Critical Thinking, Part 1

We live in a world in which everybody has a worldview. It’s impossible not to have a worldview nowadays. A worldview is defined as a comprehensive perspective that filters your decisions. Having a worldview is a lot like wearing a pair of glasses, they change your whole perspective on life when you put them on. Once they’re on you don’t even notice that they’re there anymore and they become part of your daily life. Jesus taught in Matthew 7:24-27 that there are two worldviews in our culture:

“24Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.26 And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and its collapse was great.”

There is either a God-centered worldview or there is a man-centered worldview, people have one or the other. Here are four elements of those two worldviews.

1. Truth: Absolute or Relative

Truth is either absolute or relative in the God-centered and man-centered worldviews, respectively.

2. Emotion: Byproduct or Foundational

The God-centered worldview says that emotions are simply a byproduct of life, we aren’t led by them. On the other hand, the man-centered worldview makes decisions based on feelings.

3. Behavior: Living for Christ’s Glory or Living for Own Glory

A man-centered worldview takes the 50,000 thoughts we have every day and used them to glorify self. In contrast, the God-centered worldview seeks to bring glory to Christ and not self.

4. Result: Holiness or Manufactured Happiness

Everywhere you look in the man-centered worldview you see “3 steps to your best life now” or “get your breakthrough now.” It’s filled with ways to try and be happy when the God-centered worldview says that our lives are meant to bring glory to Christ!

Everything in this world screams that we should be focused on ourselves but God’s way says that’s not how we were made to live. The truth is that we have a serious problem known as sin. People don’t like sin because it introduces personal responsibility. Sin means that our greatest need is forgiveness. Because that forgiveness can only come from Jesus Christ, our only response to God is humility.

Will you humble yourself before your Creator and live according to his ways and accept a God-centered worldview?