Hold That Thought! Introduction
Hold That Thought! Introduction.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is TRUE, whatever is HONORABLE, whatever is RIGHTEOUS, whatever is PURE, whatever is WINSOME, whatever is ADMIRABLE, if there is any MORAL EXCELLENCE, if there is anything PRAISEWORTHY… dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8).
Dwell – (Greek, “logizesthe”): an accounting term that literally means to carefully use your reason as you take full account of something; to thoughtfully evaluate something in a sensible way as you consider the worth of something; to calculate with focus and discernment; to personally measure what counts in the eyes of God. In this passage, to dwell on these worthwhile realities is to fix your mind on them, to meditate on them, to fill your mind with them, to focus deeply on them. To dwell on these heavenly realities is to dwell within them, to find a home inside these godly attributes, to think about these things to the extent that you are living into them. To dwell upon these things also means that your mind is creating a home for them to reside deep within you. To dwell upon is to allow these spiritual realities to become a part of your life, dwelling in you and shaping you. These virtues are not merely “passing fancies” or temporary mental events, but are fixed in your mind to the extent that they become a part of your character. The root word for “logizesthe” is the rich, meaningful Greek word “logos.” So, to dwell on these aspects of divine goodness means we are to become “logos-like” in the life of the mind, to think and reason like the heavenly Logos. To be logos-like is to truly use the mind of Logos-Christ which has been given to us. To be logos-like is to actively participate in the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:1-2) within by filling it with that which fills the mind of Christ Himself. To be logos-like is to continue daily the holy process of thinking deeply about those realities that are pleasing to God and would keep drawing us into a personal relationship with Him. Naturally, to choose to dwell on these life-giving realities implies that at the same time we are rejecting those thoughts that are unhealthy, destructive, and unworthy of God’s presence in our lives.
“Mind Set On Jesus” – Tamesha Pruett
Interesting Thoughts about Thoughts:
(1.) I am what I think. I become what I choose to think about. My character is shaped by the life of my mind. My attitudes are built on the foundations of my thoughts. My lifestyle is determined by whatever I fill my mind with. My destiny begins with my thought life.
(2.) According to the latest brain imaging studies (2022), we each have about 6,200 different thoughts a day. They are called “thought worms” and are distinct, measurable shifts in brain activity that represent the transition from one idea or image to another.
(3.) We each can rewire our brains by how we think. It’s called “cognitive reframing,” based on the plasticity of our brains that are able to build new neural pathways by choosing to think differently. We each have the ability to train our minds to identify harmful thoughts, replace them with life-giving thoughts, and then practice those healthier thoughts through repetition until those new thoughts become a mental habit.
(4.) When dwelling on thoughts like what St. Paul suggested above, we are making new neural pathways that become dominant and succeed in rewiring the brain to have the ability to naturally filter out harmful thoughts and welcome life-giving thoughts.
(5.) When we are “in Christ,” we are inviting God’s Holy Spirit to renew our minds and enable us to rewire our brains, our ways of thinking, which determine our attitudes, behaviors and feelings. Each person hs the ability to do a lot of the legwork in this process, but only the Spirit of God can do the heavy lifting and enable us to think with the “mind of Christ.”
(6.) In this sinful world, harmful thoughts assault us every day, and there’s not much we can do about that. But we can try to keep them at a minimum buy not entertaining these thoughts, by not welcoming them into our minds in such a way that we dwell on them and fill our minds with them. s Martin Luther once said about temptations… “We can’t stop the birds from flying overhead, but we can stop them from building a nest in our hair.”
Different Pictures of the Human Mind:
(1.) My mind is a mansion with a front doorbell. We can’t stop people from ringing our front doorbell, but we can keep them from coming into our house. Even though some visitors to our mind can be difficult to turn away, we nonetheless can choose to reject them and not open our front door. We can keep harmful visitors from entering the house of our mind and making himself at home. We do not have to welcome questionable characters into our living room and entertain them. With God’s help, we can lock them out after escorting them to the door and pushing them outside of our mind. We don’t have to make unwelcome visitors comfortable by giving them a meal and asking they stay for the night. Once this happens, these harmful visitors, these unwelcome guests, become squatters and a lot more help is needed to get rid of them permanently. The welcome guests are those who will enter the house only to benefit the resident and improve the house, and will bring love and joy and peace. Those welcome guests are focused on what’s best for the residence, improving the atmosphere and actually increasing the value of the house. The doorkeeper to each person’s mind is the person who follows the directions of Jesus, a Christ-follower who has the discernment and strength of will to close the door to unwelcome visitors to his mind. The wise doorkeeper has a certain mental discipline that can be called a holy stubbornness for that which is wholesome and godly. The wise doorkeeper to the mind knows who/what to include as occupants. Examples of unwelcome and harmful visitors to the house of our mind could include pornography, the occult, lust for power and wealth, violence against friend or foe, addiction, self-sufficiency, perversions.
