Human Mind: Thoughts and Feelings – Part I

Author: Romeo Pelle

Romans 12:1-4
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Thought – Brief Definition: Thoughts bring things before our minds in various ways that include perceptions and imaginations, and enables us to consider them in various respects and trace out their interrelationships with one another. Our thoughts enable our mind to range far beyond the boundaries of our environment and the perceptions of our senses. By the power of thought, our consciousness reaches into the depths of the Universe, past, present, and future, by reasoning and scientific thinking, by imagination and art – and also by divine revelation, which comes to us mainly in the form of inspired thought.

Feelings – Brief Definition: Feelings incline us toward or away from things that come before our minds in thought. It involves a tone that is pleasant or painful, along with an attraction or repulsion with respect to the existence or possession of what is thought of. How we feel about others, about food, automobile, relationships, positions, and just about everything else illustrates this point.

Thoughts and feeling always go together: they are interdependent and are never found apart. There is no feeling without something being before the mind in thought, and no thought without some positive or negative feeling toward what is contemplated.

“Nuggets” About Thoughts:

· Thoughts are the sum of all the ways in which we are conscious of things.

· Thoughts are one of the most basic sources of our life.

· Thoughts determine the orientation of everything we do and evoke the feelings that frame our world and motivate our actions.

· Our power over our thoughts is of great and indispensable assistance in directing and controlling our feelings.

· Thoughts affect how you feel, and feelings influence how you think. These interrelations are quite dramatic. These links between thoughts and feelings are constantly active in our daily lives.

· Our ability to think and represent things to ourselves also enables us to bring vast ranges of reality and non-reality before us.

· “Our ability to plan for future must constantly run ahead of reality and we do this in our thought process. What we think, imagine, believe, or guess (intuition) sets boundaries to what we can will or choose, and therefore to what we will do.” (Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p.96)

· “A thought has the potential to become an act; a repeated act has the potential to become a habit; our habits have the potential to decide our destiny.” (Anonymous / Popular Wisdom)

· “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Socrates)

· “Men are disturbed not by things but by the views that they take of them.“(Epictetus, AD 55-135)

· “Garbage in garbage out” (Popular Wisdom).

· “Thinking is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of of given facts or assumptions” (Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p.104).

· The prospering of God’s cause on Earth depends upon His people thinking well.

“Nuggets” From the Word of God:

· “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth” – Jesus (In Gospel of John ch.17:17)

· “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5 (KJV)

· “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Joshua 1:8

· “The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Cor. 10:4-5

· “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7a

· “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11

· “You will keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3

· But we have the mind of Christ, and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.” 1 Corinthians 2:16 (The Amplified Bible)

· “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge… A people without understanding will come to ruin.” Hosea 4:6, 14b.

· “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” Psalm 119:105

· “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:13-15.

· “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” 2 Cor. 13:5

MATTERS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION:

1. What are three “thoughts” that have occupied your mind this week? What have their effects on your life been?

2. What are the main IDEAS that rule our society today? Do you think they favor a godly life or hinder it?

3. Is it important to pay attention to our thought life? Is it important what do we think? What do we read? What are we exposing our minds to?

4. Does the way we think about God influences our behavior? Why?

5. Can Satan put thoughts, ideas and images in our minds? When Satan tempted Eve, what was his method?

6. When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert, where those temptations appeared to Him? Where they visual reality or thoughts, ideas, and images?

7. Is temptation sin? What’s the place where temptations assault us? What God meant when He said to Cain, “The sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:7).

8. Should followers of Jesus Christ be known as thinkers? Is thinking actually a good thing for Christians to do?

Thoughts are the place where we can and must begin to change. There the light of God first begins to move upon us through the word of Christ, and there the Divine Spirit begins to direct our will to more and more thoughts that can provide the basis for choosing to realign ourselves with God.

The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow our minds to dwell upon. It is because of this fact that we always remain responsible before God!

The realm of thoughts involves ideas, images, information, and our ability to reason. However, the most powerful ones are ideas and images.

IDEAS - Ideas are very general models of, or assumptions about reality. They are patterns of interpretation that are intertwined with beliefs. Our idea system is developed from our earliest childhood out of the teaching, expectations, and observable behavior of family and community.

Examples: freedom, education, happiness, “The American Dream,” progress, death, home, democratic, family.

Ideas in action: artistic forms (movies and music – pop culture) that attempt to shape and persuade our beliefs.

“IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT!” , D.A.R.E.!

Changing of Ideas is Extremely Difficult – the “Sexual Revolution of the Sixties.”

An even more pervasive, less noisy, is the idea of “mass spirituality” that affects Western civilization.

IMAGES – are always concrete or specific, as opposed to abstractness of ideas. Images always are heavily charged with feelings. Every idea system is present among us as a life force through a few very powerful images.

Examples: hair (long, short, skinhead, green, orange, Mohawk, etc), the bra (in the 60’s) and the condom (today), the flag (and their desecration), the rainbow flag, funky and baggy clothes have provided powerful images and symbols of conflicting idea system and the attached ways of life.

· TV ADDS – BUSINESSES PAY MILLIONS!

· “The Establishment” (the traditional) versus the

· In Churches – the organ vs. the guitar are powerful symbols / the traditional vs. contemporary.

Jesus understood the great significance of images and has become one Himself – Intentionally – an image that brilliantly conveys Himself and His message: THE CROSS!

IDEAS AND IMAGES ARE PRIMARY STRONGHOLDS OF EVIL IN THE HUMAN SELF AND IN SOCIETY. IDEAS AND IMAGES ARE THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF SATAN’S EFFORTS TO DEFEAT GOD’S PURPOSES WITH AND FOR HUMANKIND. WHEN SATAN UNDERTOOK TO DRAW EVE AWAY FROM GOD, HE DID NOT HIT HER WITH A STICK, BUT WITH AN IDEA! IT WAS WITH THE IDEA THAT GOD COULD NOT BE TRUSTED AND THAT SHE MUST ACT ON HER OWN TO SECURE HER OWN WELL-BEING!

THIS IS THE BASIC IDEA OF ALL TEMPTATIONS: GOS IS PRESENTED AS DEPRIVING US BY HIS COMMANDS OF WHAT IS GOOD, SO WE THINK WE MUST TAKE MATTERS INTO OUR HANDS AND CONTRARY TO WHAT HE HAS SAID.

WHAT WOULD JESUS THINK!

THE PROCESS OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN CHRIST IS ONE OF PROGRESSIVELY REPLACING DESTRUCTIVE IMAGES AND IDEAS WITH THE IMAGES AND IDEAS THAT FILLED THE MIND OF JESUS HIMSELF!

NOTHING ENTERS THE MIND WITHOUT HAVING AN EFFECT FOR GOOD OR EVIL. IT IS A GREAT DANGER TO ALLOW ANY KIND OF IMAGES TO ENTER OUR MIND. IF GOD’S EYES “ARE TOO PURE TO BEHOLD EVIL” (HABAKKUK 1:13), WE HAD BETTER THINK IT MIGHT BE WISE FOR US TO LOOK AWAY AS MUCH AS IS FEASIBLE – EVEN IF IT’S CALLED “ENTERTAINMENT.” WE ARE TO ABHOR EVIL & CLEAVE TO WHAT IS GOOD!

Philippians 4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”