The Bible’s version of “Change your thinking, change your life” …

A popular phrase in 21st century psychology and psychiatry is “Change your thinking, change your life.”

It’s an accurate concept that depends on this foundational principle of human behavior: Our thoughts create our emotions, and the combination of our thoughts and emotions creates our behavior.

So, if you want (or need) to change your behavior, you have to change your thinking.

If you want (or need) to change your emotions, you must change your thinking.

And, of course, if you want (or need) to change your thinking, you must … well, change your thinking!

Simply put, your life will not change if you continue with the same thinking that created the life you currently have.

Long before modern science regarding human behavior began to embrace the necessity of human beings to change their thinking in order to change their life, the Bible was already teaching us the essential need for us to change how we think.

In fact, changing how and what we think is the starting point of God’s transforming work in our lives:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect,” Romans 12:2.

“But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes,” Ephesians 4:20-23.

The Apostle Peter notes that, as we’re now called to live holy lives as God’s children, we have to get ahold of our thinking:

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy,'” 1 Peter 1:13-16.

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour,” 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV).

The Apostle Paul helps us see that getting control of your thinking is an important part of effective spiritual warfare:

“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 Corinthians 10:3-5.

SEEDING OUR THOUGHTS

Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean that your thoughts no longer need direction! While God is working to change how we think, we’re instructed to give direction and purpose to our thinking. In fact, Paul writes about how we need to “seed,” or purposely plant into our thinking certain things so that we can increasingly think like Jesus:

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God,” Colossians 3:1-3.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise,” Philippians 4:8.

Without purposely, actively directing our thinking, we can fall back into old patterns and habits of thinking that are not Christlike or God-honoring; those thoughts can only create emotions that parallel them, and the combination of thoughts and emotions create behavior unbecoming of a child of God. The result is we don’t experience the peace of Christ we can have if we change our thinking, and cooperate with the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in changing the way we think.

If you really want peace that comes only from God, you’ll have to commit your life to changing the way you think, and what you think about:

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” Isaiah 26:3.

Scotty