Putting on the Mind of Christ

St. Paul places before us some important criteria for what should dictate the direction of our lives and our actions.

“Fill your minds with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good and pure, everything that we love and honour, and everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise.”

Imagine if we filled our minds, our lives, our home, our world with things which fit that bill. Imagine how much better off we would be. Imagine how much the peace of God would reign in our souls if we were to make a concerted effort to avoid all that is not true, not noble, not good, and downright impure.

But in today’s world that would mean making quite some effort to avoid these things totally. So I ask you – are you up to it. It’s certainly worth the effort – we all want to be at peace with God, we all want to lead the kind of existence that St. Paul places before us. But what are we willing to do to achieve it? Well a good start might be to ask ourselves a few questions:

Will the newspaper I read this day fill my mind with what is good and pure, will it present me with honourable and virtuous things, or will it corrupt my mind and steal my peace? There’s nothing wrong with reading the news, but what about all the stuff that comes with it? The intimate tell-all stories from the life of some star or other, the very impure and almost pornographic portrayal of the great gift of sexuality? Somehow the excuse – I only buy it for the sport – doesn’t seem to justify allowing that kind of thing sit on your coffee table, never mind filling your mind.

Another question: Are the programmes I will watch on Television this day wholesome viewing which promotes Christian values? Once again, will they fill my mind with what is good and pure? Would the values (or lack of them) promoted by these shows be acceptable to Christ? Will I switch off in disgust or will I allow it to fill my mind with what is so obviously not of God?

If the honest answer to these two simple question is that they do more harm than good, then maybe it’s time we bought a more reputable paper or that we changed our viewing patterns.