Christianity is not just
another religion. It is not one of the many means man
has devised to bring himself closer to God. Biblical
Christianity is a way of a Father with His family. It
originated with the Father, and it has a transforming
effect on His children. When one gets born-again of
God he gets the very life of God in him. This holy spirit
we receive as His gift makes us very different people.
We are not the same. We are bought with a price and
belong to Him.
When we were born again we were made new in Christ.
The challenge we now face is putting on in our minds
what was created in us in righteousness and true holiness.
Our spirits are perfect, and we transform our minds,
our souls, by believing and appropriating what God has
done for us, in and through Christ Jesus. This we find
out from God’s Word.
We change our minds, our will, and our emotions
by conforming them to the image of God in Christ in
us. From God’s Word we learn how we are to think
and reason. From God’s Word we learn to resolve
to do what God asks of us. From God’s Word we
learn how to use our emotions to emote us. We act on
the Word and then our emotions assist us and spur us
on, to where we want to go.
We change our minds, as we behold the glory of
the Lord through eyes of believing. We claim who we
are and what we are as we clearly see from His Word
what He has made us to be in Christ Jesus. We are not
earthbound any longer. We are seated in the heavenlies,
and our lives are hid with Christ in God.
We are sustained not by our intellect or by our
will. We are sustained from the inside from the spirit
of God that shapes who I am and what I can do. I am
not able of myself to do anything as of myself, but
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth
me. God infuses me with the strength I need to live
for Him, as I reckon myself alive in Christ.
God’s Word divides and allows us to distinguish
between soul and spirit… between what originates
in our soul, our mind, and what comes from the new creation
within.
James 1:21:
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted
word, which is able to save your souls.
Our spirits are perfect
and we can renew our minds to demonstrate what we have
on the inside. If we want our “souls saved...”
If we want our “minds renewed…” If
we want our “lives transformed” we must
engraft or implant His Word. It has to take root and
grow. It is not like cut flowers whose beauty endures
but for a short while. It is more like a transplanted,
vibrant growing vine sustained by the life within.
God energizes the power within us as we operate
His gift. He works within us to will and to do of His
good pleasure. When His good pleasure becomes our good
pleasure we have accomplished some of that engrafting.
God has made you different from how you were
before. That’s why He calls it a new man. Reckon
the old man dead. Dare to be different. Let the Word
of God save your soul as you engraft it into our hearts
and minds. We should live our lives as children of the
Most High God, because we know Him intimately as our
lovingly heavenly Father.