Not every thought in your head belongs to you.

That is not a metaphor. That is not an exaggeration for effect. It is one of the most practically important truths Scripture gives us about the inner life of a human being, and most of us have never slowed down long enough to actually reckon with it.

We assume our thoughts are our own because they feel familiar. They arrive in our own voice, in our own mental language, shaped by our own experiences and memories. So we claim them... We act on them. We sometimes feel guilty about them, as though the mere presence of a dark or destructive thought is evidence of something broken in our character. But the Bible draws a line that our culture rarely does, a clear, deliberate line between two entirely different sources of thought operating inside every human being simultaneously.

Two Sources, One Mind

Scripture teaches that man’s inner life flows from two distinct origins. The first is the God-given spirit, the part of us that was made for communion with God, that recognizes truth, that longs for what is holy and eternal. The second is the flesh, the sin nature inherited from Adam’s fall, which did not disappear at conversion but continues to operate alongside the spirit in a constant, grinding opposition.

Paul describes this tension without softening it in Romans 8. The mind set on the flesh, he writes, is hostile to God. Not indifferent. Not occasionally distracted... Hostile. It does not submit to God’s law and frankly cannot. It is not designed to. The flesh thinks thoughts that serve the flesh, and those thoughts feel completely natural because they arrive through the same mental infrastructure we use for everything else.

This is what makes the flesh so effective as an adversary. It does not announce itself. It does not arrive with a warning label. It slips thoughts into our stream of consciousness so seamlessly that we assume we authored them. We have even given this phenomenon a casual, almost affectionate nickname... the monkey brain. As if restless, self-serving, destructive thought patterns are simply a quirk of human neurology rather than what Paul would call the mind of the flesh making its presence known.

Higher Than Our Highest

Isaiah 55 adds a dimension to this that should give us pause. God declares through the prophet that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways. The distance between them is not slight. It’s the vast distance between snail and eagle… sheep and lion… earth and the heavens... It’s immeasurable.

Which means that when the flesh is generating thoughts and calling them intuition, when it is producing feelings and calling them instinct, when it is creating urges and calling them desire... none of that is operating anywhere near the plane of what God actually intends for us. The flesh is not just unhelpful. It is pulling in the precise opposite direction of God’s purpose, and doing so quietly, from the inside.

Three Snares Worth Naming

The flesh tends to work through three specific channels, and recognizing them is the beginning of not being controlled by them.

The first is a thought that steers you away from your true, God-given intentions. A sudden doubt. A critical judgment that hardens into bitterness. A justification for something you already know is wrong, arriving just when you need a reason to proceed.

The second is a feeling that, left unchecked, leads you away from God rather than toward Him. Anger that becomes resentment. Sadness that slides into despair. Desire that detaches from wisdom. Feelings are real, but they are not always truthful, and the flesh is skilled at using them as a steering mechanism.

The third is an urge, a craving or impulse that pulls you from the Word and the life it calls you to. Something that feels urgent and necessary in the moment but leaves you further from God once it is satisfied.

None of these snares are unique to you. Every human being who has ever lived has navigated this same interior battlefield.

The Only Way Through

God is not surprised by any of this. He knew what Adam’s fall would introduce into the nature of every human being born afterward. And He did not leave us to manage it alone through willpower or moral effort.

The path through is the renewed mind. Paul writes in Romans 12 that transformation comes not through trying harder but through the renewing of the mind by the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, alive and active inside every believer, has the power to progressively rewire how we think, what we desire, and how we respond to what the flesh puts in front of us.

There is an old story about two wolves living inside every person, constantly at war. One is good. One is destructive. The grandson asks which one wins. The grandfather answers simply: the one you feed.

Starve the flesh... Feed the spirit. Not as a motivational slogan, but as a daily, deliberate, Spirit-empowered practice.

The thoughts will keep coming. The question is whether you have learned to ask whose they are before you decide what to do with them.

On Wednesday, we go deeper into this topic by diving into the scriptures with a devotional. We’ll let biblical teachings help us deal with this monkey brain and ever determined wolf whose goal is to devour us. Don’t be scared of the passenger that hides in the wake… deal with him. Take solace in now being aware of the enemy that was shielding itself in darkness, and attacking when no one was looking… the tables have turned.

Recent Essays:

The Son - 6/22/26

Lawrence

Deeper Still

Deeper Still is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Scripture Focus:

John 8:58

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” - ESV

Exodus 3:14

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” - ESV

Welcome to Fridays at Deeper Still.

This week we have been sitting inside the title “The Son” and asking what it actually means when God uses it to introduce Jesus to the world. Monday opened the full argument. Wednesday went deep into Hebrews 1:3 and the Greek word charakter. Today we close the week inside one of the most explosive moments in the entire Gospel of John. Five words that nearly got Jesus stoned in the middle of a public street. We are going to look at exactly why.

Devotional Thought:

In John 8:58, Jesus is in the middle of a heated public exchange with a crowd of religious leaders who are questioning His identity, His authority, and His claims about Abraham. The conversation has been building in tension for several verses. Then Jesus says something that does not just end the argument. It detonates it.

