Captivity

Philippians 4:8 NIV

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.

What Is On Your Mind?

A number of years ago before I was married I went on a white water rafting trip with some friends.  The most memorable part of the trip was a turn in the river that we reached with the water rushing beneath us in a torrent.  We were fast approaching a giant boulder on the left and our raft leader urged us to paddle as hard as we could to try and get the boat to turn to the right of it. We were all just normal people, some a bit more athletic than others but none of us were professional paddlers.  We whacked at the water with our paddles but clearly we didn’t give it our best because rather than missing the boulder we ran straight up it; three fourths of our raft out of the water resting upon the side of the giant granite rock.  As soon as we hit the boulder with a crash, the fellow on the front of the raft was popped out of it by the force of the impact and went flying ten feet up in the air, over the boulder and into the pool of water beside it.  Our eyes were as big as plates as we watched him shoot up in the air out of the raft.  Fortunately he did not hit any rocks, his life jacket kept him afloat and as soon as we worked the rubber raft off the boulder, we collected him from the icy water and continued careening down the river.  The raft leader never criticized us for not paddling hard enough to avoid the great boulder; we all knew we had avoided a great tragedy when our fellow rafter missed the rocks in his flight but we learned our lesson.  From that point onward, when our leader ordered us to paddle hard, we gave it all we had.

Looking back, it was not our bodies that failed us, it was our thinking.  We all decided individually that we were putting our best effort into paddling when we weren’t.  The thought each of us had was “I don’t need to work any harder than I am.  Of course I was wrong in how I thought and so was the person paddling next to me….all of us were wrong but nonetheless our thoughts controlled our actions.  It has always been that way for every person who has ever lived.  What you think decides what you do.  In each situation you face you might have a multitude of thoughts, some contradicting others but eventually a thought wins the moment and you do something or don’t do it.  You decide you need a new top and so you buy it.  You think you have been treated badly and you get upset.  The thought comes to you that your hair is too long and so if that thought persists, you get your hair cut.  We are both the masters and prisoners of our thoughts.  Our thoughts take us along like the rush of a mighty river and deposit us wherever they choose…unless of course we use our paddles and push against the force of the current.

A few years ago I read of a songwriter who composed and did the lead vocals on a fairly popular Christian song.  Its theme was healing and it was autobiographical.  The fellow had experienced a miraculous healing from cancer.  He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer but through prayer was cancer free.  As a result he wrote his song about believing in miracles.  There was only one problem.  He had faked his illness and fooled even his wife into thinking he had cancer.  For months he gave his testimony at concerts in vast arenas and his song climbed the charts.  It all came crashing down however when his hoax was uncovered.  Even now though, the song is sung in churches and by popular Christian groups.  Why did this nice Christian man pretend he had cancer?  We cannot say for certain but we do know that the decision to do so was the result of thoughts running through him that he did not reject or disable.

Throughout the Bible we find examples of good people who did things that seem absurd or in contradiction to who they appear to be.  Yet all we do, like them, whether good or bad, is the result of thoughts we create or accept.  Why would someone like David commit adultery with the wife of one of his bravest soldiers?  He did not stop the thoughts he had that he needed to have Bathsheba regardless of what was right or wrong.  Those thoughts grew in size and strength until his conscience was swamped by them.  Why did Ananias and Sapphira decide to pretend to the people of the church that they were giving to God all the proceeds of the sale of their property when they weren’t?  Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." (Acts 5:1-4 NIV) It was Ananias’s thoughts that poisoned his actions and corrupted his life with God.

We see this with Miriam who despite the respect and prestige she enjoyed as a part of her brother Moses’s inner circle of leadership, she did not think he deserved to have as much honor as he garnered among the people.  He had after all married a Cushite wife and the thought of how atrocious this was perverted Miriam’s heart so much that she tried to unseat Moses as leader of God’s people.  It is so strange, this bitterness she harbored, and yet we see the same phenomenon in every strata of life.  Families are ruined because of bitter thoughts, careers are wrecked because of poisoned ruminations and the world is filled with chaos as a result  of resentful thinking that goes unchecked.   Consider the terrible depression of Saul, the first king of Israel.  He could have no peace because he would not stop thinking that David was trying to take his throne from him and that the people would welcome David as Saul’s replacement.  When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes.  As they danced, they sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."  Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. "They have credited David with tens of thousands," he thought, "but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?"  And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David. (1 Samuel 18:6-9 NIV)

Ponder the painful circumstance of Naomi’s unhappiness.  She lost her husband and both her sons and the misery that brought her became unshakable.  When she returned to her hometown of Bethlehem, Naomi told her friends that they should no longer refer to her by her given name.   "Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. (Ruth 1:20 NIV)  Yet at the root of Naomi’s melancholy were her thoughts that insisted she had no happiness in her cup and God was her enemy.  We all have felt some level of this kind of misery at one time or another if we have lived a little and suffered great trials but it is the thoughts we let have life in us that keep us unhappy and prolong our depression.  The Bible insists that we are responsible for our thoughts and it is not the circumstances we face that determine our internal state but rather the way we handle our thoughts.

