Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

You will keep in perfect peace
    those whose minds are steadfast,
    because they trust in you.

• Isaiah 26:3

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

• Mark 4:15

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?

• Acts 5:3

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

• 2 Corinthians 11:3

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
…
Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.

• Psalm 139:1-2, 23

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

• Romans 1:28-32

The Boilerplate

My wife took a Bible Study in 2011.  (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.)  My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor.  The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.

My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up.  It is a Beth Moore study guide.  Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank.  But my wife was eager to learn.  She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore.  I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes.  There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook.  Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.

So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide. It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.

Discussion on this topic

Why can we trust in God?

“The Lord is in control.”

• My wife’s response

How does Mark 4:15 talk about Satan’s attack on our mind?

“We know the truth, but we let Satan take it away from us. (our thinking)”

• My wife’s response

We often question what really is true.  Why?  Even when the proof is right there.

How does Acts 5:3 talk about Satan’s attack on our mind?

“Satan steals your heart.”

• My wife’s response

The text says filling the heart, but I get my wife’s point.  When Satan fills our heart, or our “desire center” we might not worry much about the truth.

How does 2 Corinthians 11:3 talk about Satan’s attack on our mind?

“Our minds again can betray us.”

• My wife’s response

It is as if “short attention span” has been an issue since the Garden of Eden.  Our modern electronics are blamed for the shortness, but they had no electronics in biblical times.  They knew what the distraction was, Satan.  Satan modernizes and uses the tools at hand.  He does not have to inhabit those things or invent them himself.  One person finds a time saver gadget to be useful, and Satan finds something to have us obsess over, until we become so wicked that we invent things to obsess over on our own.

Why is God the perfect watchman (Psalm 139:1-2, 23)?  Note: a watchman stood in a tower or walked along the top of a wall to announce the hour and all is well, until he announced that all was not well and the soldiers became ready for battle.

“We can deceive ourselves and even others, but God knows truly and what we’re thinking before we do.  No hiding from Him, you’re totally exposed.”

• My wife’s response

I read my wife’s comments and her idea that God knows what we think before we do struck me as either being crazy or profound.  Don’t we know what we are thinking?  But what we do not know is where that rabbit hole we just jumped into will lead.  But God can send a warning signal before that thought turns into something that we will regret thinking about just a few minutes from now.

My wife was great about what many pastors have preached that if a certain television show causes your mind to wander down a wrong path, she would not just simply not watch that program, but she would fill that void time with prayer and/or Bible study.  It was not just avoiding the devil’s temptations, it was filling the mind with wholesome thoughts.

Avoiding the temptations is one thing.  But a steadfast mind requires filling the void with wholesome things.

What does Romans 1:28-32 say about those who have the knowledge of God, but they have no desire to retain that knowledge?

“God left them to their own wickedness.  Murder, strife, deceit, and malice.”

• My wife’s response

My wife knew people that fit that description.  As she saw the moral decay, she prayed for them even harder.

How can you bring an even greater harvest for the Lord?

“By staying close to Him even though I think and feel otherwise.”

• My wife’s response

This was before she started her health decline, but both of us had thyroid issues long before this, and regardless of what the doctors say about synthetic thyroxin, you never regain that youth vigor.  But regardless of how exhausted or even sick that she felt, she had an ever-present smile.

In talking with someone else who has differing thoughts on a serious topic, how would you respond?

“By placing myself into that person’s situation and ask questions to myself if I were him, how would I think, say, and do.”

• My wife’s response

I think my wife was still thinking about those people who knew of the knowledge of God and rejected it.

And how do you respond when Satan attacks your mind?

“I concentrate on Scripture, songs, and prayer.”

• My wife’s response

My wife was like me in focusing on Scripture and prayer, but my wife irritated our children by inventing songs on the spur of the moment, songs about them that were less than complimentary and words she just made up sprinkled throughout.  She always had a song in her heart, and even more so when doing a drudgery task.  She might sing the right words, words she just made up, or simply hum.  But she was rarely quiet as she moved around the house.  When she was quiet, you would find her reading or praying.

That was her solution to having a steadfast mind.  Rid yourself from Satan’s attacks and then fill the void with Bible study, prayer, and song.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory