Skip to main content

You Are What You Think By Pastor Kevin Feder

By
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.

Philippians 4:8

“You are what you eat,” goes the popular saying. Scripture seems to teach us that you are what you think. Philippians 4:8 addresses the thinking faculty of a believer and suggests that it is a crucial part of their faith in God. There is an ongoing aspect to Philippians 4:8, suggesting that our thinking is something we need to constantly assess and constantly manage. Our thinking is a vital part of our worship to God. At any given moment we are relating to God poorly or relating to him well. It is all based on what we are thinking and more importantly, what we are thinking of God’s truth and his beauty.

Philippians 4:8 is by no means an anomaly in the NT. Scripture is filled with instructives that call attention to a person’s thinking/minds. Romans 12:1-2 links transformation with the “renewal of your mind.” Ephesians 4:17-24 makes the connection between wicked living and the “futility of their minds” (verse 17, 24). Elsewhere it seems the idea of unbelief is closely related to the concept presented in Philippians 4:8. It has been convicting for me, a believer in Christ, to embrace the fact that I struggle with unbelief. Again, God isn’t calling us to a one-time decision but a lifestyle of embracing his truth, thinking about it and believing it!

This passage has been profound in the way I help others but it has also been good for my own soul. How many of my problems are owing to the fact that my thought life is disordered? Even me, the stalwart believer I consider myself to be, actually struggles with believing God. I don’t doubt God’s existence, not ever, actually. However, I do doubt his goodness, his wisdom, his love for me, to name a few. Philippians 4:8 comes knocking on my door to help me see that I have a problem with my thinking life. Not only that I give thought to things that are unholy, but that I think of God in ways that are flatly untrue. Furthermore, Philippians 4:8 doesn’t merely teach me to correct my thinking for the sake of correcting my thinking, it tells me that issues I face such as anxiety are the bitter fruits that grow on the vine of bad thinking.

Thus, “whatever is true…think about these things.” How simple. How profound.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sermon Questions - April 10, 2016

By
Exiled in Faithfulness 1 Samuel 26:1-27:12 April 10, 2016 Study Questions 1.       Read 1 Samuel 26:1-5. Why did the Ziphites betray David? Had they done this before? How did Saul respond and why? How did David learn of Saul’s location and what did he do? 2.     Read 1 Samuel 26:6-16. What did David first do? What did Abishai encourage him to do? How did David respond? What did David assert about Saul’s future? What did David then do and why did his plan work? 3.      Once the plan was executed, who did David call out to and why? Of what did David accuse him? Was David right? 4.      Read 1 Samuel 26:17-25. How did Saul know it was David speaking? Specifically, what did David say to Saul? How did Saul respond? What did he promise? 5.        Read 1 Samuel 27:1-4. Despite Saul’s words, what did David think about his future? Why did he decide to flee to the Philistines and where in pa...
Post a Comment
Read more