Regardless of what is happening, whether good or bad, difficult or easy, we are capable of managing our thoughts so that we are never miserable or bitter or overcome by rage.  God insists that with Him a part of our thinking, we can change our thoughts so that we are more peaceful and joyful.  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Philippians 4:8 NIV)  You decide if you will do this.  It is not up to anyone else to help you here.  Circumstances do not decide this.  In your heart, you choose the content of your thoughts.  Lovely things or miserable things, pure thoughts or lustful thoughts, noble concerns or corrupt ideas; all of this is up to you as to what you will roll over in your mind.  We all know this is so but we most of the time ignore it, choosing to accept the fairy tale that it is what happens to us that determine our thoughts. 

Never forget that your thoughts don’t form in a vacuum.  There are two spiritual forces at work in your mind.  At all times they are jostling for dominance in the formation of your thoughts.  They never sleep, never take a break.  Either the Satanic kingdom is influencing your thinking most or Christ and the Kingdom of God.  Don’t blame either though because you decide who of the two you let roam about in your mental home.  You control the doors and you decide who takes charge.  You choose either to have God thoughts or Satan thoughts.  Although it is the Apostle Paul offering the challenge through the Holy Spirit, it can be either Satan or Jesus making this declaration.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice.  (Philippians 4:9 NIV)  If it is Christ you decide to follow and His Word you have generating your thoughts, then a miracle will occur.  As you close your mind to Satan and put into practice what the Lord has told you in Scripture, God will join you in your thinking and be a part of your inner world.  And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4: 9 NIV)

Your thinking is often rooted in habit.  If you regularly think about your frustrations, disappointments, mistreatments and lusts, that sort of thinking will be ingrained in you and it will be hard to remove.  But if you frequently give your mind a break from evil and think about God and what you have read in Scripture and ways that you can bless and help others, your thoughts will grow increasingly peaceful and happy and contented.  Here is a habit you could develop that will help you.  Each hour turn your thoughts over to Christ with a simple little prayer.  “Lord Jesus, help me see things as you do.”  “Lord God of all peace, cleanse my thoughts of all dirty and bitter content.”  “Father, guide my thinking so that it is righteous and holy.”  Follow the prescription of the Bible and take your thoughts captive, not letting them rule over you but ruling them with the power the Holy Spirit has given you to be in charge of what you think.

Nothing More, Nothing Less

Exodus 3: 11 NIV

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

What Does God Want to Do With You?

I can remember only one time my dad took me and my brother fishing.  There may have been other times but I can only recall one.  I cannot remember my dad ever fishing.  I don’t know of any times he went out with his buddies to fish.  I can’t think of a time in all our family camping trips my dad broke out fishing poles except this one time.  He got us some nice backpacking fishing poles and on a camping trip took us to a stream to fish for the first time.  It was a beautiful location; the water was brilliantly clear and sparkling with the mountain sunlight lathering it with the effervescence of its white rainbow.  We could see trout passing in and out of the rocky caves and crevices.  My dad showed us how to push the salmon eggs onto the hook, put the lead weights on the line on which we each had a bob to keep track of where our hooks settled.  I can’t remember much advice my dad gave us on how to cast our lines; I am not sure how much he knew about it himself.  I reared my pole back and got my hook caught in a bush behind me.  Then I tried again and forgot to release the button on the reel to let out the line and the hook came flying back at me.  I gathered myself, pitched back my pole and with all my strength sent the hook and weights and bob out toward the middle of the stream but it got no further than the edge of the shore.  Eventually I just leaned my pole out over the water and without casting, dropped the hook down into the water.  I caught a piece of wood, some plants growing near the shore, a large rock at the bottom of the stream and some very nice twigs.  It was not a very long fishing adventure.  I think in about an hour or so we all gave up on it.  Later I discovered my dad didn’t even like fish and probably not fishing either.  He took us though and we all did pretty poorly at fishing.  Looking back after almost thirty years of parenting, I realize that fishing trip was never about fishing.  It was about my dad wanting to be with us; to do something with us that we might find fun.  Fish did not figure into the equation at all.  The fishing trip was about family…nothing more, nothing less.

What for you is a nothing more, nothing less deal?  For Scrooge it was making money.  For Huck Finn, it was no controls upon his life.  For Ronald Reagan it was the end of communist tyranny.  For George Washington it was the establishment of a new country.  For Abraham Lincoln it was the preservation of the Union.  For Martin Luther King Jr., it was the equality of all races.  For Captain “Sully”, it was the survival of his passengers.  For Michael Jordan, it was complete domination of the basketball world.  For many parents it is the success of their children.  What is the bottom line for you?  What is your “nothing more, nothing less” determination?  Is there an all-encompassing goal for your life that if you don’t reach it, you will feel like you failed?  Have you thought about what matters most for you?

