Romans Chapter 12 verses one and two say: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
From the moment we are conceived (perhaps through the spirits that have ruled over past generations) the world and the spiritual enemies of God are bombarding us with thoughts that are contrary to the Word of God. When we get saved we then have to change the way we think about everything that the world and those spirits have instilled in us.
When we renovate an old house, we tear out and throw away all the old and replace those things with new things, that’s what we are supposed to do with our “old mind set”.
This renovation is the picture of the Holy Spirit after we are born again! He moves in and begins to renovate our soul with the Word of God. He tears down strongholds of deception and lies and replaces them with His truth.
One of the first things He begins to show us is “who we are” according to God’s Word.
We’ve all head the expression “I’m trying to find myself”. People especially use this phrase to excuse themselves for doing the most atrocious things, the most despicable things.
If we want to find out “who we are” we are to go to our Creator and to the Word of God that is our User’s Manual.
Romans Chapter 12 specifically tells us that God calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. There is only one way that can take place and that is by replacing “the stinking thinking” that the world has instilled in us, with the “watering of the Word of God”. The Word waters, it cleanses!
We want to consider some of the avenues that God has given us out of His Word, to do just that!
James 1:22-25 says “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word and does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.”
It stands to reason that if we don’t read and meditate on the Bible, then we do not have a mirror that we are looking into! Then we do not have a plumb line, a base line to work with!
To begin with, we have the 10 Commandments that we are to follow – and they are not obsolete by any stretch of the imagination.
Now most of us are not going to go out and physically murder someone, but we cannot dismiss this commandment and think that we’re alright, if perhaps we are breaking the commandment outlined in 1John 3:15 which says “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.”
We all have been given a free will and that many times is the problem. Say for instance there is some brother that we don’t care for, for whatever reason. We, through that free will, can easily choose to justify our dislike (or at least what we call dislike, perhaps God calls it murder).
Remembering that Hebrews 4:12-13 says “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
We cannot hide anything from God and we cannot sugar coat it before the eyes of Him who can even judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
We can justify our sinful thoughts and nature until we’re blue in the face, and we can even THINK that God doesn’t see the condition of our heart – but we are deceiving ourselves and the devil is laughing in our faces!
I’ve heard say that the Bible is likened to a Will, that it is God’s inheritance to his saints, and it is. We want the promises, we want the blessings which God gives us, but there is much more in this Will than just the promise of His goodness. There is instruction and there is a requirement for obedience which He says is better than sacrifice.
We have inherited the kingdom of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ! But unless we read the Will, unless we access the Bible, we won’t know what we have inherited!
I cannot tell you how many Christian people I have spoken to that God always seems to prompt me to ask this question: “Do you know what the calling is in your life. What has God called you do?”
Almost 100% of the time, the answer is “No, I don’t know.”
How is that possible? Every child of God should know what their calling is. Many times those callings are identified to us during times of prayer. Other times they are identified to us through the anointings that we find in meetings and conferences we attend. Those callings can be birthed in us through something we read in the Word that seems to just jump out at us and cause our spirit man to get excited and that causes us to desire to “see the manifestation of something that we just read in the word, like maybe healing”.
So if the majority of God’s people have no clue as to what their purpose is in the Lord, that speaks volumes – they don’t know because they have not meditated long enough or deep enough on the things of God.
Believe me when I tell you, God is more than willing to speak His purposes for your life, to you, more than willing.
It’s amazing to me that God would use clay vessels like we are, but HE DOES! He has a design, a purpose for each one of us. No one is left out of his plan, no one!
I encourage you to search the Word of God that is “living and active”. I encourage you to dare to believe that God has a plan for your life! I encourage you to seek His face and find it. I encourage you to let God use you!
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