Being Christian

On September 23, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Matthew 7: 21


“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.”

Sometimes I like to say, “Don’t judge Christianity by Christians.” Christianity is best judged by looking at Christ. He is the one we are trying to be like. We are still striving and becoming. We are broken, yet overcoming. Sometimes our brokenness is louder than His healing. Yet, as we go along, we change and are changed. Eventually the love of God will dynamically alter our lives and we will better represent the Kingdom of God.

There are some, though, who upon receiving forgiveness and salvation never let the miracle working love of Christ transform their lives. There is no obvious difference between them and the unsaved. The love of Christ, the sacrifice He made for us, ought to have an impact on our lives and our behaviors. We, like him, should walk in love, forgiveness and unselfish affection for others. How does our Christianity show or better still, how should it show? The first and greatest commandment was love and the second one was love; love God, love your brothers. Let the light in you shine and let others see the miracle and blessing of God that you are.

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Divine Design

On May 24, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   1 Comment

Romans 12: 2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
We looked quite a bit last week at what God has to say about acceptance and in a nutshell it is that you are accepted in His sight. He said, Himself, that He has not rejected you. That is such an important truth for us to receive. Truly, we cannot give away what we have yet to receive. So, if you see a person who is critical and judgmental it may just be that they have yet to receive the acceptance and love of God for themselves.

There is a commercial running on television right now from Time-Warner cable where a motivational speaker challenges people about change. He tells them that they can change and asks if they want to, to which everyone resoundingly replies, “Yes!” Well, as I listened to the commercial I heard another message come right up out of my spirit. What I heard is that God has not called us to change. First of all, He loves you without you changing. Second, what He has given us is transformation. 

Transformation is not something we do; it is something we allow God to do within us by cooperating with His Spirit. We are transformed by God and the Holy Spirit through the renewal of our minds. We are not asked to change from who we are to someone else. No, we are only being transformed into the fullness of who we are in Christ. This transformation is more akin to the metamorphoses of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The essence of the butterfly was always in the caterpillar. He doesn’t have try not to be himself. He just grows up into the fullness of who he was always destined to be. 

Like the caterpillar, in every one of us is a butterfly. We have only to enter our chrysalis and allow the butterfly to emerge. This is the transformational process which our beloved Father has given us. We are not the authors of change, we are not transformational engineers. God has already put butterfly DNA in the caterpillar. He has created and put in the caterpillar the process for fulfilling its destiny. Truly, we are more important to Him that a butterfly. He wouldn’t abandon us and task us with the responsibility of change when He has so carefully designed the butterfly and it’s growth phases.

God has given us a chrysalis into which we can cocoon ourselves too. He has prepared a process by which He brings us into the fullness of our Divine Design. Through the renewal of our minds, we are transformed into the very likeness of Jesus. You will be the version of you which is so apparently a sibling to Jesus himself. I like to call this fulfilled you the Jesus you. So you may be Jesus Scott or Jesus Mary. You are of the same DNA as Jesus. When you took on the New Birth which is wrought in his blood and his glory, you became genetically tied to Jesus. There is a glorified you. This is who God sees every time He looks at you. Now, in order for you to live the fulfillment of who you are in Christ you must renew your mind to the Word of God. When you do, you will find that you think like God. You will begin to feel the things God feels and you will even react to events the way God does. The renewal of your mind washes out the worldly way of thinking that we were all indoctrinated in and replaces it with God thoughts and yes, you really can think the way God thinks. It is amazing and glorious and you were meant to live this way – to live an anointed life.

So, here is your part. Renew your mind by reading God’s Word. It really is that easy. Meditate on what you read. Let it seep into your own thoughts and consciousness. Allow God’s Word and God’s thoughts to become integrated with your own. You will find that as you do this you will begin to develop wings. You will emerge from your own chrysalis a glorified, emancipated child of the Most High with wings as eagles. Go soak in the glory of God’s Word, let Him pour his DNA into every cell of your being and then spread your wings and soar. You are His beautiful child, created in His image. Don’t try to change just be transformed, by the renewing of your mind.

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Do You Love Me?

