By Michael Bradley

One of the first things you will find that God will start to do with you if you have decided to enter into a true sanctification process with Him is to try and put right thinking into your thought process.

What you choose to think about and dwell on in this life will make or break you as to what type of person you will end up becoming in this life. Leave it to God the Father to perfectly capture, in one simple short verse from Scripture, the secret to being able to have good mental health in this life. When I first saw this verse way back in the Old Testament, it literally blew off the page at me. As soon as I saw it, I saw incredible amounts of revelation behind it.

Many Christians have never heard or found this verse since it is back in the Old Testament in the Book of Proverbs. This verse should be memorized by all Christians, as it is giving us a major spiritual secret in being able to acquire good mental health in the Lord.

Here is the New King James Version of this verse:

"For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7)

The key word in that verse is the word "thinks." The word "thinks" is telling you that God is targeting your thought process - what you think about on a daily basis.

Interpretation - You Are What You Think!

This principle is easily seen in our world today. You can really tell who is operating on this principle in the way that the Lord has intended for us to operate with it and who is not.

The people who always seem to be more upbeat, more happy and more fulfilled with their lives are the people who have a good sound mind and who are always thinking about and dwelling on the more positive things in this life. They choose, with their own free wills, to dwell more on the the positive side of this life.

The people who are not happy, who are not fulfilled, who are pessimistic and half-depressed all the time and have negative attitudes towards anybody and anything are all choosing to think about and dwell on the negative side of this life.

Granted, this cursed world in which we live in has a mixture of life and death in it. Jesus Himself said that we would all have various trials and tribulations that we would have to go through from time to time. Storm clouds are a part of this life, and no one gets by not having to go through various storm clouds from time to time.

However, there is a lot of good and positive things that we have going on in this life. It is not all death, doom and destruction. Even in the worse case scenarios and situations - there is always a hope and a light at the end of that storm cloud tunnel. As Christians, we all have God Almighty Himself on our side to help us take on any storm clouds that may come our way.

The difference between these two types of people is in their thought life. The people who are always positive, happy and upbeat have chosen to look on the bright side of things - even in some of the worse case scenarios possible. The negative type of people have chosen to think and dwell on all of the bad things that can happen or that can go wrong in this life. No matter what good may come their way - they will always have a comment that something better could have come their way or that the good thing that did come their way did not meet up to their expectations. Nothing makes them happy or content because nothing is ever good enough for them.

The Bible is very clearly telling us in the above verse that we can all choose what to think about and dwell on. We don't have to become slaves to negative and pessimistic type thinking. In other words, we can choose to think about what we want to think about!

Our thinking and thought process does not control us - we control it! Negative type thinking can be broken. For many, it has become an actual mental stronghold, because they have been mired down into that type of negative thinking for such a long period of time.

The Bible tells us that we can take "captive" what we think about. The verse that talks about that says we have to bring "every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." What this means is that we are directly responsible for choosing what we think about and dwell on - and then make sure that our thinking lines up with God's Word and how He wants us to think. The power lies with us. We cannot blame anyone else - including God Himself - if we have chosen with our own free wills to constantly being dwelling on the negative and darker side of this life.

Bottom line - we all have to learn how to develop right thinking in our thought process. Our part is to do the best we can to try and think and dwell on the things that God wants us to be concentrating and focusing on. However, as we all know, most of us only have a certain amount of mental and psychological strength in this area. Some will naturally go farther in this realm than others will.

This is where the Holy Spirit will be coming in big time to help get your thinking process straightened out and grounded in the Lord in the the way that He wants it to be. This is all part of the sanctification process that God wants to start with each one of us. As I said in my article titled "Sanctification," this process will not be accomplished overnight. If you have been operating in a negative type mindset for a long period time - God will start to gradually and progressively move you out of it into a better, more clearer and more healthier type thinking.

Your job will be to work very closely with the Holy Spirit once He starts this sanctification process within you. You will see Him start to target specific areas of your thinking where you are really off at. Once that revelation has been given to you - it will then be up to you as to whether or not you will choose to do it. If He tells you that you are too judgmental and too critical of others - then your part will be to do the best you can trying to curb those kind of thoughts and replace them with thoughts of a more positive type nature.

The Holy Spirit is the Master Surgeon and He will be attempting to do inner spiritual surgery on you to take out what He does not want operating in your mind and thought process and put in what He does want to be operating in you.

Your job will be to choose, with your own free will, to work and cooperate with Him once He makes it very clear to you what specific changes He wants to make with you. He will not force these changes on you. He will let you know very clearly exactly what it is He wants to put in your system and exactly what it is He wants to take out. If you choose to move with Him on what changes He wants to make with you - then God the Father will allow the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to truly begin to sanctify you in the way and manner that will most pleasing to Him.

In the next several articles, I will be giving you specific areas that God will want to target in getting you cleaned up. And one of those areas is going to be in your thinking process - what you choose to think about and dwell on on a daily basis. In other words - God wants to clean up and straighten out your thought life. With all of the different types of lusts that are operating in our world, such as all of the sexual and material lusts competing for our attention through the media - for many, this will initially be a very big battle.

But if you are really wanting the Lord to help clean you up in some of these areas, especially in your private thought life, the Lord will only be too anxious to help get you over some of these hurdles through the incredible supernatural power of His Holy Spirit. This kind of inner sanctification can be accomplished in this life if you are willing to do your part by fully cooperating with the Lord once He starts it up.

About the author:
Article written by Michael Bradley of Bible Knowledge Ministries. Their website is a resource of Bible Knowledge. http//www.bible-knowledge.com - They currently have over 100 in depth Bible articles. All free of charge.


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