How To Control Your Thought Life

Written by Ed Allen
 Saturday, 13 March 1999 19:00

How To Experience God's Presence

If our spiritual lives are going to grow strong, if we're going to receive from our spirits the nourishment that we need to live effectively, then we must lead balanced spiritual lives. In order to grow in balance we need to be more than one-dimensional spiritual beings. We need to be more than 2 dimensional spiritual beings. Just as you and I live in a 3 dimensional physical world, so our spirits must grow in three directions in order to achieve the balance we need.

We must move out toward a world that desperately needs God's love as a messenger of God?s love. We do this through service and through announcing the good news of the radical transformation that Christ brings to a life. We must move in toward others who also love God, consciously and intentionally building a network of support where we can offer and receive healing, where we can challenge and be challenged. And finally we must move up toward God. The Bible tells us that God has placed eternity in our hearts. We long for God. He is the source of our life and happiness. Movement toward God makes movement in the other 2 directions possible.

The challenge here is that God is ? well ? God. The Bible tells us quite honestly that His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. He is Spirit. While we may acknowledge that we have a spiritual dimension to our lives, we could hardly say that we are spirit. We barely understand our own spirit, much less understanding One who is essentially spirit. And who exists as a spirit in perfect holiness, immutable knowledge, absolute power and eternal self-perpetuity. The words are even hard to pronounce much less understand.

Really, if I?m honest it seems that having any kind of relationship with such a one is ridiculous. What is the common ground between me and God? I can offer prayers, but how do I know that they?re making it past our own head? How can there be any real interchange between me and God? I certainly know what it is to hang out with Diane, to hear from her and know that she hears from me, to enjoy her company. How can I enjoy the company of God? How can I know and feel that He is with me? How can I experience the presence of God?

While the Bible is quite honest about the mystery that surrounds God, it is equally insistent that God both wants a relationship with us and prescribes the means by which such a relationship can happen.

Today, we are beginning a 4 part series on Experiencing the Presence of God. We will look at four of the means which God has provided for an encounter with His person and His power. The first means is Controlling Your Thought Life. We begin here not because it is most important or foundational, but because this may be the one area where you and I are under the most constant and persistent attack.

If you?re anything like me then you have trouble controlling your thought life. When I pray my thoughts often turn to my list of to-do?s, or to my latest worries or else my mind drifts down a slow steady stream of reverie toward sleep. And that?s when I?m pray, when I?m supposed to be the most focused on God. Throughout the rest of the day, I am overwhelmed by enticements to look like somebody else, or to act like somebody else. My greed is provoked by stuff. My lusts are aroused by people or position. And my list of to-do grows longer and longer. At times, my mind operates more like a runaway train than like a beautiful, well-ordered house in which God dwells. How do I control my thought life?

The Bible is graphic in its evaluation of the importance of the mind. "While we certainly live in the same world that everybody else does, we are not invested in the same way, we are not after the same goal. We do not go about our business the same way as everyone else. We understand that what is unseen is more important than what is seen, we strain and we fight with means that are essentially spiritual. We exercise the divine power that surges through us and we dismantle all arguments and pretensions that prevent us from making spiritual progress. We make our every thought obedient to Christ."

God makes the fruit of such an enterprise abundantly clear. "Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God?s will is ? His good pleasing and perfect will."

Fortunately, God gives us exactly the help we need in Philippians 4:4-8. While this advice is not easy to follow, it is surprisingly simple.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
 
 

 CHOOSE TO REJOICE


Where should you sing worship songs? In a church building? Certainly. In your home when you?re hosting a Gateway home fellowship meeting? Hopefully. Maybe even in a school cafeteria.But we don?t typically think of singing worship songs in a prison. Not chained to a dirty wall in a dank and dark dungeon in the ancient European city of Philippi. But that?s where Paul and Silas sang worship songs. And those early Philippian Christians were fortunate enough to have witnessed it. They had seen Paul and Silas hauled away, falsely accused and imprisoned. And before they would see them again they would hear them. They would hear how God?s people experience the presence of God even in the midst of suffering. As they stood outside of Philippi?s jail they would hear, not moans and curses, but familiar songs of praise creeping out through the iron bars.

The Philippian Christians had known suffering. We all have. They had even known suffering because of their faith. For many of the first Christians, persecution and ridicule was a given if one accepted the message about Jesus and his cross. This new way of understanding God was still very unpopular. But these Philippians also had the advantage of having watched two of God?s saints deal with suffering. So they were prepared to hear God?s command to rejoice. It may have been difficult to hear, but they did not have the liberty of saying, "That?s just unrealistic, God. You can?t expect me to be happy now. Look at what?s going on. And besides you allowed this stuff it seems to me."

Of course, God never told us to be happy. But He does tell us to rejoice always and in case we miss the emphasis he adds, "I will say it again: Rejoice!"

If you want to experience the presence of God, then you must CHOOSE TO REJOICE!

