Keeping Your Thought Life Pure
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
(Matt. 5:9)
Matthew 5:27-30:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a
woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your
right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for
you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into
hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to
go into hell. (NIV)
As
we look to Jesus to describe to us what it is to be pure of heart, it quickly
becomes obvious that Jesus doesn’t look solely at the outward appearance of
things. Adultery in the heart, says Jesus, is as bad as the act of adultery
itself. Jesus doesn’t stay on the surface of things; He goes right to the
issues of the heart and innermost being. After all, “He didn’t need man's
testimony about a man, for he knew what was in a man.” (John 2:25, NIV)
In his teaching, then, Jesus often makes what seem to be
condemning or extreme statements like gouging out your eye or cutting off your
hand in order to get his followers to look beyond outward appearances to deal
with issues of the heart. Let’s face it: if we stay on the surface of things
and take the above Scriptures as literal commands, then most all of us will
wind up with our eyes gouged out and our hands cut off. However, if we go
beyond the outward appearance and go to the heart of the matter, we can find
the truth that Jesus is driving at with these radical statements.
First
of all, let’s read carefully if we are to understand what Jesus is saying. Both
of his extreme statements about gouging out the eye and cutting off the hand
are conditional statements that begin with one little word that makes all the
difference – “if”!
If, Jesus
says, if it is your eye that causes
you to sin, then gouge it out! If it
is your hand that makes you steal, cut it off! That will take care of the
problem. Your soul will be saved and you won’t burn in hell and all you will
have lost is an eye or a hand. However, and this is the point Jesus is making,
if it isn’t your eye or your hand that is the problem, then you have an issue
of the heart and of the soul. In other words, lust and covetousness are not
surface problems, but are instead a sickness of the soul. You need a healer of
the soul, a Savior, not a surgeon who specializes in amputation.
Just
to be sure, I once asked a blind man if lust was ever a problem, and sure
enough, it was! The problem isn’t with the eyes, it’s with sinful lust and
thoughts, and they are beyond one’s ability to deal with by sheer willpower and
radical amputations. A person caught up in sin cannot overcome it by willpower
or trying harder or cutting off body parts – he or she must consider his or her
whole body crucified with Christ and therefore dead to sin and alive to live
for the glory of God. There is no other way. The only way to overcome lust and
deal with the sin issue of the heart is to turn to the Savior. Only Jesus can
deliver us from sin and this body of death.
And
this is precisely why Jesus repeatedly brought out the truth that sin is an
internal issue rather than an external one. Sin is a condition of the heart,
not simply a behavior. Sin is rooted in our thought life and in our innermost
being, and the outward manifestation of sin – murder, stealing, adultery, etc.
– are simply the outgrowth of sinful thoughts such as hatred, covetousness, and
lust. It’s not enough to simply clean up the outside appearances of one’s life,
he or she must go deeper to deal with the inner issues of the heart. In other
words, one must clean up his or her thought life if he or she is going to
experience real change.
The human mind, if you think about it a little bit, is
much like a satellite dish or an antenna. There are all kinds of things out
there to be picked up and transmitted, but it has to be tuned to receive the
desirable channels. With antennas and satellite dishes, it is easily
accomplished with a tuning knob or a remote control. With our minds, however,
it takes a continual “tuning in” to the things of God and a “tuning out” of the
things of the world, the sinful desires of our flesh, and the fiery darts of Satan.
As the Apostle Paul says, we must set our minds on things
above, not on earthly things. We must continually take our thoughts captive and
make them obedient to Christ and what the Word of God tells us. (Col.
3:2; 2 Cor. 10:5)
We
have a choice that must be made over and over again. We can tune in and listen
to what the Spirit of God is whispering to our spirit or we can listen to the
sinful desires that war against our soul. We can read the Bible and live
according to its precepts or we can read secular materials and live according
to the wisdom of this world. We can watch and listen to trash that comes in
over the airwaves or we can choose to tune in to something godly and edifying.
Living in the information age, where there is so much
available at the click of a mouse, a turn of a page, or a punch of a key on a
remote, it is more important than ever that we tune our minds into the things
of God rather than the things of the world. As we do so, we will begin to see
the glory of God around us more and more clearly. We will be living with pure
hearts and pure thought lives, and as a result we will see God, just as Jesus
promised in the Beattitude.
Pray with me: Father, forgive me for those times when
my thoughts have not been pleasing to you. Help me to tune in to what you are
saying and doing. Keep me from distractions and things that are not of you and
are in fact stumbling blocks to what you want to say to me and do in my life…continue
praying as you are led by the Spirit…
For further study or memorization:
Do not
conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect
will. Romans 12:2
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life,
to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to
be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created
to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Eph. 4:22-24
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things. Phil. 4:8
Set your mind on things above, not on earthly
things. Col. 3:2
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as
the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On
the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of
God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor. 10:3-5
Please use this blog for
personal devotional use and feel free to share it with friends and family.
However, all publishing rights are reserved. No reproduction or publication of
this blog is permitted without the permission of the author, Pastor Randy
Brockett of New Song
Foursquare Church
in Colorado Springs, Colorado. To contact Pastor Randy, email him
at randybrockett@yahoo.com.
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