I wrote yesterday's blog entry a little too late in the evening, and as a result was a bit too silly with it in that I gave the wrong idea. Rebecca's selection of my blog as one of the five she was giving a Thinking Blog Award to, had nothing to do with how much my blog thinks, but rather that its contents often made her think. And I count that a high honor. Being amusing and entertaining is good, but causing someone to think is more important.I say that because while I would never deny that emotions are an important and rich part of our experience here on earth, our lives should as a first priority be about thinking. Especially our spiritual lives. In fact, that's the whole point of our being left here after salvation for however many years: to bring our thinking around so that it reflects God's rather than the world's. His thoughts are not our thoughts, after all, His ways not our ways. But He's written the Bible so that we might see what His thoughts are, and that through learning them and making them our own, we might come to think like He does
Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you may prove what the will of God is...
The Bible is the Word of God. Jesus Himself is said to be the Word, as well. It can't be an accident that the Bible and Jesus are given the same designation: "Word." Words represent thought. Truth is actually thought. (Though, to be sure, lies are thoughts and words as well...)
Proverbs 23:7 says "As a man thinks in his heart, so He is."
Jesus told us that where a man's treasure is, there his heart is also -- whatever is the thing he focuses on, spends the most time thinking about, spends his time and talent and treasure on, directs his energies toward... that's what his true treasure is.
The heart (kardia) in the New Testament is not the pump of the cardio vascular system, nor is it the seat of emotion. Rather it is the place where you do your thinking. The mind (nous), is the place where you understand things, but don't necessarily believe them. The kardia is where the thinking that matters occurs. This is where you act on what you believe. This is the real you -- your memory, your vocabulary, your standards, your conscience, your frame of reference, your deepest desires, your will. And this is the part of us that God wants to infuse with His thinking, His view of life and reality.
If you abide in My Word, then you are truly students of mine; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free... John 8:31, 32
Abide (meno) means abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand. It's a lifestyle. A lifestyle of thinking which then produces word and action, and to which emotion responds.
Thought is what brings a person to salvation. Thought is, at base, what life is all about.
So I am truly honored that at least one person out there finds that on occasion this blog causes her to think.
Grace,
Karen
