CF PATIENTS NEED YOU TO SHOUT FOR THEIR CAUSE !!
You are free from satan’s dictatorship--now live like it!
Transformation—the process of becoming holy—begins in your mind. We will see in that the apostle Peter shows us how to begin to think differently, which will radically affect our behavior. We all make split-second decisions in any given moment to do right or wrong. To choose right, we must learn to be obedient to God, which will give us an appetite for being good. This kind of obedience will create a radical change in our relationships, so that our quality of life will improve. Finally, we will learn how to prepare for suffering that inevitably comes to everyone, as we trust a loving God who has promised to take care of us.
The Battle for Holiness
If you want to act holy, you have to learn to think holy.
1 Peter 1:13–16
Transformation—the process of becoming holy—begins in your mind
When I Don’t Feel Like Being Good
Being good makes sense.
1 Peter 1:17–25
discusses what is a split-second decision—whether in any given moment you do the right or the wrong thing.
An Appetite for Being Good
Mastering the Christian life is like mastering other things: it’s a matter of doing the basics again and again.
1 Peter 2:1–12
No matter how long you have been a believer, the only way to grow in your salvation—to become spiritual and master the art of obedience—is through pure spiritual milk.
We are Gods children and our lives reflect our minds. We act what we often think, so if we are a spirit filled child of God we need to fill our minds with God. My days spent (power lifting) taught me well. I called it imagery where you concentate on what it is you want to do. You picture in your mind your lifts/workouts and you become that workout. The same can be said of a man/women of God. We fill our spirit our minds with the words of God. We hear those words speak to us and we follow His voice. The voice of God never leads to sin, rather it leads against or away from sin. Thus feeding the spirit is important and we do so by reading and studying the word of God.
IT is by the grace of God that ungodly men are preserved from instant death. The sharp axe of justice would soon fell the barren tree if the interceding voice of Jesus did not cry, Spare him yet a little. Many sinners, when converted to God, have gratefully acknowledged that it was of the Lord s mercy that they were not consumed such deliverance's are the means of affecting the heart with tender emotions of love to God, and grief for having offended him. Should it not be so? Ought we not to account that the long suffering of God is salvation? (2 Peter 3:15.) An officer during a battle was struck by a nearly spent ball near his waistcoat pocket, but he remained uninjured, for a piece of silver stopped the progress of the deadly missile. The coin was marked at the words DEI GRATIA (by the grace of God). This providential circumstance deeply impressed his mind, and led him to read a tract which a godly sister had given him when leaving home. God blessed the reading of the tract, and he became, through the rich grace of God, a believer in the Lord Jesus, adore and admire the free grace of God, and pray that it may lead you to repentance! Are you enquiringly for the way of life? Remember the words DEI GRATIA, and never forget that by grace we are saved. Grace always pre-supposes unworthiness in its object. The province of grace ceases where merit begins: what a cheering word is this to those of you who have no worth, no merit, no goodness whatever! Crimes are forgiven, and follies are cured by our Redeemer out of mere free favor. The word grace has the same meaning as our common term gratis: Wickliffe s prayer was, Lord save me gratis No works can purchase or procure salvation, but the heavenly Father giveth freely.
Peter refers to times of testing as "fiery ordeals." He says we shouldn't be surprised when hardships come our way. It's important to remember that God has a purpose for our trials and will see us through each step of the way. But the question is, What purpose does God have for the trials we face?
First, the heavenly Father will sometimes use painful experiences to cleanse and purify His children lives. Trials drive us to the Lord. Then, as we begin to focus on Him, we start to see things from His perspective and often become more aware of our sin.
Second, the Lord at times allows difficulty in our life as a way of testing us--He might be trying our faith, endurance, or devotion to Him. He uses such experiences to reveal something about our spiritual development and to strengthen our faith.
Third, God uses suffering to demonstrate His power to sustain us. When He brings you through difficult times, He glorifies Himself. In turn, this encourages others when they experience trials, because they have witnessed God's sustaining power in your life.
Ultimately, hardships strengthen our testimony. In the midst of adversity, we might feel overwhelmed and discouraged. But once the storm has passed, we can often look back and see the Lord's providential hand carrying us through.
From the days of the Old Testament, God promised His people that one day He would give them a new heart so that their obedience would not be motivated by fear but would instead be generated by desire;
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remover the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. ( Ezekiel 36: 26-27)
The fulfillment of that promise came after the death of Christ, which initiated the new covenant (or agreement) between God and humans. Shortly after Christ’s death, believers received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit prophesied in Ezekiel. And with the Holy Spirit came a brand-new heart or nature that would strive to please God.
The only way to fully appreciate this new heart we have received is to understand the defectiveness of our old heart (or “flesh,” as Paul called it), which we still retain:
For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please….Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions. (Galatians 5: 17, 19-20).
