Taming Your Private Thoughts

Rating:
Summary: Really Good Book
Review: This is a great book! I find it embarrassing to take it with me to work though because people will wonder "what have you been thinking about that's so important that you need to stop?". But that's part of the challenge that the Holy Spirit has sent my way and I'm cool with that. I've always known that as a man thinketh so is he, but I've never come across such a practical study into that truth until now. Thanks Jay/Marilyn!

Rating:
Summary: Really Good Book
Review: This is a great book! I find it embarrassing to take it with me to work though because people will wonder "what have you been thinking about that's so important that you need to stop?". But that's part of the challenge that the Holy Spirit has sent my way and I'm cool with that. I've always known that as a man thinketh so is he, but I've never come across such a practical study into that truth until now. Thanks Jay/Marilyn!

Rating:
Summary: Disapointed
Review: While this book masterfully outlines the process of how thought becomes sin it misses the point that thought is sin itself and misrepresents sin's consequences.

The book is replete with examples of how lives are ruined by sin originating in privite thoughts. Th "bad outcome" here is often loss of family, job, esteem etc.

This misses the point!

Scripture teaches that the origen of sin is selfishness and the consequences of sin is death.

To overcome sin we must approach it with a pure heart. The book implies that the reward of a sinfull life is worldly punishment (loss of family, job etc). This emphasis is not scriptural for even Job teaches us that Justice is not quid pro quo. Many sinners enjoy wealth , success and happiness while the saint's lot is often afflictions and the cross.

The important consequence of sin is not the lost of worldly things. The true cost is the loss of our relationship with God. Those sinners lucky enough to suffer affliction are blessed in that through such afflictions they have a chance for redemption and a closer bond with The Lord. Sinners who repent are the beloved prodical sons.

I bought this book expecting a deep exposition and spiritual guide to taming those thoughts that do not necessarily lead to a direct outward act but by their very presence distance us from God. I was hoping to learn how to empty myself and nullify the desires of the hidden mind to help remove these horrible and wretched obstacles between me and The Lord.

The wages of sin are death. Death is absence of God. In the eyes of God there is no gradation of sin. All sin renders us impure.

The lost soul must understand that sin is such an evil, repulsive and groutesqe thing that it should be avoided and hated for its own sake and not for its worldly consequences.

It is far better to suffer the worst of worldly afflictions then to commit the least of sins. To avoid sin in order to avoid consequences or worldly afflictions is not only to miss the mark but is the selfishness par excellance and therefore the very root of sin itself.

The book appears to advocate the selfish avoidance of worldly affliction as the primary reason to avoid sin. In doing so we paradoxically commit a great sin.

Sin must be abhorded for its own sake. If there were no worldy consequences or perhaps even great worldly rewards for sin we should still abhor it and willingly suffer affliction and find contentment.

The authors attempt to reach their audience by placing sin in a light that can be understood by the reader who by-and-large relates through worldly experiences.

This is our post-modern world. It cannot accept evil and good as absolute.

After this reading I find myself drawn back to our early Puritan roots and a time where clerics understood and preached sin as the evil of all evils.