You'd Better Think!

While flipping through the television stations last night, I came across an old MSNBC taped interview. The interview was with Jeffery Dahmer, the notorious serial killer from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Normally I would click to another channel, but something he said while I was watching caused me to watch further. The man conducting the interview asked Dahmer if he thought he was accountable for his actions. The answer Dahmer gave sent chills up and down my spine. Dahmer said that he never thought he would be accountable to anyone because he believed in evolution and the philosophy that it taught - survival of the fittest. His life, as he described it, was an intentional preying on individuals he considered "inferior." His worldview dictated to him that he was superior and that death brought about the end of existence. In his mind, there was no God or gods waiting to judge him and no heaven to be gained or hell to be punished in. Since he believed that with all his heart, he was going to do what he wanted in his life with no concern about what anyone thought or did.

As I meditated upon what he said, I began to think of how important a role our thinking plays in our actions that we take. The Bible says in Proverbs that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Jeffery Dahmer's thinking was dominated by a foundational idea, one that is taught with great religious vigor in our schools, universities, and media. The idea of evolution has no basis in reality, but is taught as an established scientific "fact." It was this foundational idea, however, that laid the groundwork and set off a chain of events that led Jeffery Dahmer to take the actions that he did.
  
Our thinking will be dominated by some foundational idea that in turn will determine the actions we take. The Bible instructs us to think God's thoughts after Him and to take every thought captive unto Christ Jesus. When we stray from God's thoughts about life and death or anything else, we open ourselves up to some other authoritarian source of information about those topics. Many times the results are catastrophic.

As we head into 2011, let our hearts and minds continually meditate on God's Holy Word so that His word may dwell richly in our hearts and dictate the proper actions that we should take in all circumstances.

Pastor Don