As a “great fisherman myself”, I have often thought about the offer Jesus made to Peter and his brother Andrew to make them “fishers of men”.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV) These disciples and all the others often misunderstood Jesus’ intentions and perhaps they didn’t grasp in this case what mattered to Jesus.  The men already had a fishing business going and perhaps they assumed that being “fishers of men” would be much the same as being fishers of fish.  They would acquire some important skills from a mentor, practice what they learned and then off they would go, “fishers of men.  Many Christian and non-Christian people make this mistake when they read the passage too.  God wants to teach us a few things that will make our lives better and with our fresh insight we will be good people.  What is completely overlooked by both those within the Christian faith and outside it is that God is not a lecturer who provides the keys to success.  We mistakenly think and perhaps the disciples did too that our Lord’s call was about fishing.  It was not!  It was about the clause in the center of the call.  “I will make you…”  This is the core of what Christianity is.  Christ will make you.  It does not really matter at all what He might make you…a fisherman, a missionary, a leader, a musician, a teacher, an astrophysicist.  All of that is subordinate to the purpose of God.  He will make you.

We have analyzed and reanalyzed Moses so many times that it feels a bit redundant to look at him again but it seems important to put his calling by God into its proper perspective.  When God called to Moses from a bush supernaturally on fire, Moses was stunned, not by the miracle of the bush in flames but not being consumed or by the voice coming from seemingly nowhere, but by what the Lord had to say to him.  The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey — the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.  And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

(Exodus 3:7-10 NIV)

You and I cannot fault Moses for his reaction to the pronouncement because we probably would have responded much like him.  “Who am I to do such a thing?”  How could I get this done?   But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11 NIV)  Nearly a chapter and a half is given to Moses trying his best to get out of going down to Egypt and God countering every one of Moses’s excuses.  It is almost comical, the exchange, and yet the drama of whether or not Moses agrees to go with God takes a back seat to th revelation of how disconnected Moses was from God.  His immediate reaction to discovering that it was the Creator of the universe who was talking to him was to shrink back in fear but all too quickly Moses began to think of himself as the Lord’s peer.  If you read this the first time and did not know just how God actually is, you might be waiting for the Lord simply to strike Moses dead because of Moses’s cheekiness and move on to someone else.  It is all too easy for us to miss what God is actually doing with His people if we misunderstand the personality of God.

Moses really was a perfectly silly man.  He thought he was responsible for getting the Israelites free of the Egyptians and out of Egypt.  It was as absurd as any of the disciples thinking God’s challenge was for them to figure out how to be fishers of men.  Moses thought God somehow needed him to get this monumental task done.  If you read again what God had to say about it, He kept reiterating over and over what He was going to do to free the Israelites; what He was going to do through Moses.  When God was done with Sodom and Gomorrah, He simply wiped them out with fire and brimstone.  He could have done that with the Egyptian problem.  Even the ancient account of Abraham and Abimelech reminds us of how easy it was for God all by Himself to take out of Egypt the Israelites.  When Abraham acted like a child and pretended that his wife Sarah was merely his sister so that the King Abimelech or any of the men of Gerar where he had moved would not kill Abraham in order to steal his wife from him, Abraham succeeded.  King Abimelech took took Sarah into his harem without killing Abraham.  Abraham though lost is wife and the Lord was not happy.   The Lord immediately closed up all the wombs of the women of Gerar and then in a dream Abimelech was warned by God that he and all his subjects would be killed off if Abimelech did not quickly release Sarah back to her husband.  The Lord had the ability to wipe out anyone He wished if it suited His purposes and the people of Gerar, like the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites were not exceptions.  God could easily separate out who He wanted to keep and who He wanted to destroy without any help from Moses or anyone else. 

This is what God wanted.  He was making an offer to Moses, just like He did to the disciples to join Him and be a part of Him.  It wasn’t about God needing someone to fish for men or rescue Israelites from slavery.  The Lord was giving them the opportunity to be joined with Him, the Lord’s life built into theirs and their lives built into His.  If they refused, it would be tragic for them, not for God’s cause or for those they could have helped.  They would have lost the opportunity to have God’s personality become a part of theirs, His life merged with them and then together do all God wanted to do.  Moses would never have lifted his staff and seen the Red Sea part and John never would have been held by the resurrected Jesus Christ and gained the power of the Holy Spirit if they did not let God join Himself to them.  We cannot know what God might do with us if we let Him make us into His people but it will be certain that whatever it might be will be far greater than what we might do just on our own.  The words of Paul express perfectly what it is like to have Christ joined with us.  I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13 NIV)

What more could we want out of life than this?  Some people would sell their souls to have what Paul had!  Rich and poor, successful and failing…all alike would love nothing more than to be content in any and every situation.  And what is more, Paul said anything he needed to do, he could through Christ who gave him strength.  The best you can have in life is for Christ to be a part of it, living through you in all you do.  He chooses what comes your way and just think of that.  The same one who died to save you decides for you what your life will become.  Contentment and the peace of knowing that a loving Savior has your days ordered makes for what I would call a perfect life.  Nothing more, nothing less!