How are you thinking?
March 17, 2024
How Are You Thinking?
Meera Short
March 17, 2024
Daniel 10:12 AMPC
Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind and heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come as a consequence of [and in response to] your words.
I will present today that our thoughts are heard in the spirit realm. They can be read by God. They can cause us to experience kingdom living or defeated living.
I heard over 29 years ago that if you sow a thought, you reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, and you will reap a lifestyle.
Where do our thoughts come from:
Our thoughts develop from a lifetime of memories and experiences. Each thought will build upon another. Like how a tree grows. A seed gets planted and from there it begins sprouting.
Dr Caroline Leaf states in her book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, “The mind is made up of trillions and trillions of thoughts. A thought is a real physical thing that occupies mental real estate in the brain and mind. A thought is built into the brain as you use your mind—that is, as you think, feel and choose. Thoughts are located in three different places: your brain, your mind, and the cells of your body.”
Strong’s Concordance 3820: The heart – inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding. Inner part, midst; midst of things; heart of man; soul, heart of (man); mind, knowledge, thinking, determination (of will); conscience; heart (of moral character); as the seat of appetites; as the seat of emotions and passions; as seat of courage.
Proverbs 4:23 ERV (Easy to Read)
Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life.
Proverbs 4:23 EXB (Expanded Bible)
Be careful what you think [L Above all that you guard, protect your heart], because ·your thoughts run your life [L life flows from it].
Is God concerned about our thoughts:
Jeremiah 17:9 AMPC
The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]?
Psalm 139:4 MSG
You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence.
Mark 7:20-23 MSG
He went on: “It’s what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution.”
Luke 5:21-22 HCSB
Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think: “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, “Why are you thinking this in your hearts?”
Romans 8:5-8 ESV
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Jesus is concerned about what we think in our hearts.
Our thoughts can cause God to respond and come near (Kingdom Living):
Luke 8:40-55 HCSB
This is the story of Jairus and what he was able to receive from God. I am certain that Jairus had to conquer his thoughts too. He was a synagogue ruler, someone respected by his community and recognized by his colleagues. I would presume that he had heard Jesus before, because Jesus taught at the local synagogues in Galilee. Jairus would have known that the synagogue leaders and rabbis hated Jesus. They were trying to kill Jesus in chapter 5 of Luke’s gospel and throw him off a cliff for proclaiming that He was the anointed one. Here in verse 41, we see Jairus falling to Jesus’ feet and imploring Him to go to his house because his daughter was at death’s door.
Our thoughts lead to actions. He is humbling himself in front of others who are familiar with him and his position in their community.
Then our story takes a little pause, and we see another person show up during Jesus walking with Jairus.
We see the woman with the issue of blood. In Matthew’s account:
Matthew 9:21 AMPC
For she kept saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I shall be restored to health.”
This woman was suffering from something incurable for 12 years, she was at her wits’ end, the end of all her resources. Scripture tells us she depleted her money seeing every doctor with zero results. Then she becomes aware that Jesus is walking through her streets.
When we are at the end of our solutions, we become desperate.
Luke 8:24 tells us she desired to touch the “tassel of His robe”. This is perhaps the most exciting thing here for me to see. It takes us back to:
Numbers 15: 38-41 AMPC
38 Speak to the Israelites and bid them make fringes or tassels on the corners in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and put upon the fringe of the borders or upon the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. 39 And it shall be to you a fringe or tassel that you may look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, that you may not spy out and follow after [the desires of] your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to follow and play the harlot [spiritually, if not physically], 40 That you may remember and do all My commandments and be holy to your God. 41 I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 15:19-30 Shows us that the priest can make atonement necessary for someone unclean, like this woman.
I submit to you that she was aware in her heart, in her thoughts, that this was more than a mere man, that this Jesus could make her whole!
Jesus fulfills the promise, He has the power to heal, deliver and set free. He has the power to redeem. Look at what He does in this moment, He turns around and tries to figure out who has touched Him. He makes His way to this woman, Luke 9:4-48 HCSB and she comes trembling and falls down before Him. In the presence of all the people, she declared the reason she had touched Him and how she was instantly cured. Jesus responds by calling her “daughter,” declaring that her faith has made her whole.
She was willing to crawl, we see her thoughts of unworthiness here. She’s afraid that she was uncovered, and then we hear the Master declare that she is a daughter. He not only healed her, but by stopping and turning to find her, He shows us that He heard her and responded to her thoughts, to her faith. He wanted this to be recorded and He stoops to pick her up and restores her! He is our High Priest, and her actions revealed that her mind, I believe her thoughts, were on this revelation. After 12 years of suffering, she gets connected to Kingdom Living. Her thoughts drew out of Jesus the very Kingdom of God!
The story goes right back to Jairus. We see that someone came from his house bearing the news that his daughter was dead “Don’t bother the TEACHER” anymore.
They did not have the revelation that He was more than a teacher; they did not accept Him as their High Priest, the Anointed One of whom it was prophesied that He would proclaim the favor of the Lord. Jesus was quick to look at Jairus after hearing their report and said to him, “Do not be afraid. Only believe and she will be made well.”
Our thoughts are heard by God! Jesus let Jairus know that it was going to be ok.
