We make our thoughts, and our thoughts make us!

Matthew 5:27-32

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘You have learnt how it was said: You must not commit adultery. But I say this to you: if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye should cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of you than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And if your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of you than to have your whole body go to hell. ‘It has also been said: Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal. But I say this to you: everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of fornication, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’

Food for thought! When you rule your mind, you rule your world!

Jesus continues to teach us new things. He says, "You have learnt how it was said... But I say this to you." Jesus is setting a new standard of teaching and living. The Old Testament Law laid it down: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exo.20:14). So serious was this law of adultery that the guilty parties could be punished by nothing less than death (Lev.20:10). Once again Jesus lays it down that not only the forbidden action, but also the forbidden thought is guilty in the sight of God. For Jesus, our thoughts mold the kind of people we become and are as important as our behavior.

It is necessary that we should understand what Jesus is saying here. He is not speaking of the natural, normal desire, which is part of human instinct and human nature. The wo/man who is condemned is the wo/man who looks at a wo/man with the deliberate intention of lusting after her or him. The wo/man who is condemned is the wo/man who deliberately uses the eyes to awaken lust. Such a person looks in such a way that passion is awakened and desire deliberately stimulated.

In a tempting world there are many things which are deliberately designed to excite desire, books, pictures, plays, even advertisements. The person whom Jesus here condemns is the man or woman who deliberately uses the eyes to stimulate the desire. To the pure all things are pure; to the sick all things are sick. The person whose heart is defiled can look at any scene and find something in it to titillate and excite the wrong desire. This is what Jesus is condemning.

Like we said yesterday: "It was Jesus' teaching that thoughts are just as important as deeds, and that it is not enough not to commit a sin; the only thing that is enough is not to wish to commit it in the first place. It was Jesus' teaching that a man is not judged only by his deeds, but is judged even more by the desires which never translated in deeds."

And talking of thoughts, you know that if you can rule your thoughts you can rule your world. Thought—the act or process of thinking—is one of the greatest powers we possess, and like most powers it can be used positively or negatively, as we choose. A great majority of people have never been taught how to use thought, the master power of the mind. It is just as essential to know how to think correctly as it is to know how to speak or write correctly. Ernest Holmes, founder of Science of Mind, believes “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it." In other words, the mind is everything; what you think, you become.

We make our thoughts, and our thoughts make us.