Philippians 4:8(NLT) tells us, “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.” In this verse, God is instructing us how to discipline our thought life. He has given us salvation through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and through Christ we are spiritually born again, but our heads and hearts are another story. When we accept Christ and receive his Spirit, God does not come inside our heads and hearts and start moving the bad stuff out and replacing it with the goodness of His powerful Word. No. He doesn’t do this because He has told us to do it. We have free-will choice, and God will not overstep the gift of free-will that He’s given us. We choose what we will let into our heads and hearts.
Genesis 1:26-27 teaches us that God made us in His own image. We are His children, and we are a part of His family. God is sovereign. He is all-powerful, everywhere present, and all knowing. There is none like Him, and He cannot be governed by anyone but Himself. He has given us a type of this self-governing agency, and we call it free-will. So, we are in control of our own minds and hearts, and we alone decide how we want to think, feel, and behave.
In Philippians 4:8, God has given us instructions for molding and shaping a better life and reality for ourselves. He tells us to think the highest thoughts of goodness we can muster. Why do you suppose He’s told us this? Well, Proverbs 23:7 provides just the insight we need. It says, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” This means that our thoughts are producing something in our lives. Our thoughts are defining the person that we choose to be, and this is totally under our control.
I’ve heard many people questioning why it’s a sin to think bad thoughts. At one time, I had the same curiosity. After all, they’re just thoughts, and nobody knows what I’m thinking except me, but thoughts are an indication of what is in our souls. Both the heart and the mind are a part of the soul, and the soul is what our Heavenly Father is after. He created the soul to be filled with His goodness so that we, as His children, can manifest His goodness outwardly. This is the way to have the abundant life He’s made available through His Son, Jesus Christ. He doesn’t want our souls filled with things that will harm us and cause us to live beneath our privilege.
God is good, and He deserves all glory and honor. He is holy, and all the things that He wants for Himself must be holy too. He tells us in 1Peter 1:16(NIV), “Be holy, because I am holy.” Sinful and bad thoughts corrupt the soul, and when the inner part is corrupt, this corruption will manifest itself outwardly and begin to affect our lives in a negative way. God doesn’t want this for us.
Heavenly Father tells us in Romans 12:2(NIV), “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Everything starts with a thought, and we ought to make it a good one. Evil and bad thoughts are a sin because they take us in the opposite direction of where God wants us to be. They take us out of the path of His love.
We should prevent this from happening, and we are empowered through the Spirit of Jesus Christ to do so. When we wake up each morning, we should get into the habit of regulating our minds to think like Christ from the very start. God commands that we put on the mind of Christ, and if we begin our day like this each morning, we will build our lives on a solid foundation. We will be spiritually strong with God’s Word in our minds and hearts, and this will keep us anchored in His blessings and goodness continually.■
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Why Bad Thoughts Are Sinful”, written by K. Lizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.