I had a comment on a FaceBook post regarding how difficult it can be to live the Word of God and be His true disciple. It appeared impossible to maintain the life that was expected by the church to be a follower of Christ.
My response: I sometimes feel that way, too… I realized the way I was feeling was determined by my perception of life. If life was good, I was good; and if life was bad, I too, was bad. So, I changed my perception of life and what it was to me. Well, this new attitude lasted for a pretty long time but it didn’t resolve my problem–I was still pretending and I lacked understanding of the Word of God. I could not protect others and myself from the difficulty I was facing. Long ago my Momma told me to stop fighting for myself and protect others with my life! So I felt like a hero and it became part of my persona to hold on to this overly optimistic perception of living a Godly life.
Did this work? Nah, it wasn’t until I was raising my children that I figured out the most valuable thing was not in how I saw the world, or how the world saw me, or even how I saw me in the world. It was much deeper than that. It was how I felt about me. How I valued, or devalued myself. This was the crux of my belief system… Now grab your bible and follow along in what God says… not what I say!
The church (the denomination I belonged to) had taught me that I was a sinner, so I had a sinner’s mentality. Everything about the bible was skewed from the viewpoint of a sinner. Even the thought of a sinner saved by Grace was just a dressed up sinner–but still a sinner. So, I still thought like a sinner. I was even a better at being a sinner because now I had self-righteousness–which the church was doling out daily. I was blind. 2 Corinthians 4:4for some reason kept on bugging me!
So I did some research. I no longer took what the church was calling gospel without questioning it–or rather, my life questioned it. In every account of my life, I was empty. Was there something wrong with the Gospel? God forbid, ‘NO!’ Then there had to be something wrong with me. I accepted that and pursued the answer.
2 Corinthians 4:4 (KJV)In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
In the above verse, the word blinded is in the Greek and it means to be opaque. So, I can’t see through something. But the root word for blinded was ‘ego.’ Wow!
I had to park myself right here with this thought: my mind was being blinded by my ego. I couldn’t comprehend the light of the glorious gospel of the good news. Yet, I was in the Word and I thought the Word was in me.
You see, it’s your ego that’s blinding your mind. The mind is the heart of your soul. Your soul consists of the mind, the will, the intellect and the emotions. The mind is where you perceive your consciousness, how you think, calculate, and comprehend yourself in life. So being blinded by the ego explains my self-righteousness! This is the stumbling block of most people in the church! The self-righteous attitude makes them believe they are better than everyone else. Why? Because of what they thought they knew. In reality, they know so little. This is why they are so easily led astray.
Jesus said something so profound in Matthew 15.When His disciples were hungry and they were eating corn off the stalks without washing their hands. The scribes and Pharisees judged their behavior as breaking the law of the elders, or breaking their traditions. Jesus said:
Matthew 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
In short, they upheld their traditions higher than the laws of God. The church is obsessed with the mindset of sin which conveniently makes them financially sound. Thinking of oneself as a sinner gives you the mentality of being indebted to someone. This attitude gives the church leverage over you–hence the sinner mentality.
Jesus continued, telling them in:
Matthew 15:7Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
As you see, Jesus revealed how far away their hearts/minds (remember the heart of your soul is your mind) were from God. So their worship was more of a show than true sincerity of the heart/mind. It’s easier for the church to rule/control indebted people than free people. They maintain control by keeping churchgoers divided–which is why all of these different doctrinal churches are fighting one another when Jesus taught peace and love…
God and His Word do not want you sin-conscious. God wants you Righteousness-conscious. Your mind can only focus on one thought at a time. If you are thinking of yourself as a sinner, you sin and you keep going back to church to have them correct your sin consciousness. But they don’t, and they cannot, because their traditions are more important. Only God and His Word can create the change in you.
Having a sin-conscious mind or mindset causes you to sin but even worse than this is to constantly be thinking bad of yourself. How you think of yourself determines how much faith you have, and it leads you to escape into self-righteousness, which isn’t righteousness at all. (2 Corinthians 4:4)
How you think of yourself should be modeled after how God thinks of you. We are of the seed of Abraham; his faith (being fully persuaded in believing[from the Greek definition]) was counted as righteousness.
Romans 4:20-22-20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
If you cannot see yourself as righteous, then your believing is impeded–hence, you’ve lost your faith. Your ability to believe God and His Word has been totally compromised as well as your position in God’s Kingdom. The Word is what changes your mindset by replacing your doubts and fears, making you undefeated. Instead of feigning kindness out of insincere faith and insecurity–now, I’m nice on purpose.
2 Timothy 1:7 (AMPC) For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.
Notice the ‘well-balanced mind’ is a result of your spirit (which has power and love) and causes you to have discipline and self-control. The word is what changes us, and others. This is the reason why the Word (Jesus is the Word in John 1:1-4) has to be in you! John 14:20.
You are no longer a sinner, and neither should you think of yourself as one. Jesus forgave you of your sins millennia ago–so, sin is not the issue.
John 3:16-17 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
17For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.
Just knowing to accept His Forgiveness leads you to change your mindset and turn your back on old habits, and a sinful nature. Sin, in the Greek and Hebrew, means ‘missing the mark’. So you’re in agreement with the change of direction is what produces repentance. The direction is believing what God has said about you, rather than what the world has said about you.
This will be concluded in ‘Living the Life as a Disciple of Christ (part 1.) Part 2 will soon to follow!
Much Love
Pastor Harris
God Is Love and Love conquers and covers it all!
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