Focused and Fixed~ In His Word 11-04-2024
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in
all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything;
instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all
he has done. Then you will experience
God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard
your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4-7
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. Keep putting into practice all you learned and
received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of
peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9
Thinking about the truth instead of lies people tell you
that hurt, will help you keep the peace in your heart and mind. Thinking of
things that are honorable, or give honor to someone, something, even yourself…
the good stuff, and the things that are right.
What is right? You
know the truth. The Truth will set you free. When you get caught up in an emotional
whirlwind sometimes you can forget what is true, or right. We start to believe
that we are horrible people, that other people don’t like us, or that nothing
will ever work out for us. Those are lies that people, with the enemy’s help,
tell us. Then we start to believe it when we tell ourselves that we are
useless, or wasted time, it becomes a full on hurricane of emotions if we do
not reign ourselves in and remember the truth!
The truth is God loves us! You and me! He made us to be the person He chose for us
to be but we often get involved with wrong people, or weaken our resolve to do
the right things and believe the right things by the words who are not God’s
words. So the best thing we can do is get into the Word of God, your Bible.
That and prayer will create in us a clean heart and a renewed spirit within
us. Once we are back in His presence we
do not want to leave, so we need to keep focusing on Him.
Open the gates to all who are righteous; allow the
faithful to enter. You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts
are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal
Rock. Isaiah 26:2-4
So instead of focusing on the problems of life, now that you
have His peace guarding your hearts and minds, let’s remember that it’s what we
think about what controls our behaviors and emotions.
Put the thoughts into your mind that are pure and lovely.
The word ‘pure’ can be described as holy, chaste, set apart by God, consecrated,
or innocent. Key words here are innocent and set apart by God. If God is
involved it will be pure. If your heart is pure it will not wish to look at
things that are not. So we check our minds and hearts to see what we can remove
with God’s help. The more you put into a container the fuller it gets and then
stuff falls out. The more Bible you put into your heart the more of God’s words
and love will pour out on those around you and effect your life.
The original Greek word for "lovely" is
prosphilēs, which comes from the words pros and phileō. Pros means
"at", "near", "by", "to", or "to
the advantage of". Phileō is used for love, friendship, affection, and
fondness.
In this case we need to look toward being kind, loving and
friendly to one another. Or those you meet throughout your day. This also means
yourself!
Admirable things are things that you and God both like!
Stuff He would like you to think about or enjoy doing with the skills you have
been given by Him. Think about how you can walk in His steps and grow closer to
Him and then do it!
You know you enjoy it deep inside when someone comments that
you did a good job at something, even if you do not admit it! In this case just
keep doing it more so that good feeling happens! Put it all into practice as
often as you are able!
Just keep your eyes on God by seeing things He has done. Keep
your thoughts in His Word by reading it daily.
It may be hard at first but the more you do it the more you
will feel the peace, see the peace around you and know that His peace means He
is with you all the time.
Trust Him, walk it out, in His Word.
Teresa Wilson