Right Thinking

1. Which commandment regulates our thinking?

Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”

2. What was Paul’s secret?

Philippians 4:11 “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”

3. Where do wrong acts come from?

Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

4. What did Jesus say about selfishness?

Luke 12:15 “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Greed is covetousness. Psychologist Ross Stagner criticises the “buy now, pay later” mentality: “I-want-it-now is characteristic of our bank robbers, muggers, embezzlers and kidnap-extortionists.

Obey-that-impulse is a feature of rapists and murderers.”

5. How does Paul define those who are greedy? What will they not inherit?

Ephesians 5:5 “No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

6. What attitude should believers in Jesus have?

Philippians 2:5-8 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who …made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

7. What does Paul counsel us to think about?

Philippians 4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things.”

8. What should guide our behaviour?

James 2:12 “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.”

9. How should we feel about others?

Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

10. While the Bible says no-one is righteous, what did Jesus do for lost sinners?

Romans 5:8 “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

11. What does God want to give us that is not our right to have, which we don’t deserve?

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Wages are earned, gifts are free. Have you accepted God’s free gift? That’s right thinking!