The Problem

• Would you be embarrassed if your friends and associates knew what went on inside your mind?
• Each of us has a secret thought life, an invisible life known only to us -- it is not known to others.
• This secret life is usually very different from the visible you, yet, it is the real you, the you that is known by God.

The Battle for the Mind

• Every day we battle for the control of our minds.
• What is the difference between a temptation and an actual sin in our thought life?
  • The thoughts that enter our minds are not sin.
  • When our normal observations become abnormal preoccupations, we have crossed the line.
  • "We cannot help it if birds fly over our heads. It is another thing if we invite them to build nests in our hats." Martin Luther
  • "Temptation is sexual attraction to a beautiful woman. Sin is walking around the block for another look."

Visibility versus Awareness

• The goal of our secret thought life, since it is no secret from God, should be to live a life of personal holiness.
• The visibility of our speech and actions helps keep us in line. Peer pressure may actually influence us to live righteously more than fear of a holy God.
• High visibility sins are usually sins of speech and actions.
• Low visibility sins are usually sins of our private thoughts.
• Awareness of our sins usually causes us to attempt to adopt group mores in speech and action.
• Combining visibility and awareness:
  • High visibility/high awareness
  • High visibility/low awareness
  • Low visibility/high awareness
  • Low visibility/low awareness

Suggestions

• If we will make a commitment to become more aware of our thought life, if we will pause occasionally and ask, "Why?" when our thoughts don't seem to be our own, then we will have taken a giant stride toward conquering our thought life.
• Unless we develop a solid understanding of how our thoughts, motives, and ambitions are shaped, we will have impure secret thoughts, wrong motives, and selfish ambitions.
• "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24