Today’s devotional is from the Wycliffe Bible Translators. I had the privilege of visiting their offices in Deherdun, India. They do amazing work. Out of approximately 7,170 living languages in the world, about 3,011 languages are unwritten and rely entirely on oral tradition. Pray for their ministry.
Today’s devotional.
When someone has offended or injured us with their words, do we allow hurt to “set up camp” in our mind? Or do we let the truth of God’s Word take up residence to bring life and peace to our thoughts (Romans 8:5-6)?
While we can’t always control the thoughts that enter our head, we can control what we do with those thoughts. And we need to be proactive in dealing with wrong thinking. It’s easier to express our love for God when we are deliberately mindful of our actions, words and tone of voice.
The Bible has a lot to say about our mind — from how to deal with sin that begins as a seed there (James 1:12-27), to instruction on what to think about (Philippians 4:8), to direction on taking our thoughts captive and realigning them with the truth of God’s Word (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Jesus calls us to love God with all our mind. The Greek word for “mind” in Mark 12:30 is dianoia, and it refers to the mind as a faculty of understanding, feeling and desiring. It covers everything from our deepest thoughts to our imaginations, both good or bad.
Because Christ lives within us, the life-giving Spirit leads us and helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26) — including dealing with our thoughts — as we seek to love God with all our mind.
We must learn to recognize and deal with thoughts that aren’t in line with the truth of God’s Word. As we acknowledge wrongful thinking, we should take each thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. In other words, we can’t allow our mind to dwell on wrong thoughts; we must evict them. We then replace those thoughts with God’s perspective, truth and love.
Once we’ve dealt with our wrong thinking, we need to be intentional about filling our mind with right thinking. We need to remember who God is and what He’s done — and consistently meditate on those truths.
Questions for Reflection:
Where do you need to realign your thinking and perspective with God’s?
What thoughts have you allowed to resonate in your mind?
What are you actively doing to fill your mind with good thoughts?
Make it a Focused Friday! God is good…