Changing Your Thinking

Have you ever why wondered why the world can't agree to the same system of measurement? Why can't we have one scale for temperatures? Don't even ask about how to write the dates. Some things are just foreign.

Well, I grew up in a Fahrenheit country. I knew if it was 90F it was hot. I knew if it was 55F then you need a coat. I grew up with that and knew it. I didn't have to think much when I heard a number. I knew what it meant.  I will even admit that I either didn't know or it just didn't register in my head that there was another temperature scale call Celsius.

I meet Celsius in a practical way years ago in my kitchen. I knew Celsius was used for weather. I had learned that when I lived in Thailand. At one time I even knew the formula for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit.

Baked at 180C

Back to the kitchen. I was living in Taiwan and had just moved into my first apartment with an oven. Years earlier I had lived had an apartment but that only had a 2 burner stove and honestly I didn't cook but ate out most of the time. Swenson's was an easy dinner on the way home from the office.

Well, I moved into my new apartment and got my shipment which included my kitchen things. I decided to make some chicken for dinner. Normally chicken cooks at 350F so I turned the oven on and it only went up to 200. What was I going to do? The chicken was in the pan. I would just cook it at 200 and it will take longer. I was mentally thinking of all the things I would not be able to cook because the oven only went to 200 -- basically everything bakes higher than 200F. What good was my oven. My excitement of having an oven was short lived as I thought it really wasn't worth using.

Actually it took less time to cook. I was confused and still didn't get it. The oven was at 200 which is less than 350 and instead of taking longer it took less time. It wasn't until the next day that I was talking with my boss and mentioned this that I learned about Celsius in the kitchen. I learned that 200 really was a hot oven.

Now 22 years later I have begun to think in Celsius in the kitchen. I know to turn the oven to 180 if the recipe says 350.

I have had to change my thinking. How I was raised has impacted my thinking. That is true with thinking about temperatures but it is also true in a spiritual sense as well.

As a Christian, I need to transform my thinking. I need to learn a new way of thinking. I need to have the mind of Christ. How did Christ think? He was not selfish but giving. He was not proud but humble.

I can easily being to think the way of the sinful nature looking out for me, making sure I get what I want but I need to change my thinking. There is a new way of thinking.

"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participating in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, but taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Any being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:1-11 (ESV)

Philippians 2:1-11 gives a good summary of various ways that our thinking needs to change. We need to have the same mind as Christ.

Be humble and not do things with selfish ambition. Think of others, putting other people first.

As a Christian, you need to being changing your thinking, learn a new way of thinking. Follow Christ's example.

The next time you turn the oven on to bake something whether you are setting it to Fahrenheit or Celsius pause and think about how you are thinking.

Beth