Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The Pursuit of Wholesome Thinking and True Wisdom
- Jack Selcher
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
When I graduated from college, I summarized the value of my education at my secular college for an award the college offered (I didn’t receive it!). I wrote that my education empowered me to make wise choices among alternatives.
My college education was worth its cost (only about 3 percent of the present cost). The downside was that I had to watch for rogue dinosaurs while walking between classes!
My summary wasn’t completely wrong, but wholesome thinking is more than secular education driven decision making. Modern criminals choose the best alternatives to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Some use artificial intelligence to conduct phishing/social engineering attacks and voice/video cloning scams.2 Not what I would call wholesome thinking.
True wisdom rests on wholesome and not just educated thinking. Proverbs teaches that the quality of our thinking and lives depends on reverence for, faith in, and commitment to the Lord’s will and ways (Proverbs 1:2-3).1
My college professors were silent about such thinking and living. One reason is that many didn’t glorify or give thanks to God resulting in futile thinking in their darkened foolish hearts (Romans 1:21, Ephesians 4:17).
God gave some of them over to a depraved mind to do what they shouldn’t (Romans 1:28). One of my graduate school professors invited me to live at his house. I sensed it was to gratify the desires of his flesh (Romans 13:14). Not wholesome thinking. I respectfully declined.
The pegs of trust in God’s character and promises anchor the tent of wholesome thinking. God-centered thinking sometimes leads us in unexpected directions.
Most people do what they want in retirement, but wholesome thinking doesn’t align with the standards of this age (1 Corinthians 3:18). By retirement age, we should be thinking like adults and not self-centered children (1 Corinthians 14:20).
At every stage, life is about doing God’s will, not our own. God inspired and empowered me to use the gifts He has given me to write 650 blogs since I retired to build others up in the Christian faith.
The Apostle Peter tried to stimulate wholesome thinking (2 Peter 3:1). It realizes that life isn’t about maximizing our enjoyment either before or after retirement. It is about humbly blessing the most people we can with the gifts God has given us (Romans 12:3), not comparing ourselves to others (Galatians 2:4), and living for Jesus who died for us (1 Corinthians 15:5).
God must be at the center of our lives, not at the periphery of our thoughts. King David wrote, “I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night” (Psalm 63:6 NLT).
Don’t believe everything you think. We are prone to self-deception. “People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines the heart” (Proverbs 21:2 NLT). Wholesome thinking includes openness to God’s correcting and redirecting us when we wander into the spiritual wilderness.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8 NLT). That is wholesome thinking. See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians.
See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com
God has empowered me to write “His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength.” It’s a free, evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship eBook. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead 5,190 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 14,074 people. I invite you to explore it.
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