16/09/2026
What Were You Thinking?
Most mornings I journal during my devotional time. Frequently I write prayers in my journal. After all, God already knows my heart, but writing helps me articulate better what I'm praying about. I've been in church long enough that it's easy to slip into repetitious "Christianese" while I pray — instead of detailed petitions, I offer vain ramblings.
When writing my prayers, I often pray, "Lord, let me think well today." I know, and I bet you do too, that things like peace and joy really are an inside job. We can spend loads of time and money trying to pacify ourselves with the things of this world, hoping to keep joy alive. Yet I think of people who are dirt poor, uneducated, even incarcerated, who live in constant joy. What's up with that? It all boils down to how we think — about God, about the world, and about ourselves.
Let me give you an example of how stinkin' thinkin' messes us up.
Most of us know comparison is a joy robber. Yet we do it anyway. Where does it start? In the mind.
Meanwhile, scripture tells us that as blood-bought children of God, "We have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:16)
It's there. We can think our way to better days — more joy, peace, and prosperity — but that means intentionally changing how we think. And according to the Apostle Paul, that might hurt a little.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us that if we offer our eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc. to God as a living sacrifice, we can have our minds renewed. Check it out:
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
What an incredible promise. Paul is telling us the key to thinking better is to offer our bodies to God — to put them on the altar, so to speak. It was Paul, too, who told us to crucify the flesh — to put to death the misdeeds of the body.
So if the key to better thinking is offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, here are two ways we do that.
First, we reflect on God's mercy. Romans 12:1 begins there: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, on account of God's mercy…"
When we see a "therefore" in the Bible, we should ask, "What's it there for?" Here, Paul has just spent eleven chapters explaining all Christ has done for us. When we reflect on how life could have turned out if we hadn't turned to Jesus, we gain the perspective that fuels the determination to crucify the flesh.
Second, we submit the body itself — through practices like prayer, fasting, worship, service, resisting sin, attending church and forgiveness. The body doesn't always want to do these things, but they're exactly what's needed to have our minds transformed.
Thus, when we feel our minds drifting into unwholesome thinking — comparison, depression, confusion — the solution to better thinking starts with offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, even when it hurts.
Lord, help me think well today!
