thinking | Craig T. Owens

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Links & Quotes

September 14, 2024 — Craig T. Owens

Christians should run their entire race with joy—we should soar across the finish line! Check out this full sermon on Psalm 132.

I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

“Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.” —C.S. Lewis

John Piper points out that thinking and knowing are essential for Christian maturity, but there is also a danger in knowledge. How do we find the correct balance?

I talked about a Christian’s self-examination this week, and then I came across this from T.M. Moore: “Christians do not fear to examine themselves. Especially when it seems something may be lacking in our walk with and work for the Lord, we need to heed the words of the apostle Paul and do some serious soul-searching and altering of our life course (2 Corinthians 13:5). Examining ourselves involves carefully considering how we use our time (Ephesians 5:15-17) as well as what’s going on in our soul and our life. We must not fear to examine ourselves nor resent when others may encourage us to do so.”

Darryl Cooper’s revisionist history of Winston Churchill and World War II is flawed on so many levels. John Stonestreet does a great job debunking most of Cooper’s points, but we should also read history for ourselves and be able to answer those who would twist it for their own purposes.

God’s messengers call people to consider the way they are currently living in comparison to the way God has called them to behave. Wise people will heed this call and repent from any ways that deviate from God’s way. I talked in more depth about Haggai and his message of considering our ways in my series on the minor prophets.

“Come to Jesus by quitting every other hope, by thinking of Him, believing God’s testimony about Him, and trusting everything to Him. If you thus come to Him, the rest which He will give you will be deep, safe, holy, and everlasting.” —Charles Spurgeon

One more from T.M. Moore: “We will only hunger and thirst for more of the Lord and His promises as we consider how far short of that might and greatness we fall. … I suspect that most Christians today are fairly satisfied with the state of their faith. They have a ‘good enough’ experience of Jesus and they’re not really thirsting for much more. But the work of shepherds is to help people realize that splashing around in the mud puddle of faith is not to be compared with sailing on the ocean of God’s grace and power.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 2 Corinthians, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, Christianity, Ephesians, Haggai, history, John Piper, John Stonestreet, joy, quotes, self-examination, T.M. Moore, thinking, video, Winston Churchill, World War II. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 27, 2024 — Craig T. Owens

I can forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in me. Check out this whole message here. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it (2 Kings 18:9). The Bible Archeology Report puts together wonderful biographies of biblical characters based on archeological discoveries that corroborate the account in Scripture. Here is the biography of Assyrian King Shalmaneser V.

Meteorologist Dr. Roy Spencer writes, “Atmospheric CO2 levels will start to fall even with modest reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Why is that? The reason is due to something called the CO2 ‘sink rate.’ It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess.” Imagine that! It’s almost as if the Creator of the Universe knew exactly what He was doing.

J. Warner Wallace makes the case that the origin of the universe points to a Creator—but he does so without using Scripture.

“You will not be able to extemporize good thinking unless you have been in the habit of thinking and feeding your mind with abundant and nourishing food.” —Charles Spurgeon

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 2 Kings, apologetic, archeology, Bible study, biblical history, biography, Charles Spurgeon, Creator, forgiveness, J. Warner Wallace, meditation, quotes, thinking, unforgiveness, video. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—As We Think

February 12, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

The thought manifests the word;

The word manifests the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

And habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let them spring forth from love

Born out of compassion for all beings.

As the shadow follows the body, as we think,

So we become. —Juan Mascaro

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Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: character, Juan Mascaro, poem, poetry, thinking, thought life, thoughts. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Yesees and Noees

February 27, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

The Yesees said yes to anything

That anyone suggested.

The Noees said no to everything

Unless it was proven and tested.

