Scripture of The Day
July 20, 2021
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (II Corinthians 10:5)
By Ed Henderson (2015)
The mind is a miraculous part of our human body. It can learn, remember, store, process, calculate, and solve, just to name a few. It can also envision and imagine which can be positive or it can be negative. The Bible talks about vain imaginations and about casting down those type imaginations. How do we do that? What is the process? Let’s look at a simple real life example. We send our daily devotionals out only to those who have requested to be on our list. Several weeks ago we noticed that one of our key leaders in HHC had unsubscribed to the devotional. My first thought was that we must have said something or written something that offended them. That is a vain imagination! I had no reason to think that but as vain humans we always think it must be about us so we
start imagining things with no facts.
My wife is better at dealing with these situations than I am and we can all learn something from her on how to deal with vain imaginations. Her policy is to always deal with questionable situations like this straight up and quickly before your imagination morphs into a full fledged movie. Cheryl called this leader and ask them point blank if we had offended them in any way because we noticed that they had unsubscribed to our devotional. Well, come to find out, the email that we were using for them had been hacked and they did not have access to that email anymore and they were totally unaware of the situation. Problem solved, vain imagination debunked, relationship intact. In addition to dealing straight up and quickly with a situation you always want to judge your thoughts and imaginations as to how they line up with the Word of God. God has given us the ability to cast down every thought that exalts itself above the knowledge of God. The trick to that is, you have to know how God thinks. You get that by reading the Bible and spending time with Him. There are no shortcuts. The Word has to be hidden in your heart and you have to know God’s heart. In summary, confront questionable imaginations quickly and challenge all imaginations with God’s Word. It will help you solve a lot of potential problems.
I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes always, even unto the end. I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love. Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.
(Psalm 119:112-114)
