Leading a Secret Thought Life
I think each of us will be continually challenged in our thought life. Men in particular immersed in a culture of lust will be challenged. Anyone exhibiting self control in our current culture is viewed with suspicion. If you were to live a celibate life without marriage you would be viewed with suspicion in this world. In most cases the world at large would assume that you were lying.
Jesus made it clear that we must live lives that are consistent in thought and action. Sins of the heart are sins. Jesus said that to look at a woman in order to lust after her (to think about her sexually) was sin. He raised the bar of obedience to include purity of heart. Actually, He didn’t change anything but it was news to the Pharisees because the pharisaical heart is concerned only with outward behavior.
We must call our hearts into question at this point or we’ll be doing the same thing. You’ll be challenged repeatedly to enter into a sinful thought life. We have to realize that sinful thoughts are to be repented of. Your thought life is not your private domain. When you sin then you repent. God sees it all and you hide nothing from him. If you don’t repent from a sinful thought life then you may as well line up with the Pharisees as a white washed sepulcher. Eventually what is on the inside will find the way to the outside.
Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Jesus commands a ruthless attack on your thought life. You take a knife and cut out anything that causes sin. It would be easier if it was our eye or hand that was the root cause. You are supposed to put your sinful nature to death. You need to do it with enthusiasm and not as if you were losing your favorite pet.
I truly is, as Morley and Scripture says, a battle for your mind.
Romans 7:21-25
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
The Bible teaches us that our struggle is to walk in the Spirit and not to walk in the flesh. It is not to escape condemnation. The Cross has moved us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light. For the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. We are in a struggle but we know that God has not left us alone.
We need to draw the distinction between the temptation to sin (not sin) and the sin that can occur when we allow temptation to become full grown. When an observation becomes an abnormal preoccupation then it has crossed the line into sin. We have some control over out thoughts. We can entertain or we can rebuke and think on other things too.
Morley quotes Dwight L. Moody as saying, “When Christians find themselves exposed to temptation they should pray to God to uphold them, and when they are tempted they should not be discouraged. It is not a sin to be tempted; the sin is to fall into temptation.”
When we fall into temptation we entertain the temptation and allow it to grow. We do not cut out the problem. In contrast we allow the problem to be nurtured and we give up the struggle. This is a heart problem and it isn’t even necessarily noticeable to others.
This can result in a variation in visibility of our sins as well as a variation in our awareness of them.
We are unaware of some visible sins. The way we treat those that we are closest too is often something we don’t examine so we are not aware of our behavior and yet others see it clearly.
We are aware of some visible sins. For example, something may make us curse and that is visible to others as well as something we are aware of generally just after we do it.
Some sins are low visibility and also things that we are unaware of. An example would be pride which we discussed only a few weeks ago.
We may also sin in ways that are not visible but we are aware of. This is the arena in which lust and the secret thought life live and with which we struggle.
Our thought life is simply not outside the Lordship of Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
The context is Church discipline along with apostolic authority but don’t breath a sigh of relief … you are the Church and you are steward of your heart.
