Brothers and sisters, 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.”
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
You can learn a lot about a person’s physical health by simply looking at their physical diet. Are they eating a variety of whole foods? Are they eating a lot of fast food? Is their diet full of food that help them grow strong and have energy, or is the food they consume wearing them down?
The same is true spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. You can know a lot about your spiritual, mental, and emotional health by looking at your mental diet.
Proverbs 15:14 says, “A wise man is hungry for truth, while the mocker feeds on trash” (TLB).
You have a choice—and every day, you must choose to feed your mind with the best thoughts.
Philippians 4:8 gets specific about the kinds of thoughts that are best for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health: “Brothers and sisters, 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” (NIV).
Does that list of things describe what you think about most of the time? If you’re honest, the answer is “no.” We would all answer “no.” Our minds don’t naturally go to these things because we are human and sinful.
So you have to train your mind to think thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. How do you do that? By doing it! You have to practice filling your mind with these things by reading the Bible.
Globalization and the attendant concerns about poverty and inequality have become a focus of discussion in a way that few other topics, except for international terrorism or global warming, have. Most people have a strong opinion on globalization, and all of them express an interest in the well-being of the world's poor. The financial press and influential international officials confidently assert that global free markets expand the horizons for the poor, whereas activist-protesters hold the opposite belief with equal intensity. Yet the strength of people's conviction is often in inverse proportion to the amount of robust factual evidence they have.As is common in contentious public debates, different people mean different things by the same word. Some interpret "globalization" to mean the global reach of communications technology and capital movements, some think of the outsourcing by domestic companies in rich countries, and others see globalization as a byword for
Comments