PT-3 "Keeping a Pure Mind"

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/14/2025 7:53 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: PT-3 “Keeping a Pure Mind”

 

            In today’s SD I begin to look over “Watch Over Your Heart” from John MacArthur’s booklet entitled “Keeping a Pure Mind.”

 

            “It is relatively easy to confess and forsake deeds of sin, sins of omission, and unintentional sin.  But the sins of our thought life are soul-coloring sins, character-damaging sins.  Because they work so directly against the conscience and will, dealing with them honestly and thoroughly is one of the most difficult aspects of mortifying our sin.  If we ever want to see real progress in sanctification, however, this is an area where we must attack and destroy our sinful habits with a vengeance.  If we allow our thoughts to be influenced by the values of the world, our conscience will surely be dulled.  Listening to and entertaining the claims of bad theologies or the self-esteem credos of modern psychology will surely deaden the conscience.  Not only thoughts about lust, envy, and the other traditional sins, but also thoughts about the myriad false values and idols of an unbelieving world can be devastating obstacles to a pure mind.

 

            “The Old Testament sage wrote, ‘Watch over your heart with all diligence, for it flows the springs of life’ (Prov. 4:23).

 

            “God knows our hearts (Acts 15:8).  Also, ‘God is greater than our heart and knows all things’ (1 John 3:20).  David wrote, ‘You understand my thought from afar….And [You] are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all’ (Ps. 139:2-4).  Why, then, would we ever feel free to indulge in gross sins in our imagination—sins we never act out before others—when we know that God is the audience to our thoughts?  ‘Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart’ (Ps. 44:21).

 

            “Jesus told the Pharisees, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sigh to of God’ (Luke 16:15).  Is not what we do in the sight of God infinitely more important than what we do in the sight of others?

 

            “Moreover, the thoughts of our heart are the real litmus test of our character:  ‘As he thinks within himself, so he is’ (Prov. 23:7).  ‘A worthless person, a wicked main, is the one…who with perversity in his heart continually devises evil’ (6:12-14).  Do you want to know who your really are?  Take a hard look at your thought life.  For ‘as water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man’ (27:19).  External behavior is not an accurate mirror of your character; the thoughts of your heart reveal the truth.  Only your conscience and God can assess the real truth about you.

 

            “Job’s ‘comforters’ falsely accused him of an impure thought life.  Zophar was sure he understood Job’s real problem: Evil is sweet in his mouth and he hides it under his tongue…he desires it and will not let it go, but holds it in his mouth’ (Job. 20:12-13).  The picture he painted of the evil thinker is vividly true to life.  Evil thoughts are like candy to them.  They derive great satisfaction from their imaginary sins. They savor their evil fantasies.  They relish them like a choice morsel of sweetness under the tongue.  They roll them around in their imagination.  They return to the same wicked musings from which they can gleam illicit pleasure over and over again.  They mull them over like an animal chewing the cud, bringing up their favorite evil thoughts time and time again to reenact them anew in the mind.

 

            “But Zophar misjudged Job.  Job had carefully guarded himself against wicked and lustful thoughts: ‘I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?’ (31:1). He knew God was audience to his thoughts:  ‘Does He not see my ways, and number all my steps?  If I walked with falsehood, and my foot has hastened after deceit, let Him weigh me with accurate scales, and let God know my integrity’ (vv. 4-6). Job denied that his heart had followed his eyes (v. 7).  He denied that his heart had been enticed by another woman (v.9).  ‘That would be a lustful crime…an iniquity punishable by judges,’ he acknowledged (v. 11).  To hide iniquity in the bosom, he said would be to cover one’s transgression like Adam (v. 33).  The very thought appalled his righteous mind.”

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  My wife and I are kind of living the life of Job as she has been told she has cancer.  I am studying the book of Job and putting my Spiritual Diaries on my other blog, and so when it came to beginning my study in Job which I first did in 2011 I thought that trouble was coming, and it surely did.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To learn from the book of Job so that I can be helped by it as we go through this most difficult time in our lives.  Please Pray for my wife and I.  We would be very thankful for your prayers.

 

3/14/2025 8:30 AM