The overall perspective from which you see and interpret the world is called your worldview. Whether you realize it or not, everything you observe filters through your worldview grid for interpretation. Your beliefs about God, the universe, mankind’s history, science, theology, and moral values will shape and color your impressions of people, possessions, and events.

For a believer in Christ, God’s Word should be the foundation for how we interpret life. In fact, most of the adult life of a committed Jesus-follower is spent trying to overwrite wrong ideas about God, myself, others and creation with correct ideas from God’s Word. But such commitment is exceptional.  Barna reported this year that only 17% of professing Christians in America have a biblical worldview.

My View of the Beginning and the End

Hebrews 11:3 says that through faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. If there is no God, all things are permissible. But if there is a Creator, we belong to Him. If He created us as moral beings, we are answerable to Him. If He created us as relational beings, He desires a relationship with us.

If a believer is convinced of the mystery in Col.1:27 – Christ in you, the hope of glory – convinced that the Spirit of the Creator-God and of His Redeemer-Son is inside him or her, and is the down-payment on a perfect and deathless existence with Him, his or her grid is going to look immensely different from a person that is not at all viewing life with that value.  Speaking with someone from a very different worldview is almost like going to a foreign country and using your own currency.

What is your worldview? Do you really believe that God made the heavens and the earth and that one day there will be a reckoning of all we do here on earth?  Do I really need to be reconciled to my Creator God?  Does the way I live my life really matter? Am I living as though the here and now is all that matters?

A Word-Saturated Worldview

Hebrews 4:12 describes the Word of God as living, powerful, and sharp.  It has the ability to discern thoughts and intents of the heart. Do I even know my own heart’s thoughts and intents?  No. Jeremiah said we struggle with clouded and distorted self-perceptions (Jer. 17:9). We need a light, an objective perspective!  Psalm 119:105 volunteers God’s Word as a lamp for our feet and a light for our path.

This morning I received an email from a former student of mine that I taught in 8th grade back in the 80’s. He remembered that in my class we had memorized James chapter 1 together. He went on to say that years later when he “turned control of his life over to Christ” (his words), he began to actively memorize not just verses, but passages, psalms, and whole chapters.  He wrote me today because he had just memorized his tenth book of the New Testament!  I was flabbergasted!  Yes, I did just use that word. 🙂  I am seeking to memorize Ephesians, but it is taking me a long time. I was inspired to work harder at filling my thoughts with the living word.

So what does this have to do with being th(i)nkful?  Quite simply, because God has commands throughout the whole of scripture to be thankful.  That thankfulness is not to be merely sporadic, but pursued obsessively (Eph. 5:4, 20; I Thess. 5:18). When we pursue thinking thanks in every situation that we are in, we filter what we are experiencing through the grid that God is worthy of our worship in this specific situation.  He has created us and given us the air to breathe. He has provided for the complete removal of our sins. He has reconciled the rebels to Himself, not just for a quick hug, but adopting us into His forever family. He has made a home within our earthly bodies making them temples. He has marked us for reward and inheritance and glory. To fix my thinking is to fix my thanking.

• Thank You, God, for this day that I get to live.
• Thank You for fruit that you give along the way.
• Thank You that we have a grid in Your Word of how to interpret our world, our circumstances, and life.
• Thank You for grace that You pour out as we cry out to You.