Good Life- Part 1
Good thoughts help to produce a good life.
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 8:6 (KJV)
There is a right and a wrong way to think. One way produces life and peace; the other death. To be carnally-minded is to be fleshly-minded, thinking of carnal, fleshly, earthly, lower-level things. This opposes the way Holy Spirit wants us to think. If we think this way, it will produce death. The word death is the Greek word thanatos, which means separation. Spiritual death is a conscious existence separated from God. Both this kind of death (spiritual), and physical death are exclusion from the presence and favor of God. Death comes as a consequence of sin, disobedience, and the refusal to accept Jesus as Savior.
Carnal, fleshly thinking- or thinking that is not according to the leading of Scripture and the Holy Spirit- separates us from God, which affects all aspects of life. Carnal thinking causes us to be cut off from the Source of Life; God. God’s life, zoe in the Greek, produces peace, or eirene in the Greek. Eirene describes harmonious relationships and brings contentment and rest. Peace is the result when we think spiritually, with our minds submitted to the Holy Spirit.
How is your life going? The general direction of your life can be an indication of the kind of thoughts you’ve been thinking. Check up on your thought life. Even when we are unjustly attacked, we have to continue to think correctly. We must cast down wrong thoughts and replace them with thoughts that line up with Scripture. The devil attacks with the intention of getting us to accept wrong thoughts.
Our lives follow our thoughts. Good thoughts produce good outcomes and good lives. Bad thoughts will produce the opposite. Eventually this plays out in our lives, no matter what we face. Change your thoughts to change your life. Our believing dictates our receiving. Move away from carnal, fleshly thinking to spiritual thinking and move from death to life, from disharmony to peace.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at the role of words in experiencing a good life.