On February 29, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 15: 17

This I command you, that you love one another.

If you knew me would you still love me? My definition of a friend is “someone who knows you and still likes you”. Sometimes we become acquainted with someone but then when we find a blemish on their armor or find that they have needs as well as strengths, we abandon that friendship.

One of our problems is that we make judgments about people based on these perceived faults. Well, when you began becoming friends with them, did you think they were perfect? There has only been one perfect. So discovering that a person is flawed really shouldn’t be such a big surprise.

Our response to these pronounced judgments is to hide away our true selves. Hence my question, “If you knew the real me, would you still love me?” Well, I know how Jesus answers that question and it is probably why we love him so much. He sees us for who we truly are complete with all of our emotional baggage, scars and our faults and yet loves us anyway. In fact, he knew all of my short comings before he went to the cross and seeing my damage chose to go to the cross anyway. Now that is a friend indeed.

Now Jesus directs us. He has said, “Do not judge” (Matthew 7: 1). Instead he commands us to love one another. I don’t see an easy way around these two imperatives. Do you? We are very good at determining what is good and what is bad but remember, that is the fruit of the tree we were never supposed to eat from (see Genesis 3: 2 – 4). Eating the fruit of that tree is what yielded the curse and it is still producing misfortune and torment in our lives today.

We do not need to agree with each other’s politics or even religious views but we do have to accept one another. We have not been appointed to determine who is good and who is bad, who gets into heaven and who does not. Our job is but to love. Period, end of story. Now, if we could really get a revelation of that, we would transform the world.

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The Power to Change

On October 21, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   1 Comment

Romans 12: 2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

I was driving today when this verse popped in my mind. The thought that came with it was that we are not to transform ourselves but rather to allow ourselves to be transformed. Look at this verse from the Good News Bible: “Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.” You see, we are not in charge of changing ourselves. We can’t. We haven’t the power to change but God can transform us into the beautiful image of us that He sees when He looks at us. 

Did you know that when God looks at you He sees the butterfly rather than the caterpillar? He sees you beautiful, glorious and when we spend time with Him His perception of us begins to rub off on us. Jesus is truth and God, our Father, has sent truth into the world to free us from every bondage, even the one of having to change ourselves into something worthy of love or of acceptance. You are already perfect. Jesus made you so. Okay, so sometimes the old man inhibits the full expression of that perfect creation within us but that outward expression does not change truth.

I tried for years and years to change myself and I was never successful but then the hand of Jesus touched me and through his love and acceptance I began to manifest the new person that he created within me. Okay, sure, I am far from the perfect expression of his love inside of me but if you knew the old me you would see the miracle of his grace at work. 

We can have the very best intentions and us the force of our will but the truth is that we just do not have the power to change ourselves. Without Jesus I can do no thing but with him all things are possible. That is why this verse does not tell us to transform ourselves or to change but rather to “be transformed.” This is the state of being rather than doing. In other words, allow yourself to be changed which is done through the renewing of your mind. Renew your mind with God’s thoughts, with His wisdom and that will transform you. Allow Him to shine the light of His love on you and you will change. God’s love, His truth are the forces which created the earth and everything in it. So, when we allow that love and the truth to touch our hearts and minds we, then, are just naturally and comfortably transformed into the lovely person we were created to be. It is a matter of allowing Him to be God, allowing Him to minister His love and acceptance to you.

The hard part of this is that you have to open your heart and allow God in. You also have to give your mind the food of renewal. What is that? It is the Word of God. The Word has transformative power in it because it is truth. The easy part is that God does all of the transformative work and it is painless because His transformation tool is love. When you really discover that you are not damaged goods, then you will no longer fear God seeing the real you. You won’t feel the need to hide anymore. He knows you better than you know yourself and He loves you. He even knows the person inside of you that you have not allowed to manifest yet. 

Won’t you let Jesus touch your heart and allow God to minister His great love to you? If you will open your heart and mind you will find that you never again need worry about changing. His touch will bring out the beautiful you that everyone else knows is in there. Allow yourself to “be” transformed. Renew your mind and allow love to have its perfect work.

