THOUGHTS PROVOKE ACTION

THOUGHTS PROVOKE ACTION

“What think you of the Christ? Matt. 22:42

My business in this article is to ask you quietly in your individual and personal capacity, to answer this question. “What think you of the Christ? Matt. 22:42

Here, everything depends, as everywhere else, upon what a man thinks. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," (Prov. 23:7) so said the Preacher of old. Your attitude toward Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him are alike based upon what you think of Him. Is He both Master and Lord? (John 13:13) Peter thought that to be true at that point but his actions didn’t confirm his thinking. He operated out of the flesh instead of the spirit which at that point needed to be quickened. You may turn that round if you will and state it thus, your attitude toward Christ results from what you think of Christ, and therefore reveals what you think of Christ. Consequently, the answer to this question is not an answer that can be made by the recitation of a creed. The answer to this question is not an answer that can be made by an affirmation or declaration of the lips. The answer to this question you are giving every day. Do you live a life by flesh or spirit leadership? There is a sense in which you can answer this question conclusively in this article, but you are answering it every day and every hour. If I in this message say to you what I think of Christ, I may do it with perfect sincerity, but I cannot convince you that what I say I think is the thing I think. How will you find out what I think of Christ? You can find out only if you know me in my everyday life, in my everyday activity, in what is my constant relation to Christ. A man's thought of Christ creates a man's attitude toward Christ, therefore I repeat, a man's attitude toward Christ reveals what the man's thought of Christ really is. Herein is the importance of this question. In the asking of it we pass beyond the externalities to the internal things of life. In asking this question we come into the very deepest of us. As I ask this question of my own heart, or let me put it in this way, as I let Christ Himself ask me, "What do you think of me?" it is not a mere question of speculation. It is in the last analysis a question that gets deeper down than the things which are upon the surface, to the very springs and fountains of my being. It does matter utmost for today and tomorrow, and the great forever of God, what I think of Him, because all my relation to Him depends upon that, and because what I am going to be in my own life depends entirely upon what I think of Christ. I stay here because if only I can fix your thought upon the importance of the question the battle is half won and the work is half done. All activity is the result of thought. A CONCEPTION ALWAYS UNDERLIES A DEED. Everything you do in any relationship of life is the direct outcome of some underlying thought, some conception. To put it in another way, AT THE BACK OF ALL ACTIVITY IS REASON, behind every choice that a man makes there is an impelling cause, and that impelling cause is a thought, a conception in the particular realm in which the activity is manifest. I watch what you do. I cannot watch what you think, but I can know what you think from what you do. We may be helped to an understanding of this question by a trivial illustration. It is this: I stand upon the highway and I watch the men and women passing up and down, and I see one man cross over from one side to the other. It is a manifest action, but before he crossed over he thought of crossing, and I know his prior thought by that simple action. It is a trivial illustration as I said, but lift it as high as you will, watch it in all the realms of human activity, from the lowest to the highest the same principle applies. WHAT YOU THINK IS MANIFEST IN WHAT YOU DO. We need to operate with the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16)