Our Spiritual Identity in Christ Series

Below you will find an introduction to the importance of our thoughts and what creates them.

What determines our thoughts? Our emotional and spiritual wants, needs, and desires. The basic wants, needs, and desires of humanity are the same: love, acceptance, understanding, being known, being respected & valued, and satisfaction or contentment.

The world is consumed with desire. Most of that desire is for God. This desire has been preverted by the flesh and Satan so that we lust or desire for everything, but God. God created the desire for Himself within us. So many of us try to fill that desire for Him with other things. Sometimes it seems like we are always searching, wanting, desiring something to make life more complete. We search for this soul satisfaction in a boyfriend, girlfriend, love, friends, adventure, money, sex, movies, or just stuff.

What can I buy?
Who can I be with?
What can I do?
How can I make life more complete?
I need to live. I need some excitement, an adventure
I need something. I want something.
It's always more, more, more, and more.

All questions pointing in one direction: contentment & satisfaction.

God has it set up so that we hunger and thirst for Him and His presence. Our ultimate satisfaction comes from communing with God.

As we try to fill or meet this desire for the presence of God with other things, we end up sowing wrong methods of thinking into our minds. The marketers of the world are brilliant. They are using emotional wants, needs, and desires in advertising their various products. The world says that if you have cars, sex, drugs, music, clothes, things, and more things, that you will be happy. The various media of the world bombard our senses with this type of thinking everyday, mostly through product advertising. If you buy this beer, girls will desire you. If you buy this car, you will have satisfaction and peer approval. If you wear these jeans, people will find you attractive and want you. Everything is set up so that somehow buying a product will make you happy, give you pleasure, and make you a better person overall.

All of these emotional and spiritual desires are met for free when we fellowship with God. Love, understanding, acceptance, approval, and satisfaction, these are the desires of humanity.

When we view TV, listen to the radio, watch movies, read books and magazines we expose ourselves to all types of of thinking, including the one that says pleasure and satisfaction from materials. When we send our children to school, we make sure they have a structured curriculum of material to study and be exposed to. We do this for the purpose of making them well-rounded knowledgeful individuals capable of living in and contributing to society. We decide what they focus on, what they learn, and how they learn it. Who decides what you and I focus on, what we learn, and how we learn it? You and I do. We are responsible for the focus in our lives.

How can I explain this? My favorite analogy so far is the garden. Think of your mind as a garden. If you sow weeds, thorn bushes, thistles, rocks, garbage, old aluminum cans, glass bottles, and general trash into this garden, then that is what you are going to get out of it. You can't get strawberries, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn unless you sow those seeds into your garden, then take care of the plants as they grow into maturity. You also have to water these plants, keep them free from insects, feed them, take care of the soil, etc... So our the thoughts of the heart.