8 Rules For Growing In Godliness: Rule #3: Think Holy Thoughts
“Only a mind that has been pierced by God’s light and dazzled by a sight of Christ can desire something so selfless, so noble. The mind’s renewal depends upon the practice of thinking holy thoughts, of deliberately applying the light of God’s Word so it can search our hearts and lives, so it can expose all that is foreign, all that is sinful, all that does not belong….”
Don’t be fooled by the title, this isn’t a boring or irrelevant read.
“Don’t be discouraged when your labor gets hard and you don’t see the harvest. You might be a gardener, and it could be that you are in a season of gardening. Instead, be encouraged that God may be using your efforts—along with the efforts of others—to bring in a harvest that you may never see. Always remember, it’s our job to be faithful witnesses for Christ (Acts 1:8) and then leave the results to God. Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6)….”
A careful, thorough and Biblical approach to something we all need to be doing.
“Consider a person who exercises fastidiously and holds to a strict diet but also abuses alcohol and drugs. That kind of schizophrenic behavior would raise a lot of questions, and rightly so. The same goes for Christians who carefully guard their spiritual diet but make no effort to avoid or eliminate sinful, spiritual toxins from their lives. Faithfully studying God’s Word is vital to our growth, but it’s not the only factor. We need to recognize sinful attitudes and motivations as carcinogens that can wreak havoc in our spiritual lives. Right now, these sinful toxins could be poisoning your life, eating away at your usefulness, and causing all sorts of decay and destruction. Peter recognized the threat these sins pose to our spiritual health and commanded his readers to “[put] aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1)….”
This is one to save, file, print…keep close!
“In this life of sin and pain, joy is embattled. Just like faith. And Paul says to Timothy, “Fight the good fight of the faith”. So it is with joy. We must work for it and fight for it. Paul said to the Corinthians, “We work with you for your joy”. How then shall we fight for joy? Here are 15 pointers….”