Do you ever struggle with impure thoughts? Do you find yourself thinking about and loving other people or things more than you love God? Do you sometimes have difficulty controlling your temper? If you found out that God didn’t exist, what would you start doing that you aren’t doing now out of fear of Him? Don’t be pious; be honest.
Congratulations! Your answers reveal that you’re human, which is another way of saying that you still have the remains of the defective heart you were born with, thanks to your great, great, great, great-grandfather Adam.
But let’s not stop there: Do you sometimes long to know God better? Do you feel a sense of satisfaction when you have an opportunity to share the gospel with another person? Is something stirred in your innermost being when you are involved in worship? Congratulations again! You are the recipient of a new heart as well.
So what is the relationship between our old heart and our new heart? To repeat a popular phrase, it’s a dysfunctional relationship. Or, as Paul said, they “are in opposition to one another” (Galatians 5: 17).
For the apostle Paul, such a phenomenon was no laughing matter. As he experienced personally, the part of him that wanted to please God waged war against the part of him that didn’t:
It seems to be a fact of lie that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? (Romans 7: 21-24 NLT).
Paul believed that even though such a war of the wills is inevitable, it is also possible to win that war. Why? Because, contrary to popular belief, our two hearts are not equally powerful. In fact, Paul says that when we become Christians, our old heart or “self” was “crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).
But what exactly does that mean? For years the idea of my old heart being crucified made absolutely no sense to me because it was contrary to my daily (make that hourly) experience. My old nature was alive and well and enjoying regular victories, so how could it be dead? Let me illustrate how something can be defeated yet still be active Jesus Christ won a decisive victory over sin at the cross more than two thousand years ago. At that moment our Savior liberated all of us who trust in Him from the brutal regime of Satan. The Holy Spirit has set up a command post in the heart of every Christian. Although we are still subject to guerrilla attacks by the Enemy, we possess the necessary firepower to win those battles. In fact, we have as much ability to prevail in those skirmishes as a nuclear superpower has to overcome a scraggly rebel soldier toting nothing more than a .45-caliber pistol.
What does all this have to do with good grace and bad grace? A faulty understanding of grace tends to overemphasize the power of our old heart and underemphasis the potency of our new one. Because of the occasional attacks by some of the Enemy’s renegade forces, bad grace wrongly assumes that we are still under satan’s control. Whatever desire we have to break free from his grip is not powerful enough to deliver us from such a formidable foe. The result is resigned acquiescence--if not a resolute acceptance--of sin as a way of life.
No! Paul screams from the pages of his letter to the Romans. The war was already fought--and won--two thousand years ago on the battlefield called Calvary. You are free from satan’s dictatorship--now live like it!
The Battle for Holiness
If you want to act holy, you have to learn to think holy.
1 Peter 1:13–16
Transformation—the process of becoming holy—begins in your mind
When I Don’t Feel Like Being Good
Being good makes sense.
1 Peter 1:17–25
discusses what is a split-second decision—whether in any given moment you do the right or the wrong thing.
An Appetite for Being Good
Mastering the Christian life is like mastering other things: it’s a matter of doing the basics again and again.
1 Peter 2:1–12
No matter how long you have been a believer, the only way to grow in your salvation—to become spiritual and master the art of obedience—is through pure spiritual milk.
We are Gods children and our lives reflect our minds. We act what we often think, so if we are a spirit filled child of God we need to fill our minds with God. My days spent (power lifting) taught me well. I called it imagery where you concentate on what it is you want to do. You picture in your mind your lifts/workouts and you become that workout. The same can be said of a man/women of God. We fill our spirit our minds with the words of God. We hear those words speak to us and we follow His voice. The voice of God never leads to sin, rather it leads against or away from sin. Thus feeding the spirit is important and we do so by reading and studying the word of God.
IT is by the grace of God that ungodly men are preserved from instant death. The sharp axe of justice would soon fell the barren tree if the interceding voice of Jesus did not cry, Spare him yet a little. Many sinners, when converted to God, have gratefully acknowledged that it was of the Lord s mercy that they were not consumed such deliverance's are the means of affecting the heart with tender emotions of love to God, and grief for having offended him. Should it not be so? Ought we not to account that the long suffering of God is salvation? (2 Peter 3:15.) An officer during a battle was struck by a nearly spent ball near his waistcoat pocket, but he remained uninjured, for a piece of silver stopped the progress of the deadly missile. The coin was marked at the words DEI GRATIA (by the grace of God). This providential circumstance deeply impressed his mind, and led him to read a tract which a godly sister had given him when leaving home. God blessed the reading of the tract, and he became, through the rich grace of God, a believer in the Lord Jesus, adore and admire the free grace of God, and pray that it may lead you to repentance! Are you enquiringly for the way of life? Remember the words DEI GRATIA, and never forget that by grace we are saved. Grace always pre-supposes unworthiness in its object. The province of grace ceases where merit begins: what a cheering word is this to those of you who have no worth, no merit, no goodness whatever! Crimes are forgiven, and follies are cured by our Redeemer out of mere free favor. The word grace has the same meaning as our common term gratis: Wickliffe s prayer was, Lord save me gratis No works can purchase or procure salvation, but the heavenly Father giveth freely.
