My brain is a Command Centre. Just as space flights are monitored and controlled at Command Centre, so the thoughts which enter my brain are monitored and controlled there. Above my head I imagine a tube through which ideas and messages enter my brain, and this tube continues down into and out of my mouth. When my Command Centre has decided how these messages will be relayed, they proceed from my mouth to influence the thought life of another. My words can speak love or hate, encouragement or despair.
The message from the mouth of another or as a thought can be a message from God or a ploy of the evil one. I must monitor these thoughts and decide whether to use them, reject them, or store them to form my permanent thought patterns which will sooner or later proceed out of my mouth as a spoken word or action.
I was created in the image of God (Gen.1:27); I have the capacity to become like Him. I can never become His equal since I am only an image, but He also endowed me with a brain and a free will to decide whether I want to chisel my image to conform to His. I must decide to listen to God's messages and reject all others.
When Jesus was tempted by Satan who quoted scripture out of context to "turn stones into bread", He said, "Away from Me, Satan" (Luke 4:1-3). I, too, must dismiss ungodly thoughts. Should the thoughts persist, I, like Jesus, must tell Satan to go away. By myself, I have no power over Satan, so I will need to use Jesus' authority which He said He would give me to do this (Mark 16:17-18). Because I am not Jesus, I will need to say "IN THE NAME OF JESUS AND IN THE POWER OF HIS SHED BLOOD." Sometimes I may need the help of another Christian with more faith and power than I to speak these words for me, but I too must denounce ungodly thoughts.
There are three kinds of love: agape, fileo, and eros. Agape is a love which says, "I will love IN SPITE OF what another does to me" - a love from God which never gives up and does not ask for love in return. It causes me to love God, to love others, and also to love myself as God's beautiful and redeemed creation. If I have this love, there is not one of God's ten commandments in Exodus 20 that I would not want to keep. Jesus confirmed this when He said love was the most important of the Old Testament laws (Mark 12:30-31). Also, I would have all the fruits of the Christian life as outlined in Colossians 3 if I have the love of God, who loves me IN SPITE OF what I am and do. It is a three-way love flowing from God which I, in turn, give back to Him, to the world, and to myself.
Fileo is a brotherly love, an IF love. "IF you love me, then I will love you," a two-point love which leaves God out. Some relationships and marriages survive on this love, but if either party ceases to love, the marriage quickly breaks down.
Eros is an erotic love, a sexual love which uses another to satisfy his needs for companionship and sex without considering the needs and feelings of the other person. It is a selfish, demanding love. Marriage based on eros is doomed to failure because after the infatuation is over, only thought for self remains. It is a one-point love.
The messages which enter my brain can all be monitored by using the criterion of LOVE: "Is this thought unselfish, an agape love which will build up my relationship to God, to others, or edify my own soul? Is it a fileo love thought which is often good, but also leaves God out of the picture and is represented by secular humanism? Or is it a selfish sexual desire without concern for the other? Will the decision I make help or hinder my relationship with God and to others?"
I must love as Jesus loved. The only people He condemned were the self-righteous religious Pharisees. Yet when these same people indirectly engineered His death, He cried out, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). If I can love even those who hate me, I will become more like Jesus. Let me use love as a guide to monitor the messages hurled at me, and then my mouth will speak only messages of love.
I pray that my Command Centre may be able to separate good from evil so I can land my craft safely. If I fail to send out the right messages to my world around me, I will have trouble during my flight through life and my craft may blow up before landing.
© 1999, Doreen Palmer