If there is a nutshell in which you will find the motivating factor for the things I write, I would point to Isaiah 55:8.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
If this is true, and if the Christians goal is to be “Like Christ”, then it would seem to me that a great deal of intellectual effort is needed to find the correct “thoughts” and “ways”.
Mark 12:30 “…and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
We are bombarded on all sides with information that is contrary to the thoughts and ways of God. To muddy the waters more, our Enemy can (and often does) appear as an angel of light. It is clear to me that one cannot walk in a manner that is pleasing to God without a constant awareness of this fact, and a lifestyle that aggressively seeks to not be deceived. In the three Temptations of Christ, it’s interesting to me that His intellect paid a significant part in His resistance to Satan’s attempts to knock Him off path. Jesus used His knowledge to respond. I suppose He could have just waved His hand and said, “Be gone!”, but He didn’t. He responded to each temptation with an expression of what He knew the truth to be.
This is not to diminish the importance of the Spiritual. Clearly, to live a life of obedience to God is an effort of futility without the rebirth and guidance of the Holy Spirit. However, the intellect and the Holy Spirit are not mutually exclusive. This is not an either/or proposition. Rather it is what we know that can sustain us when we feel nothing. I think Job is the greatest example of this. Job 13:15 “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him…”
We must remember that emotions and feelings are the least reliable source for accurate information. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?
One of the ways we can start to move in a direction that brings us in better alignment with His ways and thoughts is to…
“Pause to Think”.