Don’t even think about it

Published 9:00 am Sunday, April 3, 2016

Don’t Even Think It: “For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (James 1:7). There’s a real problem today with accepting reality. Instead of accepting the facts about the way things really are we imaging things the way we want them to be and believe if we think it then it must be so. The truth about our condition is ignored and we see things in light of the way we want it to be from our point of view in the Land of Denial.

Christians make this same mistake in their relationship with God. They believe if they think it and have positive thoughts that what their thinking is so, or will, soon be. Many take verses in the Bible and say that if it’s in the Bible then it’s in them. 

But just because something is in the Bible that doesn’t mean it’s in the Christian. Truth must be obeyed and applied before it works a change in us and that change is realized. Taking those verses where Paul speaks of his spiritual state and claiming them as our own when we haven’t actually met the conditions and cooperated with the Holy Spirit to bring about those changes is to deceive ourselves.

Having positive thoughts is a nice way to have a positive attitude. But purity of thought is better because it produces purity of life which is pleasing to God. Positive thinking is no substitute for an act of faith. Positive thinking may help us keep a stiff upper lip while we’re living in defeat, but confession of sin and faith toward God will lift us out of defeat and give us real victory.

In order for our prayers to be answered we must have faith that God hears and will answer our prayer. The one condition for answered prayer that’s most overlooked is, “he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination” (Pr. 28:9). And the faith that’s so vital in our life as well as when we pray “cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).

James tells us when we ask for wisdom, or anything for that matter, and we do not exercise faith, maybe because our conscience condemns us of some sin then we shouldn’t think God has heard and will answer our prayer.

We might ask how we know when we are showing faith toward God? We know when we have doubt, so we know when we have the very opposite which is faith. And so we’re showing faith when we have no doubts.

In other words thinking positively about our prayer requests will not get an answer from God because God doesn’t honor our positive thinking. He honors our faith in Him, and there is a difference.

We cannot rule out the negativism that doubt brings when our conscience condemns us of some sin with positive thinking. What we must do is confess our sin that we may come boldly before God in faith and receive the petition we requested of Him.

James H. Cagle is a resident of Ray City.