A DIET FOR YOUR MIND
Philippians 4:8
In the same way that your body takes on the character of the food you feed it, your mind and emotional health take on the character of the thoughts you feed them. It is vitally important that we are given a specific diet of God’s Word for our minds. This diet may take some getting used to. It might be difficult to restrict your intake of mental junk food, unhealthy images, and high-calorie negativity at first. But if you will focus on the items on this list, and feed your mind with thoughts, images, and friendships that reinforce them, you can truly develop a fit and healthy mind.
Paul gives us eight categories of mind food on which to fix our thoughts. Everything we are tempted to think about needs to go through the filter of these eight categories. If the thoughts don’t pass the test, reject them and replace them with thoughts that do qualify:
- Truthful Things: Our minds need to be rooted in truth, or real facts. We need to test our thoughts to be sure they are accurate and grounded in Scripture. The opposite of truth is lies, deception, and fantasy.
- Honorable Things: This means our thoughts need to respect God, others, and ourselves. We need to think honorably towards our spouses, children, parents, pastors, employers and employees.
- Right or Righteous Things: Our minds need to feed on things that reflect righteousness, justice, and the kingdom of God.
- Pure Things: We should allow no unclean or morally polluted things, including those that are sexually impure, to taint our minds.
- Lovely Things: We need to feed on beautiful sights, sounds, and relationships. If something is ugly or unattractive to our flesh, we need to avoid it in our minds.
- Admirable Things: To admire something or someone is to feel inspired by them. We need to find people and things that inspire admiration within us and focus our attention on them. We are drawn to what we admire good or bad.
- Excellent Things: Our minds need a quality diet. Excellence means beyond mediocre or average. We need to read books, associate with people, and be in environments that challenge us to rise above the status quo and reach our potential.
- Praiseworthy Things: One way to defeat dark thinking habits is to focus on things for which you can thank and praise God. Begin to verbalize to God your praise and thanks, while allowing yourself to feel grateful.
MEMORY VERSE: James 4:7
PRAYER: Oh Lord my God, deliver me from blood guiltiness and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
