I’ve been studying Romans. I’ve shared with some of you what I’ve been learning about sin, our slavery to it, and the blessed delivery from slavery to sin into slavery to Christ. Today I’ve been struck with a revelation about the importance of taking our thoughts captive. In Romans when Paul is talking about the law and it’s role concerning sin he mentions covetousness. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, though shalt not murder, these are all outward acts of sin. Thou shalt not covet however is an inward sin. The inward sin of covetousness could indeed manifest itself in one of the afore mentioned outward sins, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. But regardless of whether or not you act on your covetousness it is still counted as sin. John MacArthur says that “It was the realization that God’s law applied to his attitudes, not merely his external behavior, that devastated Paul. He was forced to realize that all his external self-righteousness was worthless because his heart wasn’t right.” Jesus made this point exceedingly clear in Matthew 5. It’s our thoughts that are the problem not the acts. My prayer is that we would all daily petition God to search our hearts and make known to us the internal sinful attitudes that live within us, and give us the strength of conviction to change those attitudes.