Skip to main content

Our Daily Bread: Shaping Your Thoughts

By

Our Daily Bread Friday 12th August 2016

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 
- Romans 12:2

When Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” in 1964, personal computers were unknown, mobile phones were science fiction, and the Internet didn’t exist. Today we understand what great foresight he had in predicting how our thinking is influenced in this digital age. In Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, he writes, “[The media] supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”

I like J. B. Phillips’s paraphrase of Paul’s message to the Christians in Rome: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity” (Rom. 12:2). How relevant this is today as we find our thoughts and the way our minds process material affected by the world around us.

We cannot stem the tide of information that bombards us, but we can ask God each day to help us focus on Him and to shape our thinking through His presence in our lives. - David McCasland

Father in heaven, still and focus my mind, quiet my heart, and fill me with Your thoughts throughout this day.
Let God’s Spirit, not the world, shape your mind.

Read: Romans 12:1-8

 Bible in a Year: Psalms 84-86; Romans 12

INSIGHT: Tradition has it that the apostle Peter brought the gospel to Rome. This is unlikely as there is no historical evidence that Peter was ever in Rome. The gospel was probably brought into Rome in two ways. First, among the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost, there were “visitors from Rome” (Acts 2:10). These converted returnees could have brought the gospel back home. Second, because it was the capital city of the Roman Empire, thousands of other believers (visitors, tourists, soldiers, traders, businessmen, and migrants) would have come into Rome. These visiting believers would have brought the gospel with them. Sim Kay Tee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

You've been blessed through this reading share with Others. Share the DO's and the DON'T.

Popular posts from this blog

Dominion Mandate Daily Devotional Thursday,March 3

By
THEME: You Can Create Whatever You Desire John 16:21-27 The instrument with which you exercise dominion over creation is your mouth.You can create whatsoever you desire by speaking that thing into existence.Whatever you say begins to exist in the spiritual form.Jesus said in John 6:63,"The words that I speak unto you,they are spirit,and they are life". In like manner,you create whatever you say and the things begin to exist in the spiritual form.What you create through words also have life and they continue to live until they find physical expression.  This is exactly what happens when you pray.The things you declare in prayer come alive and begin to exist in their spiritual form.They remain in that spiritual form until they are converted to their tangible equivalent through work. Jesus said,"until now you have asked nothing in My name.Ask,and you will receive,that your joy may be full" (John 16:24). Don't make the mistake of relaxing after you have pray...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Partaker Of Other People's Sins? - Pastor E.A Adeboye

By
Open Heavens Daily Devotional Friday July 15th 2016 Memory Verse: Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure. - 1 Timothy 5:22 Bible Reading: 2 Chronicles 18:28-34 28. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead.  29. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and will go to the battle; but put thou on thy robes. So the king of Israel disguised himself; and they went to the battle.  30. Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of the chariots that were with him, saying, Fight ye not with small or great, save only with the king of Israel.  31. And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, It is the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to fight: but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.  32.For it came to pass, that, whe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dominion Mandate Daily Devotional Friday, March 18th 2016

By
You Must Forgive Yourself Hebrews 12:1-11 You have heard quite a lot about forgiving those that have offended you – and that you must do. It happens often that the person you must really forgive is yourself. You may have committed an offence or a sin and your conscience has condemned you, just as the Holy Spirit has chastised you. You may also have repented of this sin, confessed it to God and resolved not to go back that way. But you discover that the heaviness, clouded vision, and the erosion of confidence occasioned by the sin you committed continue to weigh you down. At such moments, you need to make another type of confession to God in order to regain your liberty from the weight that holds you down. You have to confess your unbelief in His word that says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). When you have genuinely repented of a sin and confessed it to God; and you have pleaded ...
Post a Comment
Read more