Christian Working Woman Transcript

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - Don’t Think for Yourself


"Think for yourself!" That's sounds good, doesn't it? Most of us would probably agree that we should think for ourselves, and not allow others to tell us how to think.

I'd like to suggest that for a Christian, it's a little different. Instead of "Think for yourself," our motto should be "Think biblically!" You see, thinking for ourselves can get us in an awful lot of trouble, because often our human reasoning and sinful nature will lead us into unbiblical avenues of thinking.

Our thought life is the place where everything else begins. Your actions begin with thoughts; your words begin with thoughts; your attitudes are formed by thoughts; your emotions are controlled by your thoughts. As we are reminded in Proverbs 23:7, what we think is what we are. Therefore, we need to be extremely aware of what we are thinking, and we really don't need to think for ourselves; we need to think biblically.

People who claim to be "thinking for themselves" are rarely doing just that. When you see someone rebelling against their parents, or against rules and regulations or authority of some kind, or going off into some deep end, they often use the excuse that "I'm thinking for myself and nobody's going to tell me how to think anymore." But what's really happening is that they are allowing some other person or group to tell them how to think instead of the ones who have been influencing their thinking up to that point. Rarely are they truly thinking for themselves.

Don't be misled by the attractiveness of this commonly-held belief that we should think for ourselves. It certainly appeals to our proud human nature, but it leads us to place a confidence in our ability to think correctly, and the sad news is, most of us don't think correctly on our own. We are all influenced by the world around us, the attitudes of others, the majority viewpoint, and in addition, our thought life is polluted by our own sinful nature.

Add all that up, and you realize that not only is it dangerous to think for ourselves, it's also fairly impossible, for our thinking is inevitably a result of other influences. For Christians, we need to be certain that our thinking is shaped by the Word of God and that we are influenced by what God has to say.