Your thoughts of God are too human!

– Martin Luther (to Erasmus)

The sentiment of Martin Luther above is something that can be said to many of us at one time or another.  I start here for several reasons; as people of faith, it is not uncommon to halt our growth by viewing God against the conventional wisdom we have accumulated in our heads; we also like to reinforce our comfort by limiting God to what we can understand.  Our threshold for mystery has been walled up by the wisdom of men; lastly, we like to be in control, whether that is motivated by fear or pride, we want to have a God we can control, and summons only when a wrinkle in life disrupts our little universe.  In order to break through these barricades of faith, we must be willing to challenge conventional wisdom and become people firmly rooted in the Word of God.  We may agree with this idea in principle, but in heading down this path, we will quickly learn that we may need to give up lies that bring us comfort, lies from trusted sources and quite possibly lies that have shaped our identity.

This will begin a detox of all the poisonous thoughts that we hold dear in order that we can be truly set free by the truth of God.  Why does this matter?  Because this is the path to know the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding, this is the path to know the joy of the Lord, this is the path to be salt and light in a world of bitter darkness, this is the path to be transformed into the image of Christ.  It is the instinct of our sinful flesh to practice performance based Christianity, to focus on self-improvement, behavior modification, 21 days to habit formation, etc. but these practices, if successful, will never be lasting and lead to exhaustion and frustration with spurts of happiness here and there.  Changing the external is a temporary bandage at best and will never bring complete healing to the internal, so we must begin with the heart of the matter which is the heart itself.  (Understanding the heart requires a much deeper treatment, but for now please understand it to be the inner-man comprised of our mind, emotions and will.  In that, today we speak of the mind and the thoughts which fuel our emotions, affections, desires and actions).  This is usually the point of the conversation where people tend to check-out, find offense, perhaps think it too hard, but I encourage you to pray for the resolve to be like Jesus and ask Him to get you to the high places, He will.

In the technology world, there is an old saying in regards to generating quality results.  That phrase is “garbage in, garbage out.”  That means that if we do not have good data to start with, we will not have good results.  Or another way of saying it is that if we have corrupt data, then our results will be corrupt, useless, or unusable.  This is a well known principle in the business world, but there is a fundamental truth here that every Christian should know and apply in the life of faith.

Since humans are far more complex than any man made machine, this analogy will eventually break down, but for our purposes I am going to push it out as far as possible to attempt to illustrate how this principle should work in us, so stay with me here.

When we seek to gather information in order to make decisions in business, we need to aggregate the data, filter out data not relevant to the query, and produce analytics, which provides information in a variety of formats such as historical trends, growth rates, correlations, anomalies, which may identify unexpected variations in the historical data, etc.  This allows us to make projections based on current conditions by which we can create models to assess risk, return on investment, pay back periods, opportunity cost, etc.  I am leaving out a lot, but by way of example, this gives us an idea of how data is used.  This is a great process for decisions making and modeling, however, it is completely worthless if the data is corrupt.

In human design, God has provided us a similar process in our being.  We are designed with a mind which acts as our database and we are provided a conscious which acts as our data filter.  In the computer world, it is not uncommon to start with a blank database and build.  A blank database in the human mind is what philosopher John Locke called the “tabula rasa.”  This means blank slate, an idea popularized by Locke, but an idea that is found throughout the history of philosophy back to ancient Greece.  The Stoics, for example, liked this idea because it provided them a moral flexibility to live life according to any hedonistic desire they happened upon.  Though Locke had many good things to contribute to political philosophy and was a great influence on the founding documents of America, his ontological tenet on the human mind is false.  The Bible says that man was not created with a blank database, but that the law of God is written in our hearts and that God gave us a conscious to interpret the data in our pre-built database. (Romans 2:14-15)  This is hugely significant in our lives because we are programmed with the correct data and rules in order to filter and process external information through our conscious and validate that external information against  our internal database.  For example, most people will agree that murder is wrong, but they cannot tell you why, “it just is.”  Since they don’t know God, they have no correlating point of reference for the Law of God written in their being, so blinded by sin they live by the common grace given by God, in this matter, described as common decency or “the golden rule.”

