And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Phil 4:8; NLT). The battle with stress in your life begins between your ears. It’s in your thought life. What you fill your mind with determines your level of stress. If you want peace of mind, you have to control what you allow into your mind. For most people, the mind is like a freeway. They let anything drive through it. They watch shows full of junk and nonsense, scroll through polarising social media sites, and listen to gossip that makes them envious. Then they are surprised when their minds freeway becomes polluted with these things. And they wonder why their stress is so high.
The Bible offers another way. Philippians 4:8 says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. To lower your stress, change what you think about. In this verse, the Bible gives you eight tests for deciding what you should allow in your mind. Ask yourself; is it good, worthy of praise, true, beautiful and respected?
Think about the course of your week — the conversations you had, the books you read, the songs you listened to, the websites you scrolled, the TV and movies you watched and the things you did with your free time. How do all of these things hold up to that eight-question test? Are the things you put into your mind all week suitable, worthy of praise, true honourable, right, pure, beautiful, and respected? If not, it’s time to start filling your mind with these new traits. Each one of those eight attributes describes God. To know God is to have these traits in your daily life. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You.” Whatever is happening around you and what you think about determines how much stress you feel. If you fix your thoughts on God, He will keep you in perfect peace.
