Nothing in our lives is more important than our thoughts. Writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once explained, “Sow a thought and you reap an act, sow an act and you reap a habit, sow a habit and you reap a character.” Every person’s character is ultimately shaped by his thoughts. The Bible says the same thing in another way: “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).
We have heard a great deal in recent days about the power of positive thinking. The Bible speaks of the power of all thinking. A person is what he thinks about all day long. Occasionally we learn of someone we have highly respected falling into a great sin. Such a fall does not occur overnight. People fall slowly, and moral deterioration may proceed without be...