  • Did some work on this word and it means "rejoice".
  • We are not here invited to rejoice. We are told to rejoice. It is a command and one that we cannot disregard without consequences.
  • "Let your gentleness be evident to all." V.5
      1. "Gentleness" here also means "reasonableness" and "yieldedness"
      2. A Roman historian wrote about the gentleness of the early Christians with admiration saying, "the influence of their gentleness is felt more especially at those points which demanded some sacrifice of one?s self, for the weak, for the aged, for little children, and even for the dead. And then, for its constant outward token, its significant manner or index, it issued in a certain debonair grace, and a certain mystic attractiveness."
      3. This gentleness should be evident to all. It can be a reality in our lives if we are yielded to God?s will. If we are following His lead. If I have my children?s best interest at heart, then they serve themselves by yielding to my wishes.
      4. "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." V. 5

      CHOOSE TO GIVE THANKS


    "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." V. 6-7

    • "Thanksgiving" comes from Greek word eucharist. Not used in secular Greek. We get our word eucharist. Used 15 times in the New Testament, 12 times in Paul?s letters. One writer called Christianity a "religion of thanks."
    • "Take all your worries, all your troubles and put them in a box of prayer. Wrap that box in thanks and give it to me. I will replace those worries and troubles with my presence."
    • George Muller knew a little about the temptation to worry. And he also knew a little about the power of prayer. In fact, the biography of Muller is a testimony to answered prayer. One of his biographies is entitled "Answered Prayer". Muller ran an orphanage in England in the 19th Century. He housed, fed, and educated hundreds of unwanted children over the course of three decades and he did it all alone and he did it all by faith. Muller knew that to realize his dream he would have to work in the orphanage full time. But how would he support such a venture? He felt God told him clearly to rely solely on Him. He was not to resort to any of the usual means of raising support. So Muller cooked meals and taught lessons and nursed the sick and changed diapers and prayed. And miraculously, amazingly God met their needs. In his autobiography, Muller recalled sitting the children down to eat one night without any food to give them. When they were all seated and quiet, Muller bowed his head to return thanks. At the end of the prayer he intended to use the evening as an opportunity to teach the children about how God was good even in the midst of difficulty. He intended to teach them a lesson in how to handle adversity, even hunger. God had a different lesson in mind. At the end of the prayer there was a knock on the door. When one of the children answered it, there was no one there but several days worth of groceries were on their front porch. Muller once said, "The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety."
    • When things are difficult, choosing to give thanks is an expression of faith. If you want to experience the presence of God, choose to give thanks.
    • This is not the drive through at MacDonalds. God means for this to be a lifestyle. But the fruit of such a life is an experience of the presence of God. That is what Paul means by "the peace of God."
    • This peace is beyond our capacity to understand. It challenges our minds because it does not depend on circumstances. It provokes our hearts by exceeding all known emotion in depth and power. "It transcends all understanding." And it overcomes all enemies and all pretenders. It stands guard forbidding admittance to any that would weaken or harm.
    • Is this peace worth pursuing? Is it worth choosing? You bet it is!
    • If we want to experience the presence of God we will choose to give thanks.
    • "But how? You don?t know how much I have to be worried about? Telling me to choose to rejoice, why that?s just superficial mumbo jumbo."
    • The exhortation to choose to give thanks is based on three assumptions.
      1. Worry is also a choice.
    1. physical and emotional component. No doubt. Are there ways to relax? Yes. Do we take measures to relax? No.
    2. worry often a matter of perception. % of U. S. women who think they are overweight = 50. % who actually are = 27. For those between 18 and 35; 75 and 25.
      2. God commands us to choose to give thanks.
    1. D. L. Moody "If you have so much business to attend to that you have no time to give thanks and pray, depend upon it, you have more business on hand than God ever intended you should have."
    2. Some of us simply do not have time to experience the presence of God so we should not be surprised when we do not.
      3. Giving thanks is an action. Feelings follow actions.

      CHOOSE TO CONTROL WHAT YOU THINK


    " Finally, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable ? if anything is excellent or praiseworthy ? think about such things." V. 8

    Here are 8 checkpoints, 8 customs officers who, rightly positioned, can secure the borders of our minds and protect us.

    In his book the Applause of Heaven, Max Lucado recounts seeing an oil refinery for the first time. "I sat in the cab of the pickup as tall as I could, stretching to see the endless West Texas plain. The countryside was flat and predictable, boasting nothing taller than pumpjacks and windmills. Maybe that is why the thing seemed so colossal. It stood out on the horizon like a science fiction city. A jungle of pipes and tanks and tubes and generators ? heaters, pumps, pipes, filters, valves hoses, conduits, switches, circuits. It looked like a giant Tinker Toy set."

    The function of such a maze is defined by its name ? it refines. Gasoline, oil, chemicals ? the refinery takes whatever comes in and purifies it so that it?s ready to go out. The mind serves this same function for us. It refines. Whatever junk the mind allows in will eventually finds its way out into our behavior and attitudes.

    Paul summarizes by saying, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me ? put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." V. 9

    HOW?

    Three practical suggestions:

      1. Steal the snatches of time.
      2. Solicit the Saints. James 5:13-16
      3. Circle Your Day. Psalm 1:2

    Three options.

    1. I thank you God that I am practicing Your presence by controlling my thought life. You have enabled me to rejoice in You, to give thanks to you and to control what I think.
    2. I do not believe what the Bible says about this, Lord. I have a faith problem. Forgive me and help me in my lack of faith.
    3. I believe this, Lord. I believe that if I choose to rejoice and to give thanks and to control my thinking then I will experience Your presence more fully. I simply do not do it. I have a love problem. Forgive me and teach me to love You.
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