responsible for his sin. With Peter it was different. Peter denied the Lord, but heartily repented of it. He had not been thinking of denying the Lord as Judas had been thinking of betraying Him. Peter was determined in his mind that he would die before he would, forsake the Master. He had been planting these noble thoughts of loyalty to Jesus. He had not been thinking disloyal thoughts. His difficulty was simply that he was overcome under the pressure of the moment, and God was glad to forgive this. Thus, again, is illustrated the great importance of thinking good thoughts, of planting them in the garden of our minds and keeping weeded out all the impure, ungodly thoughts that would hinder the bearing of the fruits of righteousness.
“THINK ON THESE THINGS”
Now let us notice from our text the things upon which we are to think. “Whatsoever things are true; … think on these things,” says the apostle. This means that anything which is not true should not be entertained in our minds. We should be careful about thinking untrue thoughts respecting God. This may lead to doubt. The thought may suggest itself to us that possibly God will forsake us; may fail to supply us with grace to help in time of need; may fail to cover us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. What would be the result of entertaining such thoughts? The result is sure to be the growth of doubt, and these doubts would continue to grow until, if not weeded out of the garden, of our minds, they would cause us the loss of God’s favor. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Heb. 11:6) When such thoughts come we should crush them out, saying to ourselves that God has given us His promises and we will cling to them knowing that they are sure; that He will never fail us.
If we plant truthful thoughts of God they will develop faith. We can be strengthened by meditating upon the thought that God gave us His Bible for the very purpose of encouraging us. If we entertain the thought that the very promises of God which encouraged Jesus also belong to us, and that the Heavenly Father will never leave nor forsake us, what strength it will give us to fight the good fight of faith against all the discouraging and untrue thoughts which may be presented to us.
“Whatsoever things are honest,” the apostle continues, “think on these things.” To the world, honesty is simply a matter of dollars and cents, but to the children of God honesty means more than that. It is a glorious quality which affects our whole relationship to God as well as to each other. We should be honest in our use of the truth. We should be honest in the carrying out of our consecration vows. It is dishonest to make a vow to God and not to pay it. It will not do for us to say we are sorry that we made that vow and then break it. This is dishonesty, and the Scriptures tell us that it is better not to vow, than to vow and not pay.—Eccl. 5:4,5
It is not honest for us to expect the reward of the faithful and yet not be faithful. It is not honest for us to profess that we are following in the footsteps of Jesus while at the same time we are walking according to the desires of our own flesh. It is not honest to take the time that belongs to the Lord and use it in doing things with which the Lord would not be pleased. It is not honest to take money which belongs to God and use it in a way that would not meet with His approval. If thoughts enter our minds along any of these lines or other lines which are not strictly in keeping with our covenant to do God’s will, we should not entertain them, we should not plant them.
This principle of honest thinking and acting should be applied to every detail of life. For instance, there is the matter of reading. How much time do we spend in reading those things which are not helpful to us as new creatures? Our time belongs to the Lord. We should be careful to use it in His way. It is quite possible to deceive ourselves with respect to the matter of honest thinking and acting before God. We may decide that a certain amount of time or strength or means should be used in the Lord’s service. But instead of immediately putting this talent to work we conclude that if we wait awhile perhaps we can use it to better advantage for the Lord.
We might decide that instead of giving the small amount that is possible to give now, we can speculate with it and make a lot of money for the Lord. Perhaps the Lord may test our honesty by permitting us to make a lot of money. But, then, we may decide that after we make a lot of money we could really render better service to the Lord if we take that and again increase it before actually turning it over to Him. Thus we might fail in the end to be strictly honest in our devotion to Him. When thoughts of dishonesty come to our minds we should resist them. The more we think of doing something which is not honest the more we will be impelled to do it; but if we crush such thoughts in the beginning there will be no impulse or desire to do that which is wrong.