So the Yesees all died of much too much

And the Noees all died of fright,

But somehow I think the Thinkforyourselfees

All came out all right. —Shel Silverstein

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Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: no fear, poem, poetry, Shel Silverstein, thinking, tradition. Leave a Comment »

What We Believe

November 14, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“Never run away with the idea that it doesn’t matter much what we believe or think; it does. What we believe and think, we are; not what we say we believe and think, but what we really do believe and think, we are; there is no divorce at all.” —Oswald Chambers, in Run Today’s Race

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: belief, Oswald Chambers, quote, thinking, thought life. Leave a Comment »

8 Quotes From Gordon MacDonald In “Ordering Your Private World”

September 27, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

In the quiet solitude of our inner lives is where real growth takes place. Or said another way: if we won’t make time to order our private world, our public world will be limited in its scope and effectiveness. Gordon MacDonald unpacks some fantastic principles to help us in his newly updated and expanded book Ordering Your Private World. Check out my full book review by clicking here, and then enjoy these quote from Gordon MacDonald.

“There is a busyness that reflects a plan of activity, a pattern of priorities, and a sense of purposefulness. It is a good and satisfying busyness through which one grows and increases competence. But there is also a busyness (a destructive busyness, actually) that reflects a chaotic way of life—a way of doing in which one is simply responding to the next thing in the day. The next thing! It makes no difference whether it has significance; it’s just the next thing, and one does it because it’s there to do.”

“A soul—our spiritual space—is empty when one tries to do soul-based things but makes little or no effort to keep that soul filled.”

“Driven people boast of their drivenness. They have forgotten how to play. Spiritual activity seems a waste of time. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship, or even to carry on a relationship with themselves—not to speak of one with God. Because driven people rarely think they have accomplished enough, they seize every available minute to attend more meetings, to study more material, to initiate more projects. They operate on the precept that a reputation for busyness is a sign of success and personal importance. Thus, they attempt to impress people with the fullness of their schedules.”

“Our careers, our assets, our natural and spiritual gifts, our health—are these things owned, or merely managed in the name of the One who gave them? Driven people consider them owned; called people do not. When driven people lose those things, it is a major crisis. When called people lose them, nothing of substance changes. The private world remains the same, perhaps even stronger.”

“It is worth taking time to ask how Our Lord’s command of time is demonstrated. … The first thing that impresses me is that Jesus clearly understood His mission. … A second insight into Jesus’ personal organization of time is that He understood His own limits. … Jesus included a third important element in His strategy of time budgeting, for He set time aside for the training of the Twelve.”

“Unmanaged time flows toward my weaknesses. Unmanaged time comes under the influence of dominant people in my world. Unmanaged time surrenders to the demands of all emergencies. Unmanaged time gets invested in things that gain public acclamation.”

“The unthinking Christ-follower does not realize it, but he is dangerously absorbed into the culture about him. Because his mind is untrained and unfilled, it lacks the ability to produce the hard questions with which the world needs to be challenged. The private world of a Christ-follower will be weak, defenseless, and disorganized if serious attention has not been given to this sector of intellectual growth.”

“We do not develop our intellects merely for our own personal advancement, but we put our thinking power to work for the use of others. … As my mind grows, it may make possible the growth of others.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: busyness, Christianity, disciples, Gordon MacDonald, health, Jesus Christ, maturity, mind, personal growth, quiet, quotes, relationships, solitude, soul, spiritual growth, thinking, time management. 2 Comments »

Thursdays With Oswald—Where Are Your Feet?

July 20, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Where Are Your Feet?

“Where did Jesus placed His feet? He placed them by the sick and the sorrowful, by the dead, by the bad, by the twisted and by the good. He placed His feet exactly where we have to place ours…, in the ordinary rough and tumble of human life as it is. ‘I will make the place of My feet glorious [Isaiah 60:13].’”

