If your house's foundation is right
(your faith in God), and your cornerstone is right (Jesus Christ),
and your bricks are right (quality time with your spouse, children
and close family), then you can start living in your house. You can
be right to weather any storm, because your house would be strong
enough to endure. Now you can start looking after yourself, the
Temple of God. You need to make sure that you are in the best shape
you can possibly be in, in order to be able to do what God wants
you to do. I am going to talk a bit more about how to look after
yourself in the next few weeks.
I spoke last week about getting
your house in order. God is a God of order and cleanliness and
therefore we need to look after ourselves and grow in Christ to be
the best we can be.
First of all we need to get our
thought life in order. We need to start thinking about what we are
thinking about. We cannot allow random thoughts to come in and mess
up our neat house. I always thought that we don't have any control
over what comes into our minds, but we do! This is such an intense
subject, I can continue for weeks on this, but the point I would
like to make now, is that thoughts can influence your whole
life.
"Above all else, guard your heart,
for it affects everything you do." Proverbs 4:23
I would like to repeat it; it
affects everything you do. That is why it is
so crucially important that you don't allow any thought to simply
slip in. You need to focus on what is good and pure, you need to
practice it.
The other day I was upset over
something and I had to go to that person and clear the air. Now I
could only see the person in a weeks' time, so I practiced what I
wanted to say to her all the time in my head and every time I got
upset all over again and it ruined my day. I then forced myself to
stop. I realized that it is not going to help to rehearse what I
was going to say for the whole week and be upset all the time. It
was stealing my joy. I then purposefully stopped myself every time
I wanted to think about it. I forced myself to be in the moment and
to enjoy the here and now. I will think about the situation again
when I see her. And you know what, it worked. I wasn't upset for
the rest of the week and cleared the air the next. We have power
over our thoughts and we need to exercise it.
Another good idea is to memorize
Scripture and to verbally say it out loud every time your thoughts
drift in the wrong direction. You can also ask the Lord to give you
a 'mantra' to say every day to yourself. Something in the order of
"Thank you Jesus for being here with me. Thank you that I can do
all things through Christ who strengthens me. Thank you that You
created me in Your image and that I am wonderfully made. I look
forward to this day and all that You have in store for me." You can
ask God to give you your own 'mantra' to say every day, in order to
focus your mind on the pure and the good things in life.
The Lord wants to bless you
and He wants you to obtain victory over your thoughts.
Lord, thank you for giving us the
victory through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you that we can walk
through this life with You and that You will give us the strength
to control our thought life. Amen