Philippians 4:8–"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
My personality is such that I am prone to obsessiveness. This means that at all hours of the night I may be found lying awake in bed thinking intensely about life. Admittedly, this is both a gift and a curse for sometimes it is beneficial to have the ability to earnestly consider life while at other times it would be nice to just go to sleep.
All this being said, though I do not in any way promote others to try to think like me, I would say that Paul is asking the Christian man and woman to take seriously the call to think. But this is not merely a call to think like you would normally think, rather, this sort of thinking is one of focused intensity aimed at those things that are true, right, and beautiful.
In other words, Paul isn't asking us merely to think as we would already think about those common things that we already think about. No, Paul is imploring us to think about God and the stuff of God: beauty, justice, excellence, holiness, honor, et al.
The point, ultimately, would be that we would take our faith as seriously as we take every other thing in our lives. After all, how many of us have expired our intellects on our schedules, our families, our homes, our jobs, our relationships, etc.? Humans seem prone to intense and arduous thought about any number of different things or people; Paul is asking that we would focus that ability at the right things: God.
My earnest prayer, then, is that we would make it an active part of our lives to think heavily about God and godliness. In the end, wouldn't we do the same for anyone we claim to love–why should God be any different?
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