Today is a really good study. I first went to Church, then served at the second service in the nursery while their Mothers were able to worship and hear the Word undistracted. Then went to lunch with a powerful Woman, and then gathered some donated things and took to a family we were helping that recently lost their home in a fire. As I returned home, I began to feel a hunger to get into the Word. I'm so grateful for that hunger. I wanted to satisfy it. If you no longer have a hunger for the Word, pray about it, then open it up. There's no magic pill you can take that makes you want to read the bible, it's through prayer and being urnest with God, real with God, and crackin that thing open that it will happen. I believe this call to go into indepth study of the Word has come out of time in the morning with God in His Word and in prayer, the prayers of my ministry partners and a result of our fast at Church this month, asking God to direct us. Boy is He ever. So with that said, go get your bible and we'll get started. I want you to go through your Bible with me in this study to show you for yourself where these scriptures are. So If you haven't grabbed your Bible yet, go ahead and go get it, and I will wait for you...............go ahead...................okay? You got it? lol, alright, let's see what God has to say.
1 Peter 1:15-19 'But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written: Be ye holy, for I AM holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot'.
We established in yesteday's study, part one, holy means sacred, pure, innocent and clean and as God has those characteristics, so are we to have them as well. "like Father-like Son". This is an instruction so therefore God has provided us with the grace and the ability to be pure, innocent and clean. Remember everything we need to live this way was provided at the Cross and we then received at our salvation, the day we were spiritually born and our Heavenly Father picked us up to look at our face for the first time as an infant. The grace and ability entered our lives to live pure, innocent and clean lives. But..........why dont we live that way from the moment of salvation onward?
Romans 12:2 'And be not conformed to this world'. If you were saved at a young age this would be saying to you "you are fresh and clean, the world has not imprinted ungodly habits, mental strongholds, harmful thoughts into your life yet. Be trained in the way you should go and when you are old you will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).
Romans 12:2 again 'but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind', if you were born again as an older person and walked longer in the world's ways which are contrary to the ways of God. The world's ways were engraved into you, they became your core beliefs, you wrapped your entire thought process around them and to become holy, pure, innocent and clean you have to be transformed. Can anybody witness that that's most of us? Huh? I think so too. But that.....is a process. So? Will you "act" pure, innocent and clean immediately when you are saved even though through the Cross and what Jesus Christ did on the Cross is provided? The answer is no.
Romans 12:2 says you have to be transformed. One of this year's block buster films is 'Transformers'. What is the key element of each one of those characters? That's right they 'transform' into something else. Now, as a new believer, saved, born again, however you want to refer to yourself, how are you changed? Through your body like a transformer changing from a person to a motor vehicle? No. Romans 12:2 says through the renewing of ......what? Your mind!
Let's look up Renewing-Greek Strongs #342 [anakainosis] pronounced an-ak-ah'-ee-no-sis. and means renovation.
So this scripture could read 'but be ye transformed by the renovation of your mind'!
Let's stay there just ......one......minute. When a builder goes into a house that needs to be renovated and assesses the rot, damage, requirement of change, and he begins to work, in order to get to pure, innocent and clean wood (lol) what first has to happen? You have to remove what first is rotten or damaged.
1 Peter 1:22 'Seeing ye have puried your souls (your mind, will, emotions) in obeying the truth'. Or another way to say this is 'Seeing ye have renewed your mind in obeying the truth'. What truth? Eveyone these days feels they have the truth. Students go to college and are told by a Professor that Darwins Theory is the truth. Many religions claim they have the truth, but what IS the truth?
John 17:17 Jesus, Himself prayed to His Heavenly Father to teach us to be like Father-like Son. 'Sactify them'. This is us. Sactify them.
Sactify-Greek Strongs #37 [hagiazo'] pronounced hag-ee-ad'-zo. to make holy; purify or consecrate; (mentally) to venerate-hallow, be holy.
Jesus was asking God, His and our Heavenly Father to make His disciples (isn't that us?) holy. Jesus was asking God "make them holy". Well I thought God said 'Be ye holy, for I AM holy'. Jesus asked Him to 'sactify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth'. So the bible, His word, is the truth. His Word! Not any other word or bible is the truth. That also means the things written inside are the truth, all of it. God 'created' in Genesis. So that makes Darwin's Theory false.....and so on. But His Word is truth.
Go to John 1:1 'In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God'. This is Jesus. So when in John 17:17 Jesus says 'make them holy through Thy truth, I AM their truth! Jesus is speaking of Himself. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the way.
So if God's Word, the bible, the truth of Jesus Christ and what He did for mankind, for you, is the way to become holy by renewing our mind with the truth of it, then why aren't we in our bible more?
Each of us have to deteremine what choices we're going to make concerning this. We make the choices, not the Lord. He's given us His Word as truth to renew our mind by reading it and then applying it. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24-25 "therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock".
Let's pray:
Lord, we place our eyes upon you. We place our affecton upon You. You are our God, our stronghold, our tower. We move not from beneath your wing. We huddle to you as a baby chick huddles under it's Mother. We love you Lord. We thank you Lord for Your teachings. We value your word. We value it, Lord, for it is the truth. There is no other truth but yours. We ask you Lord, to take our hearts, and renew our minds, and give us all a deeper hunger and willingness for your Word. Create in us a desire to know it and make room for it in our hearts, Lord. We need your help. As we take the steps to be inside your word, we ask you illuminate it for us. Let us see your truths and become excited about them. Give us your secret manna set aside just for us. We love you Lord. We give ourselves a fresh Lord. We take this instruction to heart and make the steps toward you and your love for us. We ask you to anoint our mind, transform our thinking, and begin to break us loose from the ways of the world, replacing those ways with Yours. In Jesus' name we ask all these things.....Amen!
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