“Before Abraham was, I am.”

To a modern reader this can sound like a slightly unusual grammatical construction. Before Abraham was born, Jesus existed. Okay... A claim to preexistence. Significant, but perhaps not immediately explosive on its own.

But to every Jewish listener standing in that crowd, what Jesus just said was not a claim to preexistence. It was something far more specific and far more confrontational.

The phrase “I am” in Greek is ego eimi. In the context of Jewish Scripture and theology it carried one specific, unmistakable reference point. Exodus 3:14. When Moses stands before the burning bush and asks God for His name, God responds: “I AM WHO I AM.” The Hebrew is ehyeh asher ehyeh. When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in the Septuagint, the translation used ego eimi… I am.

This was not a generic phrase. It was the divine name. The personal, self-defining name of God Himself, spoken to Moses from the burning bush. Every person in that crowd knew exactly what they were hearing the moment the words left Jesus’s mouth.

He was not saying He existed before Abraham. He was saying He is the same ‘I AM’ that spoke to Moses. The same one who parted the Red Sea. The same one whose presence filled the tabernacle. The same one whose name was considered so sacred that devout Jews would not even speak it aloud.

And He said it in the middle of a public street in Jerusalem.

This is why they immediately picked up stones. They were not confused about what He meant. They understood precisely what He was claiming and responded to it as blasphemy. The claim was either the most offensive lie ever spoken in that city or the most staggering truth. There was no comfortable middle ground available to them and there is none available to us either.

The title “The Son” is not a soft, domesticated word. It sits inside a lineage that runs directly from the burning bush to a street in Jerusalem to the cross. The same “I AM” that Moses could not look at directly chose to speak our language, walk our roads, and absorb our death.

That is who we are praying to. That is who we are singing to on Sunday morning. Not a teacher. Not a guide. The “I AM” in human form.

Daily Action Step: Read Exodus 3:13-14 and then John 8:58 back to back without stopping. Sit in the silence between them. Then write down one way that understanding Jesus as the “I AM” rather than simply a preexistent being changes how you approach Him in prayer this weekend.

Closing Thoughts:

Before Abraham was, I am.

Five words that have been reordering lives for two thousand years. Let them do their work in yours this weekend.

That closes our first full week of Deeper Still. Monday’s essay opened the argument. Wednesday went inside the charakter of Hebrews 1:3. Today we stood in that street in Jerusalem and heard what the crowd heard.

Next Monday, a brand new essay drops and a new theological thread begins. If this week added something real to your understanding of who Jesus is, share Deeper Still with one person before Sunday. That single forward is how this community grows.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for going deeper.

Recent Essay:

The Son: We Have Been Reading Right Past Him - June 22, 2026

The Son P1 - The Exact Imprint - June 24, 2026

See you Monday.

Lawrence

Deeper Still

Deeper Still is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Scripture Focus: Hebrews 1:3

“'He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” - ESV

Welcome to Wednesdays at Deeper Still.

Monday’s essay asked whether we have truly been hearing the title “The Son” or just saying it. Today we go straight into one specific verse that Monday identified but did not have room to fully open up. One phrase inside Hebrews 1:3 has been sitting in plain sight for two thousand years and most of us have read past it every single time. Today we stop and look at it until it opens. Take your time with this one.

There is a word in Hebrews 1:3… “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Most English translations render this as “exact imprint” or “express image,” and it is doing far more work than it appears to be doing on the surface.

The Greek word is charakter. It is where we get our modern English word “character,” but in the ancient world it carried a far more precise and physical meaning. A charakter was the impression left behind by a seal or a die pressed into wax or metal. It was used specifically in the context of coin minting, the mark stamped into a coin that reproduced the image of the original with perfect, unalterable precision. Not an interpretation of the original. Not an artist’s rendering. A direct, exact transfer of the original image into a new medium.

The writer of Hebrews chooses this word deliberately to describe what Jesus is in relation to the Father.

Think about what that actually means. When a coin bears the charakter of a king, it carries the king’s full authority wherever it travels. It does not represent the king. It bears him. His face, his name, his weight, his legitimacy, all of it transferred into the coin completely and exactly. To receive the coin is to receive what the king has authorized. To reject the coin is to reject the king himself.

Jesus is the charakter of God’s nature. Not a representation. Not a likeness. The exact, direct, unalterable impression of who God is, transferred into human form with perfect precision. When Philip says “show us the Father,” he is standing in front of the answer without knowing it. The charakter is already there. It has been there the entire time.

This is why John 14:9 lands so specifically. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is not pointing Philip toward something beyond Himself. He is telling Philip that the transfer is already complete. The impression has already been made. There is nothing further to look for because there is nothing missing from what is standing right in front of him.

The question the writer of Hebrews is pressing into us is not whether Jesus resembles God. It is whether we understand that resemblance is far too weak a word for what is actually happening here.

