8Finally, brothers, 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.
When I first read this passage, I thought that God was promoting (through Paul) optimistic thinking. Naturally an optimist, I thought it was easy to follow God with regards to this. Not so after I realised this - if we only see whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable or anything that is excellent or praiseworthy, that doesn't make us optimistic. We're just simply delusioned since we live in a fallen world. Rather God wants us to be able to evaluate soberly our lives, our situations and perhaps even the world we're in but even while evaluating, we know the reason why we can be optimistic - because Christ died so that all the good things are accessible to us. This is optimism as God intends, not the kind that is blind to all the bad things going on (as many self-help books promote).
Looking forward to God bringing heaven to earth
Chingster
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