We should be aware that everything that Jesus does is absolutely intentional. He called the woman with the issue of blood “daughter.” And here too in the scripture, we see that Jairus was willing to go to any lengths, particularly bowing before Jesus, the teacher that every other synagogue leader wanted to kill. Jairus was crying out for his own daughter. He didn’t care what they thought; he had one mission: to see his daughter healed.
We go back to the story (Matthew 9:8-2; Mark 5:21-43 and Luke 8:40-54), we see Jairus and Jesus arriving at the house, we see that people are lamenting and wailing, they are mourning the child’s death. Then we can almost hear the laughter of the people, laughing at Jesus, mocking Him because He is saying the girl is asleep. He puts them out, takes the parents with him and the three disciples, and He speaks to the child. And she gets up.
He responded to Jairus’ faith. Raising the dead is part of Kingdom living.
I see the heart of Father God, in that He went through the crowd of 99+ to find the one that cried out in her heart, “If I can only touch the hem of your garment!” Jesus picks her up and restores her to her position, He reconciled her to being a child of God. Would He not understand that this father, Jairus, wanted a restored daughter, would He and could He not do this and so much more!
Our thoughts can cause us to live defeated, bring a curse and miss God’s best:
Jeremiah 17:9-10 EXB (Expanded Bible)
9“·More than anything else [T Above all things], ·a person’s mind is evil [T the heart is deceitful; L the heart is devious/crooked] and ·cannot be healed [T desperately wicked; L it is perverse/sick]. Who can ·understand [know] it? 10 But I, the Lord, ·look into a person’s [investigate/test the] heart and test the ·mind [L kidneys]. So I can decide what each one deserves [L …to give to each according to his way/path];I can give each one the right payment for what he does.”
Luke 6:45 EASY (Easy English Bible)
People are also like that. A good man keeps good things in his mind. In his life, he brings those good things out from there. But a bad man keeps bad things in his mind. He brings those bad thoughts out from there. When a person speaks, his words show what is really in his mind.
Luke 6: 43-45 JB Phillips
“It is impossible for a good tree to produce bad fruit—as impossible as it is for a bad tree to produce good fruit. Do not men know what a tree is by its fruit? You cannot pick figs from briars, or gather a bunch of grapes from a blackberry bush! A good man produces good things from the good stored up in his heart, and a bad man produce evil things from his own stores of evil. For a man’s words will always express what has been treasured in his heart.”
Dr Caroline Leaf, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: “toxic thoughts—such as stress, worry, fear, anger and unforgiveness—actually cause damage to the brain. Chemicals are released into the brain, causing chaos and damage. Those toxic thoughts can cause a loss of sleep or the ability to do your job right, physical illness and more.”
Let’s look at a biblical example of this.
1 Chronicles 21:1-22 HCSB
Satan stood up and “incited” David. This word means that the enemy moved David. He stirred him up, manipulated his emotions, he caused a thought to come to David in his mind.
David took a census of God’s people, and it angered the Lord. Could it be that David was tempted to place more trust in his military might rather than God’s supremacy? Is it wrong to know how many people were in the army? Not at all, God instituted the census (Numbers 1:2; 26:2). Could it be that he was looking at the army and the kingdom like he was looking at Bathsheba from the rooftop, and his heart became proud?
I tend to think so, because his order to number the troops caused God to respond. And the response was destruction and plague. God also gave clear instructions that when the census (Exodus 30:11-16) was taken that money was to be donated/given to the temple or a plague would ensue. And because of David’s decision to number the men without being moved by God, 70,000 men died.
A key thing that we should think about, is that David experienced some great tragedies in his life because of his thought life. The sword came to his house because of his sin with Batheshba. Again, his sin with her all began in his heart (2 Sam 11). His thoughts led him to murder her husband. The results ended up bringing death and division to his house and his children.
If we considered David’s life, we know that he is seated with the Lord. But how much heartache could have been avoided. His children died and repeated his sins. Not all of his children walked with God.
We must control our thought life and persevere to receive from God:
Psalm 119:11 MSG
I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 JB Phillips
The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds. Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defense that men erect against the true knowledge of God. We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ.
Philippians 4:8-9 MSG
Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
Romans 12:2 ESV
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
I will go back to the opening verse:
Daniel 10:12 AMPC
Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind and heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come as a consequence of [and in response to] your words.
Daniel set his mind on the Lord for a period of 21 days; he fasted and prayed to gain understanding from the Lord. In this Bible passage, we see that there is a heavenly/spiritual conflict taking place. Daniel’s thoughts were heard in the spiritual realm. The angels of God had to battle against a prince demon in order to come to Daniel.
If we are going to receive anything from God, it begins with our faith in God, how we believe. And belief starts in the heart of man. If we see ourselves in the light of the Word of God, who Jesus is in us, we will live a life that is filled with God’s best. It doesn’t negate the issues and trials we will face. It just means we will fight and we will win if we persevere.
Romans 10:10 ESV
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Luke 6:45 ESV
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Moving Forward:
1- Identify your thoughts and feelings.
Remember that your thoughts lead to actions, actions lead to habits, and habits will inevitably place you into your lifestyle.
2- Think before you act or speak:
T – is it True?
H – is it Helpful?
I – is it Inspiring?
N – is it Necessary?
K – is it Kind?
If it doesn’t fall into what Phillippians 4:8 says, then it is exalting itself against Jesus! And anything that is against who Jesus is will leave us defeated.