Genesis 8:20-21 – Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
From the above scripture we can see that the Lord who created the heavens and the earth and every creature on earth looked at man and saw that the heart of man is inclined towards evil thoughts. And the bible says, ”as a man thinketh so he is”- Proverbs 23:7.
Hence, a man who is constantly thinking evil is an evil man, and if every man on earth is thinking evil, the world will be full of evil. Thank God for Jesus who came and abolished that pattern.
The fall of man is what we can point at to be the cause of the evil thought patterns of man. When man disobeyed God at the Garden of Eden, there was a disconnect from the source of life; good life. There was a disconnect from the good God who thinks only of good and no evil towards His children- Jeremiah 29:11
Because every man is born in a natural state of sin, there is always the tendency of man to think, ponder upon and perhaps indulge in sinful traits such as:
- Jealousy
- lust
- Selfishness
- anger
- adultery
- pride
- covetousness
- envy etc….
And the list goes on and on, they may look or sound trivial but these things stems all the evil in the world.
For example, it was adultery that led David to strategize to kill Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba. He probably did this in order to cover his heap of evil which started off as lust, then adultery.
Numerous examples exist in the bible and even in the world around us today.
If Jesus had not come to bridge the gap between man and God, man would continue in this state. And the world would have been a lot of crazy by now ( Yes, I know we have a measure of crazy in the world at the moment) – perhaps it would have been hundred folds of what we have now.
This was the state of the world many years ago, the period Noah lived. God looked upon the earth and saw that everybody was wicked and full of evil thoughts. – Genesis 6:5-6. Noah was about the only man that lived at that time and pleased God.
But thank God for Jesus who came to change the story of man, the story of the fallen man who abhors evils thoughts. I can only imagine a world where every man was saved and every man’s thoughts were just clean and Godly.
- Jesus came and made it possible for every man who believes in Jesus to be able to live an evil-free life.
- Jesus came and brought hope to humanity; hope to experience peace.
- Jesus came and brought hope for man to be able to think and ponder on things true, worthy, of good report, lovely, honest and hence become amazing men & women.
What am I trying to say?
- Every man/woman born of a woman needs to be born again of the spirit of God to be able to resist the power of evil thoughts.I Peter 1:3
- Every man/woman needs to keep renewing His mind with the word of God to be able to resist the power of evil thoughts. Romans 12:2
- Every man/ woman needs to be mindful of the kind of friendships he/she keeps because evil communication leads to corruption.I Corinthians 15:33
May the good Lord help us to keep our minds stayed upon Him and keep our minds pure,Holy and full of only good thoughts in Jesus name.
Note: wherever I used man, I also mean women too. ::)