From Run Today’s Race

Run Today’s Race contains short statements from Oswald Chambers intended to stimulate Christians to ponder things like:

All of Isaiah 60 is about God’s glory being revealed on earth through Jesus Christ. Am I letting Christ’s glory shine through my life?
Do I only look for “super-spiritual” moments, or am I aware that God can make wherever I place my feet a glorious place?
Am I willing to go wherever God needs me to go?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Christianity, discipleship, God's glory, Isaiah, Oswald Chambers, questions, thinking. 2 Comments »

Thursdays With Oswald—Take The Initiative

July 6, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Take The Initiative

In every place you are in, insist on taking the initiative for God.

Looking for opportunities to serve God is an impertinence; every time and all the time is our opportunity of serving God.

From Run Today’s Race

Run Today’s Race contains short statements from Oswald Chambers intended to stimulate Christians to ponder things like:

Do I think I can only do big things for God in special moments?
Do I realize that I am always salt and light wherever I go and whatever I am doing?
Instead of looking for opportunities, am I seizing the opportunities God is continually giving me?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: carpe diem, Christian, Christianity, initiative, maturity, opportunity, Oswald Chambers, questions, quotes, serve, thinking. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Oswald—Is Your Religion Rotten?

February 16, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Is Your Religion Rotten?

No man can redeem his own soul, or give himself a new heredity; that is the work of the sovereign grace of God. Man has nothing to do with Redemption, it is God’s “bit”; but God cannot give a man a good character, that is not God’s business, nor is it an inevitable thing. God will give us what we cannot give ourselves, a totally new heredity (see Luke 11:13). God will put the disposition of His Son, Holy Spirit, into any man who asks, then on that basis man has to work out a holy character. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you….” [Philippians 2:12]

If your religion does not make you a better man, it is a rotten religion. The test of true religion is when it touches these four things—food, money, sex and mother earth. These things are the test of a right sane life with God, and the religion that ignores them or abuses them is not right. … A man needs to hold a right attitude to all these things by means of his personal relationship to God.

From Shade Of His Hand

God gives Christians a new heredity—a new way of looking at life through a relationship with Jesus Christ—by placing His Holy Spirit in us. That, as Chambers says, is God’s bit.

What we do with this new heredity—this new way of looking at life—is our bit.

So… how are you doing? Does your relationship with Jesus Christ help you handle food, money, sex and mother earth in God-honoring ways? Is the Holy Spirit able to correct your attitude so it aligns with the biblical viewpoint on these topics?

If you can answer “yes” to those questions, your religion is true. If not, Chambers says you have “a rotten religion.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bible, Christian, God's Word, Gospel of John, Gospel of Luke, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, lifestyle, Oswald Chambers, personal experience, regeneration, Revelation, Scripture, thinking. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Oswald—Thinking Like Christians

June 30, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

Thinking Like Christians

The New Testament insists on an instructed mind as well as a vital experience. …

There is always a quarrel between our common sense and the revelations made in God’s Book. We must lose our soul in order to find it. We have to be born from above and receive the Holy Spirit into our spirit, and then begin to construct another soul, or way of reasoning, and to do this we must accept not only the facts that come to us through our common sense, but the facts that come by revelation. We say seeing is believing, but it is not. We must believe a thing is possible before we should believe it even though we saw it (John 20:29). …

Our beliefs will mock us unless something comes into us from God, because nothing has any power to alter us save the incoming of the life of God. The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes experimentally real in us what Jesus Christ did for us. … The great need for men and women is to receive the Holy Spirit. Our creeds teach us to believe in the Holy Spirit; the New Testament says we must receive Him (Luke 11:13). Are you powerless in your life? Then, for Christ’s sake, get at Reality! Ask God for the Holy Spirit. …

We starve our minds as Christians by not thinking, and we cannot think as Christians until we are born from above. So many of us have a good spiritual experience, but we have never thought things out on Christian lines. It is just as true that a man may live a Christian life without thinking as that a man may think a Christian life without living it. We have to learn to combine the two, and to do this we must build up our minds on these great truths.

From The Psychology Of Redemption

How are you doing at thinking AND living a Christian life? To do both, you must receive the Holy Spirit, and begin to rely on Him for both Christian thinking and living.