 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, ¹⁵ in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, ¹⁶ on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

Romans 2:14-16

Since most of us do not start out with our embedded moral code mapped to the Bible application, we obtain many points of reference as we go through life.  We have been taught by our parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, television, social media and exposed to dozens of other sources of data.  There is another element to this which I only want to touch on here, but we should be aware of it.  That is, having the right data does not mean that man will choose to do the right things.  We may have a set of rules to live life, but we often apply them as a matter of convenience, not always as a matter of principle.  By way of example, you find a one hundred dollar bill on the floor of the grocery store, but no one is around to claim it.  You are conflicted as to whether or not you should turn the found money into the store manager.  On one hand, you know it is not yours and someone probably needs to find the money.  Then the proverbial devil on your left shoulder argues “finders keepers, losers weepers.” “Possession is nine tenths of the law” or “God wanted you to find it.”  So if you have a conscious to act as a filter, why the conflict?  Because God also gave us the will to apply what He has provided in us, but He does not force us to make wise choices.  We have a will that can seek to honor God or seek to honor self.  In this case, there is a desire to have a one hundred dollar bill and that desire has now clouded the embedded code to return the money.  So, now let’s further the analogy.  Let’s consider that our mind, will and emotions act as our local area network and we are now hosting multiple databases on our network.  In addition to the factory installed Law of God database, over time we have built the database of personal experience which supports the memory applications of pleasure and pain which categorizes our experiences, the database of human wisdom includes cultural norms, advice of friends, family, teachers, pastors, counselors, mentors, coworkers, etc., entertainment such as movies, television, music, books, social media, etc.; and the database of scientific ideas which consists of outdated information, untested information, theories promoted as facts, social “science” which is largely subjective, the interpretation of data colored by the worldview of the interpreter, etc.  So the question becomes, as you go through life and face choices, what databases are influencing your decisions?

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

– 1 Chronicles 28:9

With all of this information, it is easy to see how all of this traffic can bog down the network.  When this happens, we need to declutter the mind of bad or unnecessary data.  We achieve this by validating data against the Master’s database.  For most, this is easier said than done and requires the discipline of learning the Bible.  Once we are born-again, we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), but we are also still in the flesh, so though our conscious bears witness that our inner-man agrees with the Law of the God, the outer-man continues to wage war against the Law of the mind (Romans 7:23-24).  So in order to win the war: The first thing we need to do is read the Bible, memorize it and internalize it.  Writing it down in a journal will help you remember.  This one thing will make the following steps much easier.  Why?  Because if you are born-again, you have the Holy Spirit as your resident interpreter of scripture.  That means that as we go through life, we will be able to leverage this information to make decisions, have perspective, have discernment, provide good counsel, share the gospel with others, and show genuine love and concern for others, our lives becoming a letter from God to others (2 Corinthians 3:3).

1. Meditate on the Word of God.  This requires time to be alone with God, to read, listen and let it soak in.  The reason that I state to “memorize and internalize” is because they are two distinct disciplines.  To memorize is to be able to quote it back as if you are preparing for a quiz.  When you internalize it, you reflect on application to life, “how does this apply?” “this reminds me of…”, “I need to share this with…”, “this verse reminds me of this other verse in…” and so on.  The truth of Hebrews 4:12 is manifest in our lives when we meditate on scripture and think through application.  Think about the truth of the verse(s).  Reflect on a time that this passage would have helped you or a loved one navigate a situation.  Get it into your heart as an act of affection for God so that you can be wise to avoid sin which is pleasing to God and honors our relationship with Him as His child (Psalm 119:11).  The bible describes scripture as spiritual nutrition that we need to grow to maturity.  See Hebrews 5:11-14 which instructs us to move on from infancy to maturity, from milk alone to solid food.
2. Validate data from your self-made databases against the Word of God.  This is not always easy, especially when some of that corrupt data is ingrained into our identity, but over time God will help you do it.  This is most common in our Personal Experience database which is the most susceptible to viruses that infiltrate the mind, will and emotions network.  Whole volumes have been written on this last sentence, but I will add that when the love of God meets our untethered trust, God will bring us to a place where the viruses are quarantined regardless of whatever shame, addiction, abuse, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, or any other misprint on our identity that blurs the truth of who we are in Christ.  This is truly a work of God through His grace for lasting change.
3. In the decluttering process, we need to be asking the right questions.  The correct answers to those right questions hinges on knowing the Word of God.  I heard a preacher once state that people today do not ask 1) is it true? and 2) is it right?  Instead, they ask 1) will it work? and 2) how will it make me feel?  Knowing the two right questions to ask and the two wrong questions to avoid will go along way towards getting grounded in biblical thinking for all of life’s decisions.  We must be objective in the application of the Word of God to our lives rather than being purely pragmatic and subjective.

¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. ¹³ For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Hebrews 5:12-14

Please see the list below for further readings in the bible on the heart and mind.  God bless you!

(Further reading: Proverbs 22:17; 1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-30, 2:16; Isaiah 35:4, 41:13 55:8; Jeremiah 17:10; Psalm 1:2-3, 40:5, 44:21, 51:17, 73:7, 119:11; Ecclesiastes 9:3; Matthew 15:19; Romans 1:21; Hebrews 12:3; Revelation 2:23; John 10:27)