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The Essential Prayer

On August 5, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Samuel 7: 18

Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far?

I would like to continue some thoughts on prayer from yesterday’s devotional. Prayer is an interesting topic because everyone knows what prayer is and yet doesn’t seem completely comfortable with their knowledge. All across the country and the world ministers continue to teach on prayer, as did Jesus, because there is so much room for deeper insights.

I like this passage from David because David asks such a basic question, one that probably most people think about at some point in the relationship with God. Who am I, Lord? Another way to think of this is, who am I in relation to you? What is my standing with you, Lord and why do you even show me such kindness? When I wish to study this mystery of an interpersonal relationship with the Lord of Hosts I most often turn to David. He loved God and God actually called him “friend”. Yet, David pondered these same questions that we too stumble over.

When we say the prayer of salvation acceptance and confess Jesus as our Lord and savior a new creature and a new life is born. We are born anew and begin a journey of transformation with our Lord. Being born again is far from the end. It is supposed to be a beginning. We accept discipleship to the Lord Jesus and begin to allow ourselves to become unified with him. This is a fascinating process and not all together easy or comfortable at times, which brings me back to prayer. 

The most powerful prayer we can ever pray is a prayer of submission. In that prayer we can even daily ask the Lord this important question, “Who am I?” Perhaps the question we really want to ask, though, is, “Who am I becoming?” This can be a challenging question, but I know the answer. We are called to allow ourselves to manifest the beautiful creation that God first created. You were made in the very image of Christ himself but as we live in this world that perfect child begins to take on the corruption and taint of the world. That is not to say that you are corrupt but rather that the things of this world get on us and they can be difficult to shake off. Jesus, though, has come to our rescue. He has saved us out of the mire of this world and given us a beautiful new garment. That sounds great, and it is true but how many of you know that there is a transition period? That is why the scripture says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3: 18).

There is a period of time wherein we allow the transformation to take place within us so that we become the version of ourselves that God saw in the beginning. You will not be changed into someone else. You are just expected to allow the Holy Spirit to work out the transformation within you that reveals the glorious you. We are transformed from glory to glory, from one little success to another. It is a process. It would be great if the Holy Spirit just swept into our hearts and recreated us into that perfect manifestation of Jesus but that is not how it works. None of the three persons of the trinity are ever going to do anything within you without your permission and your participation. Furthermore, transformation does not come from God waving a spiritual wand. As I said, transformation is a process. A caterpillar does not transform into a butterfly in an instant. Now, here is the key piece of information. We are in charge of this personal metamorphosis. We are the captains of this ship. God is not going to change you while you sleep. I wish it worked that way. Instead this is a process of conscious surrender and determined purpose. We have to be dedicated to this process and we must put the car in gear. Having so done, God always supplies the power. This is where prayer at its most basic and perhaps most powerful level is engaged. We must go to the Father in our prayer time and ask for Him to change us. We must prayerfully surrender all of our idols, whether they be our ego, previous injuries and the subsequent scars, our protective walls, our schedules and everything else that would interfere with the transformation process.

This is essential Christianity. It is so easy to get caught up in all of the business of modern life and fail to recognize that Christianity is far more than a one-time prayer. It is not about receiving salvation and accepting the Lordship of Christ in a singular prayer and then never allowing that lordship to impact our lives. Our prayer lives could be much better spent if, instead of praying for our needs, we humbled ourselves before the Almighty and asked Him, “Who am I? Who have you created me to be? Father, I beseech thee, transform me into the image of that vision you have had for me since the dawn of time.” Then we must stop, listen and be honest with ourselves. God will meet you on this sacred ground. He does want to change you and although that sounds very uncomfortable, the truth of it is healing. God will restore you to that healed and perfect you.

As you think about prayer today or when you enter your prayer time think of what significant and important conversation you can have with the Lord. You have the ear of the Almighty; do you really want to talk about trivialities? Look into the heart of God and your own heart and begin to pray this most powerful prayer, “Help me, Lord, to be changed. Help me to embrace this transformation process so that I can be a disciple of yours and follow you wherever you lead.”

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