What Are Your Thoughts?

What Are Thoughts - really?

What are thoughts? They are  mental building blocks.

We are beginning to understand that "thoughts" are the building blocks of our lives, and that thoughts build "mental pictures" strong enough to hold our attention, literally control our behavior, and even affect our mental health.

How does this amazing system work?

There is an inward mechanism and process from which all decisions evolve. Yet somehow we possess very little understanding of this fascinating chamber of imagery called the imagination.

Ezekiel 8:12 "Then said he unto me, Son of man, have you seen what the ancients [leaders] of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord sees us not; the Lord has forsaken the earth."

We have not paid enough attention to how this life-changing system works...

Every day we are continually exposed to and given the opportunity to accept or reject hundreds of thoughts, ideas, and word-picture images, without any serious consideration of what happens as each decision is set in motion.

We have not, up to this point, bothered to try and find out what happens, and why.

Thoughts Are the Battleground of the Soul

Ah, yes...

If all of scripture could be reduced to ONE simple saying, none could say it better than "thoughts are the battleground of the soul."

All throughout scripture the picture is clear - who controls man's thinking? What information does man believe and have access to?

Just take the account of David vs. Goliath.

Where did David aim? Where did David deliberately hit Goliath.

1 Samuel 17:49 "And David put his hand in his bag, and took out a stone, and slung it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth."

Goliath had cursed GOD with his words. Goliath cursed and ridiculed David and Israel. David declared that GOD would deliver Goliath into his hands.

What is in the forehead?

The thought-life, the heart, the imagination. This is where the battleground is located. All victories or defeats flow from here...

David's sling and stone, properly delivered, successfully put an end to false and destructive accusations from the Devil.

It took years for David to learn and practice how to be effective with the sling and stones.

Look at the similar instructions to believers:

Hebrews 4:12 "For the Word of GOD is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

2 Corinthians 10:4,5 "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through GOD to the pulling down of strongholds; 

"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of GOD, and bringing  into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

What is the process?

How Bad Were Man's Thoughts?

Hopelessly bad enough to cause GOD to wipe them out through Noah's flood...

We get a clear indication here -

Genesis 6:5 "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

• All the imaginations of their thoughts were evil
  
• the very first embryo of every idea,
  
• the figment of every thought,
  
• the very materials out of which perception, conception, and ideas were formed, were all evil;
• the fountain which produced them, with every thought, purpose, wish, desire, and motive, was incurably poisoned.
• All these were evil without any mixture of good - the Spirit of God which strove with them was continually resisted, so that evil had its sovereign sway.
  
• They were evil continually - there was no interval of good, no moment allowed for serious reflection, no holy purpose, no righteous act.
  

What a scarred, pathetic picture of a society given over to doing things their own way, without restraints. How close are we to having the same "report card" or evaluation today? GOD was fed up, and wiped out that generation by the flood. Done. That men's hearts could be so corrupt! It is staggering to see how far down the toilet a society's morals can become when Satan is stoking the fire.

Look at this generation... are we any less corrupt? "Good" is now "evil" and evil is promoted freely as the keys to freedom and choice. How sad.