Everyone has their obsession; you are mine.

When I was young (or, rather, younger) I spoke boldly.
I fearlessly spoke of things I didn't know. Without fear of repercussion, I invoked the vast abstracts of love, grace and forgiveness. I am unsure if this was out of naivety, hope or passion, but somehow or another, I got to thinking I had the right to sail upon these words, although I had never really left the shoreline of youthful thinking.
Now that I am older, I live boldly.
Having been through fire and scathed, I have realized the necessary reverence of the vocabulary I once used regularly. I do not claim maturity or wisdom, but have been tested and tried in my sincerity to these weighty ideals. I do not tread lightly over grace and love and forgiveness, words now seen as fearful tides.
I believe in love. I believe in grace. The weight of these words have crushed me; left me broken and weak, seemingly defeated, because the meaning of words like these are deeper than I ever realised. I daresay, if I had foreknown the absolute reality of such crushing truths, I probably would have preferred to live, die and be a part of soft lies.
When I was young(er), I believed in the impact of such words, now I am impacted BY such words; wrestled to the floor where I must face the small honesty that in order to define love, one must be destroyed by it. These scars are our medals, and they speak of battles that should have been lost, but were won on more eternal fields than these.

Sanctified by glory and fire

Joshua Mills posted a couple weeks ago in his blog about the abortion of sin from our lives and thought. I've been thinking about this considerably lately. Josh, at one point, says:

Outward sin is only the manifestation of an inward oppression. Sin is developed within your heart and within your mind, and your mind is subject to whatever your eyes attach themselves to. Simply put, your mind goes where your eyes go, and your body goes where you mind goes.

Sin is conceived much like a child. It begins small and you at first don't even acknowledge it's existence. But it slowly grows and develops and the more you stay within the sin the more you nurture it and allow it to grow.

So our thoughts are pregnancy and our actions are the birth of that contemplation. Intentionally being impregnated by evil or depraved thoughts leads to knowingly concieving a creature bent on killing your own destruction. We know that the outcome of sin is death, so esentially we are giving birth to our own death; like thinking "I am going to give birth to something inhuman whose soul goal is to lead me to destruction".
That seems crazy.
If our "mind goes where our eyes go, and our body goes where our mind goes", why not lead it to something that DOESN'T want to kill us? Better yet, why not be lead to birth a new, eternal life.
Yeah, that sounds better, how do we do it? Paul seems to have it figured out when he tells the Church at Philippi:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
(phil 4:8)

Be made into the home of thought that will not lead you to demise! Dwelling on the lovely things of God transforms us to look more like Him in those ways. When we arrest our thoughts to righteousness, we (or, rather, the Holy Spirit) birth newness in ourselves. We become made new, resembling our father in heaven. Be holy, be made new, don't be enslaved to anything but righteousness (which is freedom). Let yourself be someone who breathes life into places of death, not the other way around.