11. The bricks in our lives (4)

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

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