March 8
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10
Have you ever been going along and all of the sudden an impure, even evil thought just pops into your mind? I have, and I hate it. I hate it when my mind starts getting hijacked by evil thoughts. This is the time to immediately cry out to the Lord and rebuke the evil ideas.
Sometimes I immediately know the thought is evil and refuse to think about it. But other times I will allow my mind to dwell on it, and thoughts that are evil can become commonplace to the point that I don’t even recognize they are evil. I have entertained evil in my heart for so long that I am no longer bothered by it or nor longer am convicted by it when I think about it.
But yet while I go on thinking my evil thoughts, I am quenching and grieving the Holy Spirit of God. I am breaking fellowship with Him. I am choosing to fellowship with evil rather than fellowship with God. Why would anyone do that? For one, we so easily fall into bad habits that we aren’t even aware of. We don’t realize that allowing ourselves to be anxious about things is sin, and yet we do it all the time. We so easily get angry with others that the fact that it is evil just doesn’t even occur to us; all we can think about is how terrible it is that they did what they did. We entertain lustful thoughts without a second thought, or we get consumed about having various products and things and consume ourselves with their pursuits. These are all sins that easily become commonplace if we are not carefully guarding our thoughts and being mindful, with the Lord’s help, of what our thoughts actually are.
I think that we get a passing pleasure out of some sinful thoughts. The Spirit puts my heart, mind, and body in a state of peace and joy, but sinful thoughts stir up my members in a fleshly way. I get used to having the sinful feelings stimulate me, almost like a drug. We get addicted so to speak to the “rush” of anger or lust, and even to the unsettled state of anxiety. We get so used to being anxious that we get addicted so to speak to the adrenaline (or whatever the chemical that that anxious state produces) that we will always be looking for something to be anxious about, something to be concerned about and worry about. It’s almost like we get to the point where we need those sinful thoughts to produce a bodily stimulus to keep us going.
Think about this. Think about all your thoughts, especially if they are thoughts that get you worked up or anxious or desiring things or relationships that the Lord has not given you. Examine every thought carefully by the scripture and make a determination whether or not God is pleased with that thought. Seek above all to have a pure heart, and to experience on a continual basis not the cheap momentary stimulus of lust or anger or anxiety or pride or other sins but rather seek to be pure in heart and the peace that comes in full measure as a result.
Tomorrow we will discuss being pleasing to the Lord.