Daily Action Step: Find a coin and hold it. Look at the image pressed into it. Sit with the fact that the image is not painted on or attached to the surface. It is pressed into the material itself, inseparable from it. Now read Hebrews 1:3 again with that picture in your hand. Write one sentence about what changes in how you understand who Jesus is.

The charakter. One word. Two thousand years of readers passing over it on the way to the next verse.

That is what these Wednesday devotionals exist to do. Slow down long enough to let the Word open up in ways a single reading never allows.

Friday we close the week inside a passage that answers one of the quietest and most unsettling questions the title “The Son” raises. If Jesus and the Father are truly one, what does that mean for the way we have been praying, worshipping, and relating to God our entire lives?

Do not miss it. And if today added something to your understanding, forward this to one person in your life who is hungry to go deeper in the Word.

Recent Essay:

The Son: We Have Been Reading Right Past Him - June 22, 2026

2-DAY DEVOTIONAL SERIES - Part 2:

See you Friday.

Lawrence

Deeper Still

Deeper Still is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“The Son of God.” It rolls off the tongue in church, in prayer, in worship songs, in casual conversation between believers. We say it so naturally, so comfortably, that we have stopped hearing it. And in that comfort, we have quietly reduced one of the most theologically explosive titles in all of Scripture into something ordinary. Something familiar. Something small enough to fit inside our everyday understanding of a common word.

That is the problem. The title was never meant to fit there.

What We Bring to the Word

When we hear the word “son,” we bring our entire human experience to it. A child. A family resemblance. A biological relationship between a parent and their offspring. It is a relational word, warm and domestic, and there is nothing wrong with that meaning on its own. But when God reaches into human language and selects that word to introduce Jesus to the world, He is not using it the way we use it at a family dinner. He is compressing something infinite into the most accessible container human language can offer, and then inviting us to press past the container until we find what is actually inside.

Hebrews 1 opens with one of the most carefully constructed theological statements in the entire New Testament. God, who throughout history spoke in fragments through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us through His Son. The writer does not stop there. He immediately tells us who this Son is. The appointed heir of all things. The one through whom God created the world. The radiance of God’s glory. The exact imprint of His nature. The one who upholds the entire universe by the word of His power.

This is not a description of a subordinate figure. This is a description of God Himself, expressed and embodied in a form humanity could receive.

The Pattern God Uses

This is not the first time God has wrapped an infinite truth inside a simple, almost plain statement and waited to see if we would go deeper.

When Moses stood before the burning bush and asked God for His name, God did not offer something elaborate. He said, “I AM WHO I AM.” Five words. Absolute. Self-defining. So simple on the surface that a child could repeat it, and so vast beneath the surface that theologians have never reached the bottom of it. The simplicity was never the limitation… It was the signal.

Jesus operates the same way. In John 8:58, standing before a hostile crowd demanding to know who He thought He was, He did not deliver a theological defense. He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” The same divine name. Spoken in the first person. In the middle of a public street. Plain enough for anyone to hear, and deep enough to split the room between those who worshipped and those who picked up stones.

“I and the Father are one.” - John 10:30.

God consistently compresses the largest truths into the clearest language. The title “The Son” is no different.

What the Title Is Actually Saying

Here is what we miss when we read past it.

A son, by nature, carries the full identity of his father into the world. He is not a copy. He is not a lesser version. He is the father’s nature expressed forward into a new form we can now witness. When Colossians 1:15 calls Jesus the image of the invisible God, it is using precise language. The Greek word carries the idea of a perfect impression, the way a seal pressed into wax leaves behind an exact replica of the original. Not similar. Exact.

When Jesus tells Philip in John 14:9 that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father, He is not being poetic. He is being precise. Everything the Father is, in character, in power, in nature, is present and embodied in The Son. Colossians 2:9 removes any remaining room for a lesser interpretation: in Jesus, the entire fullness of deity dwells bodily. Not a portion. Not a delegation. The fullness.

So “The Son” does not mean created. It does not mean second. It does not mean subordinate.

It means that God, whose unfiltered presence causes mountains to melt and the earth itself to flee (Revelation 20:11), chose to give us a form of Himself we could survive. A form we could walk beside, ask questions of, and be changed by. Not God reduced. God translated, into the only medium our broken humanity could receive without being undone.

The Invitation

The limitation has never been the words. God has always been extraordinarily clear. The limitation has been our willingness to press past the familiar surface of what we think we already know and go deeper into what the words are actually carrying.

“The Son” is not a soft title. It is not a warm, domesticated word meant to make Jesus feel approachable and manageable. It is the most precise, most accessible, most carefully chosen language God could find for a truth that human vocabulary was never fully built to contain.

We have been reading right past it.

It is time to stop and look again.

Next Monday: We go deeper into the nature of the mind, the flesh, and the unseen war happening inside every believer. If someone in your life needs to go deeper in the Word, forward this to them today.

2-Part Devotional for Series:

Lawrence

Deeper Still

Deeper Still is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.