pramsay posted on June 19, 2008 07:26 1907 views

Polluted Thought Life

Someone just emailed me and told me the biggest blight in the lives of Christian men of all age groups is the pollution of the mind. Filthy thoughts. Although it was a male who emailed me I know I have received more than one email from Christian sisters who are struggling with a polluted mind – so it’s not just a guy thing.

A Christian man in his late 50’s emailed last week to tell me that he lost his wife and children due to his addiction to pornography. And of course, he’s not proud of it. In fact – he’s devastated.

Recently I spent a day with a young man who has another addiction. He was feeling the effects of a night of consuming alcohol. I spent the day trying to get him into a detoxification unit. Finally we found a detox unit. He wanted help but once the arrangements were made, he postponed his treatment program because he wanted to consume the rest of his supply before getting the help.

Sad you say. Was he a Christian, you ask? Yes, most definitely, he replies. Just an addiction, he adds.

Yes, Christians can be addicted to many things. Is one addiction worse than another? An addiction is something that impairs your judgment and propels you to make poor choices that hurt you and those who love you. You can be a workaholic at the expense of your children and spouse. You can be an alcoholic at the expense of your job and your friends. You can be a pornaholic at the expense of your Christian testimony and character as well as your family and Christian fellowship.

It starts in your thought life. How you think and what you think and what you allow into your mind to think about are the critical factors. If you think about getting rich and making a big name for yourself, you will be propelled towards your work. If you look at pictures and video clips that appeal to your sexual appetite, your thoughts will increasingly move in that direction and you will find yourself ‘thinking’ more and more about filth. Garbage in – garbage out. If your intake is smut and filth, you know what the output will be.

The poet or lyricist who wrote Psalm 104 definitely had a lot of thoughts swirling around in his head. He was mulling a lot of things over in his mind. Look at his eyes as he puts down his pen for a second to think some more. You can tell by his eyes that he’s not thinking about objects in the room – his mind is somewhere else. When you have some free time to relax and let your mind focus on something – where does your mind travel? How’s your thought life?

Read Psalm 104. The Psalmist is thinking about the wonder and grandeur of God as the Owner/Operator of the Universe. His mind is pulsating with thoughts of God and his heart is beating – almost skipping a beat the more he thinks about the privilege of knowing the Great God of the Universe. By the time it’s time to put the pen down and get on with his day, he concludes with this:

“May my meditation (thoughts) be pleasing to Him,
For I rejoice in the Lord.”

Psalm 104:34 ESV

The King James Version says: “May my meditation of Him be sweet.” And that’s nice – for that’s exactly what the Psalmist is thinking about. But most translations put it the other way – that my thought life, my meditations, my musings, may be pleasing to Him – which gives it just a different emphasis. It is not so much that I will enjoy the sweetness of meditating on Him – although that is absolutely true. But that the Lord will be pleased with the stuff that I am thinking about and meditating upon.

When your head is out of school books or away from the minute by minute pressures of your job – where does your mind travel and to what does it gravitate? When you have an hour to kill, what do you fill your mind with?

Is your thought life pleasing to Him? Can you allow the Lord into your thoughts and would He be pleased with what you are thinking about late at night, or when your apartment is empty or when you are all alone? Read Philippians 4:8.

Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.

Warmly in Christ

Peter Ramsay

peter@heaven4sure.com

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