Think About Your Thinking – Lesson 1
By Glennys Elliott
Lesson 1
As We Think Within Our Hearts, So Are We
Proverbs 23:7 (Paraphrased from NKJV)
“The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29b-31 (NASB) (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Luke 10:27; 1 Timothy 1:5)
Humanity’s love for self began in the garden. God had created man from the dust of the earth and woman from the rib of man. Into both the man and the woman God breathed life into their human bodies. The breath that was life-giving could only come from the almighty God. God created Adam and Eve.
Not only did God give the new human beings life, but he also gave them the gift of companionship and relationship with him and with each other. He created them for relationship. God also created a perfect place for them to live. This perfect place was called the Garden of Eden and it was everything that Adam and Eve needed for their existence. The Hebrew word “Eden” means pleasantness. They wanted for nothing. The world God had created for them was perfect. However, was it going to be good enough for the new human beings? Would Adam and Eve love God more than they loved themselves?
Into the perfect world of Adam and Eve came evil. Evil came in the form of a serpent. Adam and Eve had known only contentment and an intimate relationship with God, with each other, and with the created world. The serpent desired to destroy what was perfect and God-given. He had a plan to introduce Eve to a new way of thinking because he was “more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made” (Gen 3:1).
In Genesis 3:1 we find the serpent using these words as he spoke to Eve, “Did God really say?” At first Eve stood firm in her beliefs and told the serpent that yes, God did tell them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She told him that God did say that if they ate of this particular tree they would surely die. However, they could eat of any other tree in the garden. With this one little sentence, “Did God really say?” the serpent planted the seed of doubt. Eve would begin to question what she believed and what she knew. Was God attempting to keep something from them?
Once the thought was planted and Eve began to ponder what the serpent had told her, the serpent had won. Her mind was open to the next idea the serpent wanted to plant in her mind. The serpent then said; “You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” With the second seed of doubt Eve saw the tree and the fruit with new eyes. She no longer saw the fruit as forbidden; it was now desirable.
With desire comes a self focus. Eve set aside what she knew about God and herself and listened to the evil schemes of the serpent. She made her decision to eat what was forbidden. The serpent did not have the power to make her eat, but he did have the power to influence her acceptance of a different way of thinking. The serpent’s scheme was partially accomplished. Now, could Adam be influenced to also eat the fruit? And yes, he could.
Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the external, the physical, what was seen with the eye and felt with the hands, what appealed to the senses. However, by giving in to the temptation of the senses, the physical, the flesh, Adam and Eve were changed internally. They forever changed their relationship with God. There was a separation from the perfect existence God had created for them. Their God-designed relationship with Him, with each other, with Satan, and with the creation no longer existed. They chose to place more importance on the pleasure of the moment rather than on what was perfect and eternal. The pleasure in the look, the touch, and the taste of the fruit lasted for an instant. The lie that they would be like God was never an option for Adam and Eve.
This is an example to us so that we might learn from it and apply it to our existence. Are we going to believe the lies of Satan, follow the evil desires of our flesh, and give up our God-given chance of living in His presence for all of eternity? We have the same God today that Adam and Eve had, but we also have the same Satan. Satan’s desire is the same for us as it was for the first humans. He wants us to reject God and lose our salvation in Jesus Christ.
The serpent was successful; they both ate of the forbidden fruit. The two humans that God had created and given everything they needed rebelled against him. They wanted something other than what God had given them, and they went after it. Are we not tempted to do the same today? We want what we want, when and how we want it. And there is still a tendency to think we can handle it on our own. That is when anger, anxiety, depression, fear, and hopelessness begin to change the way we think.
We forget to trust in the fact that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). In thinking we can do it ourselves, we lack the faith to trust and obey God. When we are disobedient, we do not love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. When we do not love God as we should, we cannot love others or ourselves as we should.
- Read Genesis chapters 2 & 3.
- We can only have one thought in our mind at a time. At what point in time did Eve’s focus/way of representing God change? _______________________________
- What became more important to Adam and Eve than their relationship with God? ___________________________________________________________
- Think about something in your life, other than God, that is of great importance to you.
- If you thought about a spouse, a child, a grandchild etc., are you able to love God more than that person?
- If you thought about a job/career, are you able to take time away from that focus to spend time with God and with your family?
- What about time? Are you able to set aside time for God?
Make a list of the things that are important to you.
Teacher’s Note-I like to provide a visual, hands on object to emphasize a point. I will call these objects symbols.
With this lesson I provided children’s cactus sunglasses. On the inside of the lens, I took a white marker and drew a cross. Life can be prickly and stickery, however, Jesus gives us the way to view the events of our lives and how to represent them in our minds. The cactus represents the events of our lives, the seen. The cross on the lens gives us the unseen perspective and the way to represent the events of our lives through the lens of scripture.
Faith Choices
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Something happens in your life. This event, or events, can either be good or bad. They can bring happiness or sorrow. In any case, you are going to think about these events and process the information in your heart and mind. There are two ways in which you can respond. You can choose to respond from a very human perspective, based on emotion, past experiences, and/or sinful desires. This is a response is based on the seen. Or, you can take in the information, pray about it and go to the Bible and let God direct your response. Then, take the information back to the situation, and respond as God would have you respond. This is a response based on the unseen. The two outcomes will be very different even though it is the same event, circumstance, or situation.
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