2 The Origin of Your Thinking

The Christian thought for a minute. He responded, “Well, let me tell you what my gospel will do for that man. We will put a new man in that suit of clothes.” You see, this is precisely the difference. You do not alter the quality of someone’s living until you alter the quality of their thinking.

It’s like taking a pig and washing it and putting perfume and a pink ribbon on it and setting it on a nice satin pillow. The very first time it sees a mud puddle, it’s going to go “oink” and head right back to the mud! The only way you’re going to change that pig’s activity is to somehow alter its pig mentality.

The Bible says that humans have a pig mentality. We have a propensity toward the baser things of life. Therefore, I don’t care how much you try to alter society (and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be involved in some of those things). You can take the unregenerate person and put them in a regenerate environment and it’s just a matter of time for their unregenerate nature to absolutely destroy that new environment. We see it happen in housing complexes. We see it happening in various parts of society. Why? Mankind has got to be altered on the inside first. So, it doesn’t matter what you try to do to alter the quality of your living. First, you’ve got to alter the quality of your thinking.

Philosophers and writers have known this truth and have said this in different ways. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” I

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was a teenager when I first heard this. I knew he was wrong because if a man was what he thought about all day long, I would have been a girl—because back then that’s what I thought about all the time! The point is, whatever preoccupies your thoughts really determines the kind of person you are. What someone thinks about all day long is what that person ultimately becomes.

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Let me ask you an honest question: What is it that you think about constantly? What are the thoughts preoccupying your mind when you don’t have any external pressures like a job or school or something dictating what your mind must be thinking about? When those external restraints are off, what is the natural pattern where your thoughts go? You will find that your thoughts will begin to gravitate naturally to certain kinds of preoccupations. Whatever you think about when there are no pressures is what ultimately determines who you really are.

So, you are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are. Notice where the commas are. You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.

The first part of this phrase is what Paul called the futility of Gentile thinking (Ephesians 4:17). You are not what you think you are. This is what psychologists call fantasy. Fantasy is what we like to think we are. It’s the false image that we have of ourselves, either positive or negative. And you’re not really that. You’re not what you think you are, but what you think, ultimately you

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become. So, what you think is really what you are. Solomon said this in Proverbs 23:7: “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (nasb), or as the King James translation puts it: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Paul further gives us a clear line of spiritual defense against such carnal thinking. He instructs us how to win in the secret battlefield of the mind long before the disobedient thought becomes a hostile mental stronghold against the truth of God’s Word. “We demolish arguments,” writes Paul, “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 Corinthians 10:5).

So, the way to mental and spiritual victory is to immediately “demolish arguments” through the “knowledge of God.” If we do not use the Word of God through the Spirit of God to demolish these hostile, immature, irrational, unbiblical thoughts at their conception, they will surely grow and develop to the degree that they ultimately express themselves in unrighteous behavior.

Because we do not demolish the unbiblical thought, it soon grows and expresses itself such that it demolishes our spirituality, marriage, parental relationships, and Christian integrity. We can either “take captive every thought” and “make it obedient to Christ,” or the thought takes us captive and brings us into direct disobedience to Christ!

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You Gotta Have Heart

We cannot separate our thinking from our acting, our attitudes from our actions, or our beliefs from our behavior. All thinking is but the dress rehearsal for acting. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, King Solomon wrote: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). In other words, all our living flows out of our heart.

Let’s clear up this matter of the word heart, because as you read through the Old and New Testament, you will find the words heart and mind used sometimes interchangeably and sometimes distinctively. The context determines the interpretation. In the Bible, the heart is the seat of reflection. Or, in other words, it is the seat of the mind.

Today, we talk about the heart as our emotions. We would say, “I love you with all of my heart,” and we’re speaking emotionally. But in the ancient world, you would never have said, “I love you with all of my heart.” What you would have said is, “I love you with all of my bowels.” You read that right, but I wouldn’t suggest you say that to your loved ones today! Language changes, and so we must know what they were talking about at the time the Bible was written.

In the Bible the heart is primarily the seat of reflection because, as we’ve said, “For as he thinks within

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himself, so he is.” You don’t think in your emotions; you think with your heart. Biblically speaking, the heart is a combination of what we would call the seat of reflection and the seat of affection. But first, it’s the seat of conscious, rational thought, or the seat of reflection. This is paramount in understanding what the Bible teaches about the mind. So, when you read heart in the Bible, most of the time you can be sure that it’s talking about the seat of reflection rather than the seat of affection, although sometimes the latter is the case. Context is crucial.

If we do not zealously guard what flows into our heart—or mind—we will have little control over what flows out of it onto others. If the stream is polluted flowing in through the ears and eyes, then soon both thinking and acting will become polluted.

If we are honest with ourselves (self-assessment), we have to admit that we are drawn toward what the Bible calls the “lust of the flesh” (1 John 2:16). It’s because of the spiritual fall of mankind. A friend of mine expressed the fall this way: “When man fell, he fell on his head, and he’s not been thinking right since.” Exactly!

Soul, Spirit, Body

Now then, I want us to look at the mind as a part of the human soul. The soul is what we would call our person-

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ality, because it’s our mind, emotion, and will. Nothing can be said to have personality that does not have mind, emotion, and will. In order for us to understand what the Bible teaches about the mind, we must understand what the Bible teaches about the soul.

In Genesis, it says that God created man, breathed into him, and made him a living soul. In other words, a human is a living soul that has a body and a spirit. You are a living soul that has a body and a spirit. Think of a bullseye. The innermost circle is spirit. When God said, “let us make mankind in our image,” that’s what He was talking about: I’m going to put within mankind that which is characteristic of My nature. So, if God is Spirit, and if we’re going to have fellowship with God, we must have within us that which would make it possible to fellowship with Him.

When God said (to paraphrase), “I’m going to put my Holy Spirit within your human spirit” (Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14), He is saying the Holy Spirit will be the agency whereby He basically controls our entire being. The Holy Spirit works through our human spirit, and instructs our mind, controls our emotions, directs our will, and ultimately governs our behavior.

Mankind in this capacity had unlimited potential because of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in the human spirit and working outward. As a reminder, religion always tries to work from outside in, but God always works from inside out.

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Satan and Sin

When God created man, he was to have a spirit that moved out into the soul dimension and into the body dimension, instructing his mind with truth, controlling his emotions (that tend to be so fickle), and directing his will. Remember, whatever gets the attention of your mind and the allegiance of your emotions and the commitment of your will, ultimately governs your behavior. When man sinned, however, everything was thrown out of balance, as we will see in a moment.

So, God was supposed to govern our behavior. He said (to paraphrase), “I’m going to have creatures down here that will be under My control and who will do My will.” God originally created mankind so that there would be but one will in the universe. However, Lucifer added a second will that said, “My will,” and then he spread this to the human family. We know that there’s going to come a time when every will will be subjected to Jesus Christ. We should look forward to this day!

Whatever gets in your mind and instructs your mind, and then gets your emotions (because your emotions always come right along), will also get your will because your will always goes along with these first two, and together they govern your behavior.

All advertising media starts right here. They begin to appeal to our mind and to our emotions, knowing that

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