(2.) My mind is a submarine with a radar. We can’t stop enemy ships or mines from coming our way, but we can use our radar to spot them. In this world our mind is operating in international waters and are able to see all kinds of harmful things lurking near us. But in our control room we enjoy the best radar in the business, and we learn to trust that radar at all times. When danger lurks, whether a battleship or a sea mine or a rocky coastline, we activate our radar and figure out what to do from there. Sometimes we ignore it, sometimes we avoid it, sometimes we engage it in battle. But one thing we don’t do is allow the enemy combatants to bring us to the surface and enter our submarine. We would rather torpedo the enemy battleship than allow them entrance. Sometimes we see friendly ships on our radar, in which case we are happy to come to the surface and welcome the friendlies on board. Every thinking person needs to have a trustworthy radar in their mind as we operate on the seven seas, whether to spot dangers or to entertain friends.
(3.) My mind is a TSA agent with a scanner. I may not be able to scan very quickly, but I certainly can spot dangerous items to confiscate and contraband to destroy. Each of us has a mind that is able to carefully check everything that tries to enter the brain’s airport terminal. We each have a checkpoint equipped with Advanced Imaging Technology that will scan everyone trying to gain entrance. These scanners examine everything from the body to suitcases to sneaky little things like shoes and belts and wallets. The clever and observant TSA agent will not pass through anything harmful or dangerous, will confiscate the items, and escort the guilty parties out the door if not arrest them. We each need to make sure we engage our mind’s x-ray eyes every day, put into play our danger-detectors, to determine who is allowed into our thought life. Like any TSA agent, these decisions become automatic the more experience we have discerning the harmful from the acceptable.
(4.) My mind is an air purifier with a filter. I may not be able to keep impurities from entering my air space, but I can screen them out from the atmosphere of my room. Each of us has a mind with a filter that can rid our room of contaminants, of anything that will do harm to the air we breathe. Our mind’s filter can get clogged and dirty because of its job, but only the Holy Spirit is able to regularly clean the filter and make it effective. In our cooperation with the Purifier, the air filter can be in operation 24/7. The impurities floating around in the air are usually invisible to the naked eye, though, so we participate in the process by keeping the purifier plugged in and in the ON position. If we don’t cooperate in the air purification process, who knows what we are breathing into our inner self, into the deep recesses of our minds.
“Just then a religious scholar stood before Jesus in order to test His doctrines. He posed this question: ‘Teacher, rabbi, what requirement must I fulfill if I want to live forever in heaven?’ Jesus replied, What does Moses teach us? What do you read in the Law?’ The religious scholar answered, ‘It states, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus said, ‘That is correct. Now go and do exactly that and you will live.” (Luke 10:25-28).
Loving God with the Mind. When Jesus quoted the Shema from the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 6:4), He added the “mind.” Evidently, Jesus wanted to make sure that the listeners understood that we are to love God with all our mind. The Jews understood “heart” in the Shema to be the seat of both thoughts and feelings, reflecting both the mind and emotion. Jesus added the mind to underscore its importance in love of God.
Guests vs. Squatters. St. Paul helpfully gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to love God with our minds. Let’s look at the thoughts that deserve to dwell within our minds, the guests who need to be welcomed, as opposed to the unwelcome visitors who only seek to destroy and do us harm:
… whatever is true and faithful vs. whatever is untrue and unfaithful;
… whatever is honorable and noble vs. whatever is dishonorable and ignoble;
… whatever is righteous and just vs. whatever is unrighteous and unjust;
… whatever is pure and genuine vs. whatever is impure and fake;
… whatever is winsome and gracious vs. whatever is ugly and disgraceful;
… whatever is admirable and commendable vs. whatever cannot be admired or commended in any way;
… that which is virtuous and morally excellent vs. that which is filled with vice and mediocrity;
… that which is worthy of praise and respect vs. that which is not worthy of any kind of praise or respect whatsoever.
Hear and Do. To make sure the Philippian Christians understood the whole point of this teaching, Paul closed this passage with a key Hebraic principle: “Practice what you have learned…” (4:9). The Greek word for practice is “prassete,” which means to keep on practicing, make it an ongoing daily effort to put these aspects of goodness into one’s lifestyle. Keep converting thought into action and it becomes a life-giving mental habit. Paul is saying that dwelling on something isn’t merely a cognitive experience, some abstract exercise in the mind that remains disconnected to the way one lives. Remember to complete the hearing with the doing. Flesh out the spiritual realities. Put these divine qualities into action. All these spiritual realities are intended to be practiced in daily life, becoming a part of one’s character. To fix one’s mind on these aspects of divine goodness results in those aspects becoming a fixed part of who we are in Christ. “Be doers of the Word,” says St. James in his letter (1:22), “and not hearers only.” We could add to that, “and not thinkers only.”
Fixed on Jesus. The fact that we are being taught to welcome certain spiritual realities into our minds and to dwell (“logizesthe“) on these thoughts with the Greek word rooted in Logos, should remind us to do what is healthiest for our minds and is repeated throughout the New Testament… “Fix your mind on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2); “Set your mind on things above.” (Colossians 3:2); “Set your mind on the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 8:5); “Thoughtfully consider Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1); “You will guard in perfect peace those whose mind is stayed on you, Lord.” (Isaiah 26:3).