It's Never Too Late

I am more than half way through The Purpose Driven Life.  I am enjoying reading this book more than I had imagined and I encourage you to read it for yourselves.  Today is Day 23 of the book and the subject is "How We Grow."  The author writes that we as followers of Jesus tend to never grow past our spiritual infancy.  To grow takes a conscious effort and commitment, a decision.  To do this you have to change the way that you think.  He says that it is never too late to do this.  It seems so simple, but little do we truly believe in the power of our thoughts.

Many times before I heard of the power of positive thinking.  You know this premise that if you think negatively that your outcome in turn will also be negative.  Did you know that even thinking bad thoughts is a sin?  Sometimes it only takes one seed of negativity to ruin your day.  A few posts ago I wrote about how I from time to time try to send positive greetings to my friends in the morning.  This is so my friends have a fresh positive perspective to begin their day.

I believe that many people do not believe in the consequence inviting negative thoughts and images into their mind.  A few decades ago members of Congress spoke out about how rap lyrics were causing violence in America.  Later on violent video games replaced this argument.  While I don't believe that there is a direct link between rap lyrics and violence, I do believe that one influences the other.  The constant bombardment of violent and sexual images definitely affect how we function as a society.  We are so de-sensitized at this point that nothing really shocks us anymore.  What are the limits?

A few of my friends what Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and the Basketball Wives.  These are two shows that I had to stop watching.  I actually felt like the violence on the show was starting to make me feel more aggressive.  Well it is that, but also the negative portrayal of black females, which I may write about another day.  Does their behavior please God?  Does it reflect that they are trying to grow in their spirituality?

Some people have adopted this name it and claim mentality when it comes to God, but I am not certain that this is what God wants either.  I don't think that everything that we name, we should claim.  And sometimes when we do name it and claim it, it turns out that it really wasn't what we wanted in the first place.

So how will changing our mind help is grow in our relationship with God?  God wants us to grow and become more in his image.  When you change your mindset and realize that you are here because of God and you are here to please God then it will as a result change your actions.  When you stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about others, that is how you grow in your spiritual maturity.  What can you do to start thinking God's way?