healthy obsession

2 Corinthians 10:5b. . . . and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

There are lots of scriptures, Old Testament and New, that point us toward, if I might borrow the expression, “brain washing.” I know the phrase has a negative context when its application is to describe a forced regimen of psychological manipulation for the purpose of controlling people’s mind (and I am painfully aware that it has been used to critically describe the Christian community at times and in some isolated instances the criticism has been valid. I would hope we all can agree those instances are aberrant and atypical of the essence of Christianity).

But we really are called to flush things out of our head and get something radically new in there. There are verses in Proverbs that clearly define the line between chasing things that transform us into a fool or seeking wisdom instead. Much of the historical literature carries a subtle message of letting your mind chase after a worldly pleasures and powers verses going after intimacy with God. There are verse all through the New Testament that encourage us to be proactive in the activities of rethinking our perspective of life, of God, of Eternity, and of how we should “be” as transformed people in this world.

But with all that sitting before us with instruction and encouragement, we all struggle to give into it 100%. At first I wanted to right down, “Well it’s God’s fault: He’s the one that made us, He’s the one that gave us the mind capable of rebelling against Him.” I could agree with myself on all of that except that it’s not a “fault.” God is perfect and blameless so it’s not His fault but he did make us that way on purpose!

So wow let’s look at this again. God created us with purpose and right from the very beginning that purpose involved being independently capable of choosing to be or not to be obedient and respectful to Him. If we are not given the freedom of choice in our relationship with God then we would not be capable of understanding his enduring love for us.

Our free will, our pride, our desire to pursue vengeance on our own, our vanity, our susceptibility to being corrupted by power and to be seduced in a variety of ways all speak of our vulnerability to get our focus on the wrong things. A recent devotional from Purpose Driven Life was entitled, “we move toward our focus.” (August 26, 2008 - PDL - Daily Devotional) We don’t have to dig very deep to understand that; we do move toward our focus, physically, emotionally, spiritually. We can quickly grab hold of the concept if we’ve ever driven a bike, or a car. Glance away from where you are headed long enough and your vehicle will soon follow whether you intended it to or not! So why is that so hard to understand spiritually and emotionally? We are so blind to see the reality of that in non tangible ways.

What ever we intentionally focus on transforms us! God does not want us to cross the center median or end up in the ditch spiritually or emotionally and that is why He has some great instructions for us! The Bible indicates that a transformation is going to take place in us if we willing shift our focus to the things God wants us to be focused on. We should be therefore in the pursuit of God.

We are called to seek the wisdom God; to be devoted to the transforming and renewing of our minds; to live by the Spirit; to “take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” In other words, our goal should be to willfully, submissively, take every thought we think and or action we purpose to carry out and critically analyze it to see whether it will honor the one who gave His life for us. I believe this is a critical component of leaving a life of sin as well as also what begins to bring us out of addictive and compulsive behaviors.

As Steven Curtis Chapman describes it in his song titled by the same words, in our pursuit of God and desire to wash our brains of the negative and the sinful, Jesus becomes our “Magnificent Obsession.”

For those of you who don’t have a computer and are reading this by other means, I will close by posting the lyrics below. For the rest of you, well, I know now God was many steps ahead of me in thinking through this devotional because embedded in this video are tons of scripture that illustrate exactly what I was referring to leading up to the close.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PprCvi3fvxs


Lord,
Help us in our frail humanness. Enable us to become more and more like you and less and less the one we were before we came to know you. Empower us to make you our Magnificent Obsession.



Lord, You know how much
I want to know so much
In the way of answers and explanations
I have cried and prayed
And still I seem to stay
In the middle of life’s complications
All this pursuing leaves me feeling like I’m chasing down the wind
But now it’s brought me back to You
And I can see again

This is everything I want
This is everything I need
I want this to be my one consuming passion
Everything my heart desires
Lord, I want it all to be for You, Jesus
Be my magnificent obsession

So capture my heart again
Take me to depths I’ve never been
Into the riches of Your grace and Your mercy
Return me to the cross
And let me be completely lost
In the wonder of the love
That You’ve shown me
Cut through these chains that tie me down to so many lesser things
Let all my dreams fall to the ground
Until this one remains

You are everything I want
And You are everything I need
Lord, You are all my heart desires
You are everything to me

You are everything I want
You are everything I need
I want You to be my one consuming passion
Everything my heart desires
Lord, I want it all to be for You
I want it all to be for You