Minding Your Thoughts
A Biblical Overview of Obtaining and Maintaining a Biblical Thought Life
Jeremiah 32:35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
Just as a reminder, this entire year these daily devotions are about the mind, our thoughts, and our thinking. The words mind, minding, thought, thoughts, think, thinketh and all their derivatives are used about 365 times in our Bible. Each day one of the verses containing these words is highlighted and a single thought about that verse is emphasized. While the context of every verse is always important, it is not always fully explained in order to keep these devotions brief. In Hamlet, Act 1, Shakespeare wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” These daily devotions are intentionally brief, so that the wit (by Webster’s definition “Wit: Primarily, the intellect; the understanding or mental powers”) is the highlight.
Probably you have experienced frustration with something like this; you begin reading a book or an article because the headline draws you in. But there is so much superfluous verbiage that you never really seem to get the point. Someone once said, “He who thinketh by the inch and speaketh by the yard should be kicketh by the foot.” No doubt I think by the inch, so I write by the inch.
In my estimation inside every thick book there is a thin book trying its best to get out. So, if these devotions seem to sidestep the context of a certain verse remember, we are simply dealing with one thought not the entirety of the verse.
Like today’s verse. There are some things that do not need to come to mind concerning all the dramatic issues of the contextual setting of Jeremiah’s day and the state of false worship in Israel for you to get the simple point. Which is: if God keeps things from entering His mind, we too need to keep things from entering into our mind. Simple, right! It’s simple to say, difficult to do.
May the Lord Bless and be pleased with your thought life today.
William T. Howe, Ph.D.
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