WHOSE THOUGHTS ARE THOSE, PART 1

Thoughts dwelt on produce words.  Words spoken produce actions.  Actions determine the course of our lives.

God knows very well how He set up this earth and mankind to dwell on it.  Our enemy satan also knows the set-up.  It is very simple.  It was established in Genesis.  God spoke and God saw.  Man, whom God has created, speaks and he sees.  We are created in the image or likeness of God.  He speaks and things are created.

We as mankind, whether born again or not, speak and create, whether good or bad.  There is a statement that is very true:  What we say is what we get.  It doesn’t happen the first time or the second time or even the third time, but there does come a time when we have dwelt on something so long and spoken it so often, that it produces in our lives exactly what we have spoken.

Thoughts and words are extremely important to God since that is how His Kingdom operates.

Consider these verses:

As a man THINKS in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).

You will give an account of every IDLE WORD that you have spoken.  By YOUR WORDS you will be justified and by YOUR WORDS you will be condemned (Matthew 12:36,37).

Man lives by every WORD that proceeds out of the MOUTH OF THE LORD (Deuteronomy 8:3).

A gentle TONGUE with its healing power is a tree of life (Proverbs 15:4).

The MOUTH of the righteous man is a well of life…. (Proverbs 10:11).

The TONGUE of the just is as choice silver….(Proverbs 10:20).

The LIPS of the righteous feed many…. (Proverbs 10:21).

PLEASANT WORDS are as a honeycomb, sweet to the mind and healing to the body, health to the bones (Proverbs 16:24).

Death and life are in the power of the TONGUE and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof (Proverbs 18:21).

Whoso keeps his MOUTH and his TONGUE keeps himself from troubles and he keeps his life (Proverbs 21:23).

A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his MOUTH…. (Proverbs 12:14).

A man shall eat good by the fruit of his MOUTH….He that keeps his MOUTH keeps his life…. (Proverbs 13:2,3).

Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report….THINK on these things. (Philippians. 4:8).

WHAT IS YOUR REASON FOR BEING

In Him we live and move and have our being….(Acts 17:28).

Our whole reason for existing is to love and honor and praise God.  He is our dear heavenly Father.  He is the Source of all our life.  He is the very breath we breathe.  He created us to lavish His love and His gifts upon us.  We are the apple of His eye.  We are the beat of His heart.  We are His children.  He is ours and we are His.  What a way to live!

David said in the Psalms that his heart pants after God like the deer pants after the water.  Think of how thirsty that deer is when he comes to the water to drink.  Even so, we are thirsty for the water of God.  His Word is called the water of the Word.  We drink deeply of Him when we drink of His Word.

He is also our Bread of Life for which we are hungering.  He is our sustenance, our reason for living.  We eat of Him as we eat of His Word, His Bread, His manna for us.

Focus on Him.  Think about Him.  Think about His goodness.  Think about His all-encompassing love.  Think about His greatness.  Think about His mighty awesome power.  Think about His caring for you.  Even as I type this, I am overwhelmed with His never-ceasing desire for me as His child.  My heart overflows with love and joy in response to my Creator, to my Lord, to my King.  What a God we serve.

FAILURES AND SUCCESSES OF THE PAST

Do not let the failures and successes of your past determine your future.  Your future is crafted and designed in God’s powerful and mighty hands.  He already has it planned for you in the most minute detail.  What you and I have to do is yield ourselves to Him and not try to work out our own future, based on what we know.

One of the greatest deterrents to our future is our past.  There have been times when all of us have been disappointed or discouraged or angry or hurt and upset, when things did not work the way we thought they should have.  I know this comes as no great revelation to you, but it was not God who messed things up.  We were either ignorant and didn’t know enough or we were disobedient or we were impatient or we let go of our faith.  God is not the problem.  I know this is going to shock you, but so many times the devil is not our problem either.  We give him far too much credit for our mess-ups.  He really did not have to help.  We did quite well on our own.

Past mistakes are gone.  We all must “get over it” and move on.  There are things that have happened in my life in the past that so drained me of hope.  I would even quote the scripture to God that hope deferred makes the heart grow sick.  I blamed him for my failures and defeats and the lack of answered prayer.  When the dust settled and the air cleared and I was quiet before the Lord, I would see where there were doors I had left open for defeat.  And even if God did not reveal to me what happened, I have learned to be content in God’s presence and let Him do the driving of the vehicle of my life.  Since I am a fixer and a doer, that has been a learning experience for me to settle back and let the Lord do the fixing and the doing.

Let’s all remember that the past is the past.  Let’s get on with the design of our lives, having confidence in God Who is the Architect and Builder of our whole life structure.

Let us be convinced and sure of this very thing:  He Who began a good work in us will bring it to full completion in us (Phil. 1:6).  With the Apostle Paul, let us forget those things which are behind and reach forth to those things which are set before us, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling (Phil.3:14).

Finally, with the Prophet Isaiah we say that we do not remember the former things; neither do we consider the things of old.  Rather, we behold the Lord God doing a new thing in our lives.  It is springing forth; we perceive it and know it and give heed to the new work.  God is even making a way in the wilderness of our lives and producing the healing waters of His rivers of life in our deserts (Isaiah 43:18,19).

Today is the new day that the Lord has made for us.  We will rejoice in this new day and be glad in it.

We are in Christ.  All things have become new.  We are new creations.  We have put on the new man and have come by a new and living way in Christ Jesus, singing a new song because our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and He has made all things new (1 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians. 3:10; Hebrews 10:20; Revelation 5:9; Revelation 14:3)