Renovation of the Heart
Transforming the Mind, Part 1 (3|5)
Pages 106-110
• The Crucial Role of Good Thinking Today
• Thought, Love, and Worship
• The Supreme Worth
• Standing before God
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
Psalm 19:7-8 (NIV) The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
Psalm 119: 10-16 (NIV) I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, LORD; teach me your decrees. With my lips, I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
The Crucial Role of Good Thinking Today
”To serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favors evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally, ‘hell to pay'.’ That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of world history. - To make the ‘information’ of the Scripture into a mind thinking straight under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, by contrast, is to place our feet solidly on the road of spiritual formation under God.”
Should followers of Jesus be known as thinkers? Is thinking actually a good thing for Christians to do? How might it help us? Is it dangerous?
Thought, Love, and Worship
“To think of God as He is, one cannot but lapse into worship; and worship is the single most powerful force in completing and sustaining restoration in the whole person. It puts into abeyance (a state of temporary disuse or suspension) every evil tendency in every dimension of the self. It naturally arises from thinking rightly of God on the basis of revealed truth confirmed in experience.”
What is worship? How are thought, worship, and spiritual formation related?
The Supreme Worth
Revelation 5:12-13 (NIV) In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
“The angelic vision in Revelation 5:12-13 is precisely the vision that possesses the thought life of the renovated heart; and you can see how it would grip the whole person and his or her earthly environment. This is what it is to ‘hallow’ God’s name. It is what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. But, sad to say, even our Christian meetings and environments are for the most part far from it.”
What is your response to this statement? Do you agree?
Standing Before God
“When God stands before us, we stand before him. Refusing to worship him is a way of trying to avoid his face and his eyes - The so-called ‘right to privacy’ of which so much is made in contemporary life is in very large measure merely a way of avoiding scrutiny in our wrongdoing.”
Do you agree? Psalm 33:18 The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love. Many people perceive God as “an angry old man in the sky.” How can followers of Jesus share this truth of Psalmist?
EXTRA READING:
“The Christian life - and especially the contemplative life - is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.”
- Thomas Merton (1915-1968)