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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for January 4, 2010
“Thought Fasting”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
You don’t want a blood clot in your brain.
If a blood clot blocks an artery to your brain, you are going to have a stroke.
A stroke will mess with your vision and your speech and even your ability to move properly.
If a blood clot triggers a stroke, and they wheel you into the emergency room, they might give you a drug called tPA, which stands for “tissue plasminogen activator.”* And the tPA will do an amazing thing: dissolve the blood clot.
If left to itself, the blood clot will do more and more damage. But the sooner you begin the tPA treatment, the less damage there will be.
Now listen to this. I think certain thoughts that we think are like blood clots to the brain. If left to themselves, they will do damage. And the worst of these are sinful thoughts.
There are some thoughts that are simply wrong. They are sinful. They pop up in our heads and we leave them there. We think about them. Then we move on, but the next thing you know, we are thinking about them again.
The thing about sinful thoughts is, no one can see them. On the outside you can look like the picture of spiritual health, but on the inside is this mental blood clot, this sinful thought.
So no one can help you, no one can hold you accountable because they can’t see it. But just like a physical blood clot, a mental blood clot will cause damage if you don’t take action. It will block the life-giving flow to your mind. It will mess with your vision and your speech and even your ability to move properly.
So how can you treat the blood clot of a sinful thought? And I’m not talking about a sinful thought that blips into your mind and is gone just as fast. I’m talking about sinful thoughts that reoccur. Thoughts that we entertain, that we put up with, that we even enjoy. You might refer to them as your “guilty pleasure.”
Well if it’s a sinful thought, it’s a destroyer. It’s a blood clot blocking life to your brain, and it needs to be treated. It needs to be dissolved.
Can you picture a blood clot dissolving? Can you see it slowly losing mass, shedding its outer particles as it becomes less and less dangerous until it finally just completely dissolves?
Well it needs to be done, and the sooner the better, and the question is how? How can we rid ourselves of a sinful thought? How can we dissolve it?
Well here’s one treatment. I call it a “thought fast.” No, it doesn’t mean you stop thinking. But it does mean you pick out that one particular sinful thought and you go on a fast from thinking it.
Yes, I realize we should fast from all sinful thoughts forever, but that’s kind of like playing whack-a-mole. You’ll spend all your time whacking at sinful thoughts that pop up, but won’t really gain much ground.
So let’s just focus on one sinful thought. Pick out the granddaddy, the big one that just lurks back there, always there, ready to seize your attention.
And now just set a time. Say, “I won’t think about that, not even for one second, for the month of January.”
Again, I realize we should say, “I won’t think that sinful thought ever again,” and that is the eventual goal, but let’s go back to the original picture. We want to dissolve the blood clot. We want to shred it, particle by particle.
And that is what will happen as we starve it. As we fast from a particular thought, it will dissolve. Fast it for one day, and it will lose a few particles. Fast it for a week and it will lose more particles.
Now here’s an example. There was a woman who said that she thought about a particular man every single day. He was on her mind as soon as she woke up, and he was on her mind all day. The problem was, he was not her husband.
Now that’s a sinful thought! It was a guilty pleasure. She enjoyed it, but it was a destroyer. It was a mental blood clot, blocking the flow of true life in her thinking. But it would basically seize her. What could she do about it?
Well here’s what she could do. She could fast from thinking about him. Every time that thought tried to seize her, she could just boot it from her brain, not even let it enter.
Some might say that’s impossible, but let me tell you, it’s totally possible! You just tell yourself, “Don’t go there.” You immediately steer your thinking elsewhere.
And you can even plot the course of your thinking. For example, she could plan that every time she thought of him, she could sing “I Surrender All.” It would become a knee jerk reaction. A thought of him would trigger I Surrender All. You could even add a step three and a four and a five. “My thoughts will travel down this path every time that sinful thought pops up.”
Take control of your thinking this year! You aren’t a slave to sinful thoughts!
God will provide a way out, and this is it. Thought fasting – it’s a way out of destructive thinking.
Ephesians 4 tells us to put off the old man, “…which grows corrupt…” and to be renewed in our minds. A thought fast is a great way to put off the old man, the old corrupt way of thinking.
Get rid of it! Dissolve that old mental blood clot. Starve it to death!
As I close I’m thinking about a song by Ricardo Sanchez (a great New Year’s song, by the way) called “Moving Forward.”
And sometimes I’ll change the lyrics to a song to fit my situation, so I’ll change Ricardo’s lyrics to say this:
“I'm not going back, I'm moving ahead.
I’m here to declare to you, my past is over!
In You, all thoughts are made new.
I’ve surrendered my mind to Christ.
I’m moving, moving forward!”
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
(close with excerpt from Moving Forward by Ricardo Sanchez.)
* http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Blood+Clots
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4751
© 2009 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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