A Family Relationship With God

 As Christians, we have a been brought into A Family Relationship With God through our union with Christ, by faith. But we are expected to take responsibility for walking in spirit and truth, living as unto the Lord, trusting in the Word of God, depending on our Heavenly Father, submitting to the Holy Spirit, abiding in Christ, and appropriating all that is ours in Him, by faith.
 Righteous living depends on right thinking, and God has promised to keep in perfect peace the one whose mind stays on Him. He promised that He would garrison our heart, our mind, our emotions, and our innermost thoughts, as we focus our prayers and praises on Him with thanksgiving!
 We are so designed, that taking every thought captive to Christ and fixing our mind on Him is a conscious choice, which we all have to make when problems and difficulties arise in our mind, or when life's circumstances weigh heavily upon our heart.
 When anxious thoughts start to flood our minds or when we are tempted to sin, our immediate reaction should be to look to Jesus and to remember who we are in Christ. But too often, we allow anxious thoughts to drag us down into deep despair, but controlling our mind is a conscious choice. Controlling our thoughts is a deliberate decision of our self-will.
 Let us choose to focus our mind on that which is right and pure, lovely and of good repute, all these attributes are the fruit of the Spirit and point us to Christ Who alone is good and true, honorable and pure, righteous, virtuous, and praiseworthy.
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.

Our United Prayer:
Heavenly Father, keep us, we pray, from anxious thoughts. Help us to garrison our thoughts of life on all that is commendable and good, and help us to keep the eyes of our hearts fixed on Jesus. May we make conscious choices to dwell on those things that are worthy of praise, knowing that the light of Christ and the darkness of all that is evil, cannot abide together. This we ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.