Our Thoughts and Abundant Life

This verse is likely a timely one for many of us. I don’t know about you, but sometimes my mind is a battlefield. It’s full of questions and struggles. It’s full of both dark and light. At moments when it feels heavy in my mind, I’m comforted to know Paul felt this way too. In Romans, Paul reminds us about how though his inner person delights in God’s word, he still feels a war raging in his mind.

He says it like this: “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me” (Romans 7:23).

As Christians, I think we need to be reminded that we engage in a spiritual battle each day. When we have thoughts that steal, kill and destroy the good things God has come to give us, we have to learn to recognize these as attacks from the enemy.

How do we fight and win the battle? Well, we can allow the Holy Spirit to help us sift through the lies to the truth by putting our thoughts through things Scripture says are true. We're called to think about the truth. Maybe in the middle of the storm we’re in we forgot that there are things we are actually commanded to think about (see Philippians 4:8 below). If I’m having a particularly difficult challenge, I’ll take my thoughts and run them through this list to test them. If they don’t align, I do my best to replace them with something that does. A few weeks ago I reviewed my map in my Verse Map Journal on this verse:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Jesus says he came to give life abundantly, friends. Looking into these words, we can see from Thayer's Greek Lexicon that in Christ, we are given “a real and genuine life, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed” and as if that wasn’t sweet enough, the Lord emphasizes this point further. He says he gives it abundantly “over and above, more than is necessary.”

If we find ourselves spending our days in ways that don't align with this definition of life Jesus has promised to give us, chances are we aren't aligning our thoughts to His plan for us! My encouragement to myself and to all of us is this: let's remember the truth. Let's sift our thoughts and only keep the ones that align with Christ's plans for us.

And of course, if you're joining along with us in this week's memory verse, happy memorizing! If you'd like a free printable of this or other verses please check out our Memory Verse page or sign up for our emails. Happy memorizing!