Jerry Bridges said it so well: “Don’t believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word.”1 Since we are wired at birth with a sin nature the way we think is clouded by sin. And before we come to Christ the compass which we use to think and make decisions oftentimes lands us in trouble and far from the shores of what is truth and right. No wonder someone once said that the Bible is our basic instructions before leaving earth!
Before I came to Christ, my thinking was guided by a faulty belief system that excluded God from the equation. And without the Holy Spirit helping me to know truth from error, I was a slave to my own selfish ways and thoughts. I, quite frankly, didn’t have the capacity to think any other way. In fact, the best I could do was to live and believe that truth was relative, instead of absolute.
But praise God, when I gave my heart to Jesus, everything changed. I developed a love affair with the Scriptures, and they helped me to see truth in a whole new way. As I read and studied the Bible, God showed me that truth was no longer relative but absolute and was the same for all people and across all time periods.
Knowing that truth is absolute has made an enormous difference in how I think. I now strive to think God’s thoughts after Him by reading the Word of God every day and meditating on divine truth. As a result, now when my thoughts line up with Scripture, I can feel confident that I am walking on the right path in life.
When Jerry Bridges said, “Stay in the Word,” he gave us the secret to right thinking, because reading and thinking Scripture is guaranteed to let the truth of God permeate and flood our mind and heart. The Apostle Paul said it so well: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2). And, my friends, the only way to renew our minds and get lost in the truth of God is to read, study, and meditate on Scripture. The more we do this, the more our thoughts will become God’s thoughts – and what can be more wonderful than that!
1 Jerry Bridges Quote: “Don’t believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word.”