No Ordinary Thaw

Wow. It really isn’t our intent to just turn this into a site that passes along teachings — we really do have some serious fun over here. (Actually, maybe too much of it at times!) But I’m just really impacted by some of the teaching-type stuff that gets sent our way by friends in other places.

Check out this email we received today on “The Greatest Prophet.” It would seem the primary “feature” of the person Jesus called “The greatest prophet who ever lived” was… well, I’ll let you read it. We typically think of prophets having “visions” but that’s not who Jesus “picked out” as the Greatest Ever. The “MVP” — “Most Valuable Prophet” — was…

WHO IS the GREATEST PROPHET?
-S. Hill

Would that be Ezekiel due to the intensity of his visions? Would that be Isaiah due to the accuracy of his revelation of Jesus? Would that be Daniel due to his wisdom and ability to interpret dreams that kept him at the power centers of two world empires? Would that be Enoch who had such a powerful encounter with God that he literally was not here anymore?

According to Jesus the greatest prophet was John the Baptist who came preaching “repentance for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. So far as we know John never had a vision, dream or angelic encounter. Yet Jesus called him the greatest prophet!
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Here’s an email from a guy named Scott, passed our way. This ties together some of the “right thinking” and other things we have discussed on this blog from time to time.

One thing “right thinkers” do is keep themselves from falling into ruts. They find a way to see Reality around them instead of being lulled, which is easy to do. They are paying attention (to the fruit, to the results, to what’s going on in and around them, etc. — they aren’t merely “passive observers”)!! The teaching we were sent has components of all this — an observation by a world-class athlete, how this applies to the church, how it ties into things Jesus said, etc. As I’ve mentioned in other posts along these lines, these are spiritual principles that even unbelievers find, and God is gracious and dependable enough to allow it to be applied and have meaning even outside of His Kingdom. (WHY does he allow spiritual laws to be applied universally, across the board??!! Because He’s trying to get our attention!! That’s why!! ;-))

Victor Martinez, a world championship competitive athlete, makes this statement:

“I used to do all my training by the book — a certain way and schedule. Then I noticed my progress plateaus quickly. I found that to break through the plateaus, I need to mix things up in my workouts. When I change out of the routine, my condition changes faster than ever. This is known as the ‘Confusion Principle’ of training, but in actuality it is not ‘confusion’ at all. It is the shock of breaking routine that has allowed me to go past my limitations, and to succeed at ridiculous levels.”

I don’t know if you can see it yet or not, but THIS IS ONE OF TWO REASONS WHY JESUS SAID, “You nullify the Word of God by your traditions you have handed down” and the Apostle Peter referred to “the empty way of life received by tradition from your forefathers.”
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One thing we’ve talked about from time to time in our family is… It seems sometimes like the people of the world are better at being single-eyed, focused, aggressive and responsible with things that aren’t going to matter in and for Eternity than the people of the Light are in dealing with eternal issues.

Time and again, I see this in the work place, in the professional sports world, motivational speakers, etc. They really go after things and essentially “take things by the throat.” We’re in a war, according to Jesus and the apostles, and yet it seems we don’t take things seriously. You see men of the world adjust their thinking, taking on and adopting what are essentially spiritual truths (God is ever so faithful to allow the laws and “spiritual physics” people discover to apply across the board, isn’t He?!!) toward temporal successes. Jesus said in Luke 16:8, “…[T]he people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” Now, I’m not sure what all that means — that and the verses following (about using worldly wealth) are a little confusing, but certainly it seems one thing it could mean is that at face value, Jesus recognized that the people of the world were more shrewd in going after the temporal than we are the Eternal. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can adjust our thinking. (Some of this has to do with a misunderstanding of what Love really is, perhaps. But Real Love is war-like, which is hard for us to accept, I think. Jesus, the epitome of what Love is, most definitely was a WARRIOR though, was he not?!)

What does all this have to do with Right Thinking? Well, I’m finding some interesting and really convicting and revealing “thought patterns” among some of these shrewd men of the world. I don’t want to name any of them here for various reasons, but some are very, very successful sports coaches at the professional level. Some of how they think I think can be directly applied to sin and spiritual life change and fruitfulness.
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I’ve recently been giving a lot of thought to, well… thoughts. It would seem that a huge part of the spiritual battle takes place in the mind — there are a ton of verses which support this and highlight this. The scriptural substantiation for this is really quite huge. Bigger than I… thought. :-)

I’m coming into this a little late in the game while others have discovered this a long time ago, but… there really are such things as “wrong thoughts” or rather wrong ways of thinking — wrong “patterns” of thinking — and right thoughts, right ways of thinking, and right patterns of thinking. The people you know who you admire and see spiritual fruit in their lives… you can probably attribute that to the fact that they have developed good “thought habits.” Thoughts drive feelings and emotions and ultimately our actions. People who are in control of their emotions generally have good thought patterns and right ways of thinking. All this plays into emotional and moral strength, what faith is (if we tried to put “faith” under a microscope and “dissect” it, what components would we find? Surely “right thinking” would be part of it…), how to overcome sin (if God’s Spirit is in you, did you know you have to give satan permission for you to sin?!) and much more.

I’m spending more time dissecting my thoughts. Where did that thought come from? Why did I think that way and not this way? What was my motive in saying that or doing that? What if I thought this way and not that way? What is a better way of thinking about _________?

I recently ran across a story of a study done at a university that, in my thinking (!!), has all the components in it regarding right thinking, faith, perseverance, proper execution of will, commanding the flesh, etc. Like one of those pictures that has an old, haggy looking lady in it, but if you look at it slightly differently, you see a beautiful lady in the same picture, see if this (true) story doesn’t strike you that way if you “think” about it and apply it the right way. It took me some time to see the difference and WHY there was a difference in the two groups of people discussed here.
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There have been a LOT of changes around here as of late. Graduation parties with some good friends we’ve made here in the TC, school ending, two from here graduating from HS, we’ve moved… Will have to post some great pictures of some lovely peoples’s (that’s pronounced “peoples-is” — consider it a term of collective endearment… :-)) we know and goings on around here on a personal note.

God’s been super good, that’s for sure. But what’s new, eh?