The Difficult Part!

(original date: 05/03/1998, with passage changed to ESV)

Someone prayed: “I want to thank you, Lord, for being close to me so far this day. With your help I haven’t been grumpy, judgmental or envious of anyone. But I will be getting out of bed in a minute and I think I will really need your help then!”

Sometimes we visualize doing all the right things and then we step out into life and find ourselves blowing it again. Knowing is one thing, but practicing and living it is sometimes the difficult part. What can we do to help keep our focus so that we can be the type of people God wants us to be? First of all we should begin each day with prayer asking God to keep our heart open to His direction and focused on His will. Then we should try to keep our focus on the things that will keep our thoughts spiritually healthy. If we can keep the thoughts right it is from there that our actions will come. So what type of things should we keep thinking about?

Note what Paul said:
“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 ESV)

Do the things we think about most fit into any of those categories? This would be a good passage to memorize and keep asking ourselves if this is the type of thinking our mind is involved in. For if this is where our thoughts are, to God's glory our actions will in turn be TRUE, HONORABLE, JUST, PURE, LOVELY, COMMENDABLE, EXCELLENT, and PRAISEWORTHY.

Have a great day LIVING FOR CHRIST!
Carl

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