Everyone has a worldview. Everyone has someone informing and directing their values and views on what is right and wrong. Your worldview is the framework from which you view reality and make sense of life. It is your approach to understanding who God is and how we can be in relationship with Him.
The tension we live in as we strive to have a biblical worldview is a natural inclination towards elevating ourselves above God. As 2 Timothy 3:2 says, “For people will be lovers of self…” We have decided what is right based on the culture around us, our selfish desires, and whatever feels right to us. So, we must continually prioritize what God desires over our own opinions, preferences, and desires.
Thankfully, the Bible says a lot about how to turn away from ourselves and back toward God. In Romans 12, Paul tells us how to have a biblical worldview. He says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
To have a biblical worldview means that we:
1. Examine who and what is shaping our thinking.
Our thinking, views, and values are always being molded, and we can be put into a mold that isn’t what God desires. We must pay attention and know what shapes and forms us. Then we must decide to have a biblical worldview. We do this by seeking what scripture says about life’s issues, so we can learn to think God’s thoughts about life. Colossians 2:8 says it perfectly, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Who or what are you giving yourself to, apart from God?
Are you allowing God to mold your thinking, views, and values? Or are you allowing someone or something else to mold your thinking, views, and values?
2. Resist conforming our thoughts to anything other than God by seeking out God’s thoughts first.
We need to examine if what we hear from the world is biblical. God’s ways aren’t our ways, so we must learn to think as God thinks about the issues of life. We do this by looking to God’s ways in the words of scripture and through prayer. In Isaiah 55:8-9 the Lord declares this through the prophet: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
How are you prioritizing learning what God has to say about the issues of life?
Are you reading scripture and praying regularly?
3. Filter everything through the narrative of scripture.
The narrative of scripture unfolds in four parts:
- Creation – In the creation account, we see that God made all things good!
- Fall – Sin entered creation when humanity turned away from thinking the thoughts of God and began putting their desires before God’s desires for them. Turning away from God and toward sin caused us to be broken. Our sin places us under God’s judgment. It ruins our relationship with God, ourselves, and the creation around us. Sin is pervasive; there is nothing and no one in all creation that hasn’t been affected by sin.
- Redemption – Jesus died for us in our brokenness and sin and forgives all who place their trust and faith in Him. This is redemption! The power of sin has been broken through Jesus’ death. Now the effect of Jesus’ redemption is pervasive. There is no one in all creation who can’t be redeemed through the power of Jesus’ work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. Through Christ’s redemption, God can redeem anyone from anything at any time. We have peace with God.
- Restoration – The promise of God is that He is restoring all of creation and will make all things new when He returns. There is hope and purpose in Jesus. He doesn’t throw out the old; He restores the broken, making us new.
Are you filtering your thoughts through the narrative of scripture or through another philosophy or cultural value?
4. Offer your mind, heart, and whole life to God.
God has shown us abundant grace and mercy, withholding our punishment and placing it on Christ. Everything we have is a result of this mercy. When we experience this grace and mercy, we should recognize that God loves us so much! When we experience and remember the mercy God has for us, offering our lives back to God is a natural response. Giving God our whole lives is an act of obedience that comes with immense joy. Yielding your life, thoughts, views, and actions over to God is a joy when you’re doing it out of the mercy He has shown you.
Do you need to be reminded of the grace and mercy that God has poured out on your life?
What have you set aside from God that you need to offer back to Him?
5. Allow the Holy Spirit to shape and mold you.
Resistance to cultural philosophies, human traditions, and lies isn’t the end goal. We must replace those lies with the thoughts of Christ. We must dive deeply into knowing what God thinks about all of life and then allow the Holy Spirit to shape and mold our thinking, transforming our worldview into a biblical worldview.
How are you allowing the Holy Spirit to replace cultural philosophies, human traditions, and lies with the thoughts of Christ?
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