Transition

Key Scripture: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God [Matthew 5 v 8]

Today I bought a magazine about black and white photography to get some inspiration (I'm one of those creative types, you see). So I took the magazine home and flicked through it, seeing first the pictures (as you do), but the first thing I did, even when I saw the magazine sitting on the shelf was to filter out all the stuff which I knew would try and get into my head- immoral images, pornography, etc. The first thought I had was, 'When I get this magazine home I am going to rip out all the pages which contain ungodly content'. This way of doing things- this decision, as you can probably imagine, isn't one that I've 'just always made', but over the years as my awareness of what is right and what is wrong has increased and the effects of right behaviour and wrong behaviour have become more evident to me, the decision to dispose of images contrary to my beliefs has become more prominent in my reading and viewing of magazine, book, and film content.


As in the viewing of pictorial literature, I believe that it is so important to use the same methods of filtering when reflecting on our own thought processes. Some may say that it's impossible to do this as, 'Our minds are so full of everything that has been happening in the day!... How could we possibly take a thought captive and say "Right- I'm tearing you out of my mind!"' Precisely. Mankind is already aware of the depth of our thoughts- our visual and verbal libraries which are subconsciously contained somewhere in the mind. Maybe the statement that 'What we decide to let into our mind effects how we as people function' would help those who recognise the clutter to react in a different way. What we decide to let into our mind effects how we as people function.


I want to look at the steps towards the recovery of the mind process as: The Three R's.
Raw Red Radish. Yum. Just kidding. The Three R's are: RESEARCH, RECOGNISE and REJECT. 
1. RESEARCH: We need to know what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what's what when we haven't been directly told. (There are some good scriptures in Ephesians 4 v 17 - 32. The Bible talks about being righteous, holy, good and helpful and to let go of bitterness, rage, anger and harsh words... Check it out!)
2. RECOGNISE: Once we know what is right and what is wrong we can look at the book (in our case the mind), and identify the stuff that needs to stay and the stuff that needs to go. We are now familiarised with what we are seeing and hearing and are able to differentiate because we have looked it up. 
3. REJECT: Now that we can tell what is good and bad we can immediately take action and say: 'No, I'm not allowing my mind to dwell on that... or that... or that.' And filter out our mind using the tearing process.
4. The Outcome. Once things were cloudy, but now because we've decided to discipline our lives with scripture and listening to God, our mind is much clearer. When you're on a mountain and the fog is heavy it's pretty much impossible to know where to go- UNTIL the fog clears. When the fog clears we are able to see again and we know the next step to take.


It can be easy to look at wrong stuff when one decides that they are unsure of their beliefs about something being wrong or right - this is the norm for our generation in this day and age. But the fantastic thing about applying the filtering process to our lives, with no regrets, is that because we decide, 'Yes, that stuff is wrong', and choose to chop away at the corruption, instead of meditating on the wrong stuff, our minds will remain SOUND. 
Viewing wrong stuff = Wrong thinking.
Banishing wrong stuff = Pure thinking.


See you soon! For all those who are looking, keep searching. God Bless X 


[B.T: New International Version, New Living Translation.]