“Whatsoever things are just, … think on these things,” the apostle says. It is not just to suppose that God is going to be merciful to us while, at the same time, we refuse to be merciful toward others. It is not just to think that God looks at the good motive in our hearts when we are not willing to grant that others have a good motive in their hearts. The Lord taught us to pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matt. 6:12-15) If we do not forgive their trespasses in harmony with our praying we are not just. It is like saying, “Lord, you make believe that you forgive my trespasses, because that is the way I am going to do toward others.”
The Lord said we should pray that He would send forth more reapers into the harvest. (Matt. 9:37,38; Luke 10:2) If we pray along this line and yet do not take part in the reaping we are not acting in harmony with our prayers. This doesn’t mean that all the Lord’s people can be out in the colporteur service, but it does mean that all will have a real, intense desire to co-operate with the divine will and purpose that everything else will be subordinated to its accomplishment. We can work in our thoughts. We can give an example of how we would honor the Lord by the way we treat those with whom we come in contact.
We should crush all unjust thoughts. How apt the words of the Psalmist when he says, “I am become like a bottle in the smoke.” (Psa. 119:83) Just think of a bottle filled with nice pure milk and then held in the smoke until no one could ever dream that there was milk in it. That is the way we should view each other as Christians. We should believe that their intentions are pure though outwardly they are covered with “smoke,” like the bottle. We know there is a time coming—a glorious bottle-washing time—when the whole world will be restored to perfection. In view of ibis it is better for us to conclude even now that when people appear in such a bad light it is merely the smoke we see.
The apostle says further in our text, “Whatsoever things are pure, … think on these things.” Purity of thought has to do with every phase of the Christian life. It involves purity of the truth; purity of consecration; purity in our association with the brethren; purity in our judgment of each other. This means that we will place the very best construction possible upon the conduct of our brethren. It means that we will not entertain impure thoughts concerning them. That where there is appearance of impurity we will conclude that what we see is merely an outward imperfection, and that beneath this there is a rarity of heart upon which God is looking and in harmony with which He is dealing with them.
“Whatsoever things are lovely, … think on these things.” How careful we should be to think lovely thoughts. We have sometimes wondered how it would be if God had made us with transparent heads so that our inmost thoughts could be seen by others. How careful that would cause us to be concerning our thoughts. Actually this is true of us so far as God is concerned, and, in all likelihood, the holy angels have this power; and even the devil himself may be able, at times, to read our minds. This is one of the reasons why he is permitted of God to present such subtle temptations to us. When we are thinking along evil or wrong lines, he brings a temptation that coincides with that thought and is calculated to impel us to act accordingly, and thus we are subjected to a very severe temptation to do wrong. If any thought comes to our mind which we would not wish others to see, we may conclude that it is best not to entertain it, not to plant it.
“Whatsoever things are of good report, … think on these things.” This doesn’t have to do with our neighbor’s good report of his vacation or of a play at a theatre. No, not that. These things that are of good report in God’s sight are pertaining to His truth, His people and His work. If we hear a good report concerning the spread of the truth, of others becoming interested in the truth, it is wholesome to think of such things. The entire book of Acts is filled with good reports concerning the activities of the early church. What blessings there are in reading and thinking upon those good reports of the faithfulness of the apostles and their associates. What blessings there are in thinking upon the good reports of harvest activities now. How easy it is to spend a great deal of time thinking upon things that would not help us to live closer to the Lord. Time spent with such thoughts are lost moments so far as the new creature is concerned.
We also should think of those things which are virtuous and praiseworthy. If we are quite sure that God would commend the thoughts which we are entertaining, then we may know that they are praiseworthy. If we follow the suggestions of our text, follow them faithfully, looking to God for grace and strength to help, keeping our minds centered upon His thoughts and in turn our bodies actively engaged in doing His work, how glorious the result will be! Let us keep our heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. The battle, the good fight of faith, will be easier if we continually realize that it is taking place in our minds, that victory depends upon proper thinking. Let us continue then to have those thoughts of God in our minds which will enable us bring forth fruit to the honor and glory of His great name.