Peter refers to times of testing as "fiery ordeals." He says we shouldn't be surprised when hardships come our way. It's important to remember that God has a purpose for our trials and will see us through each step of the way. But the question is, What purpose does God have for the trials we face?
First, the heavenly Father will sometimes use painful experiences to cleanse and purify His children lives. Trials drive us to the Lord. Then, as we begin to focus on Him, we start to see things from His perspective and often become more aware of our sin.
Second, the Lord at times allows difficulty in our life as a way of testing us--He might be trying our faith, endurance, or devotion to Him. He uses such experiences to reveal something about our spiritual development and to strengthen our faith.
Third, God uses suffering to demonstrate His power to sustain us. When He brings you through difficult times, He glorifies Himself. In turn, this encourages others when they experience trials, because they have witnessed God's sustaining power in your life.
Ultimately, hardships strengthen our testimony. In the midst of adversity, we might feel overwhelmed and discouraged. But once the storm has passed, we can often look back and see the Lord's providential hand carrying us through.
From the days of the Old Testament, God promised His people that one day He would give them a new heart so that their obedience would not be motivated by fear but would instead be generated by desire;
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remover the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. ( Ezekiel 36: 26-27)
The fulfillment of that promise came after the death of Christ, which initiated the new covenant (or agreement) between God and humans. Shortly after Christ’s death, believers received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit prophesied in Ezekiel. And with the Holy Spirit came a brand-new heart or nature that would strive to please God.
The only way to fully appreciate this new heart we have received is to understand the defectiveness of our old heart (or “flesh,” as Paul called it), which we still retain:
For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please….Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions. (Galatians 5: 17, 19-20).
Do you ever struggle with impure thoughts? Do you find yourself thinking about and loving other people or things more than you love God? Do you sometimes have difficulty controlling your temper? If you found out that God didn’t exist, what would you start doing that you aren’t doing now out of fear of Him? Don’t be pious; be honest.
Congratulations! Your answers reveal that you’re human, which is another way of saying that you still have the remains of the defective heart you were born with, thanks to your great, great, great, great-grandfather Adam.
But let’s not stop there: Do you sometimes long to know God better? Do you feel a sense of satisfaction when you have an opportunity to share the gospel with another person? Is something stirred in your innermost being when you are involved in worship? Congratulations again! You are the recipient of a new heart as well.
So what is the relationship between our old heart and our new heart? To repeat a popular phrase, it’s a dysfunctional relationship. Or, as Paul said, they “are in opposition to one another” (Galatians 5: 17).
For the apostle Paul, such a phenomenon was no laughing matter. As he experienced personally, the part of him that wanted to please God waged war against the part of him that didn’t:
It seems to be a fact of lie that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? (Romans 7: 21-24 NLT).
Paul believed that even though such a war of the wills is inevitable, it is also possible to win that war. Why? Because, contrary to popular belief, our two hearts are not equally powerful. In fact, Paul says that when we become Christians, our old heart or “self” was “crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).
But what exactly does that mean? For years the idea of my old heart being crucified made absolutely no sense to me because it was contrary to my daily (make that hourly) experience. My old nature was alive and well and enjoying regular victories, so how could it be dead? Let me illustrate how something can be defeated yet still be active Jesus Christ won a decisive victory over sin at the cross more than two thousand years ago. At that moment our Savior liberated all of us who trust in Him from the brutal regime of Satan. The Holy Spirit has set up a command post in the heart of every Christian. Although we are still subject to guerrilla attacks by the Enemy, we possess the necessary firepower to win those battles. In fact, we have as much ability to prevail in those skirmishes as a nuclear superpower has to overcome a scraggly rebel soldier toting nothing more than a .45-caliber pistol.
What does all this have to do with good grace and bad grace? A faulty understanding of grace tends to overemphasize the power of our old heart and underemphasis the potency of our new one. Because of the occasional attacks by some of the Enemy’s renegade forces, bad grace wrongly assumes that we are still under satan’s control. Whatever desire we have to break free from his grip is not powerful enough to deliver us from such a formidable foe. The result is resigned acquiescence--if not a resolute acceptance--of sin as a way of life.
No! Paul screams from the pages of his letter to the Romans. The war was already fought--and won--two thousand years ago on the battlefield called Calvary. You are free from satan’s dictatorship--now live like it!
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