|
What goes in is what comes out
by Janelle Goodwin Once we have accepted Christ as our Savior, He lives inside of us. Jesus can not live in our use for His glory a dirty person. He will begin to clean us out. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature and old thins are passed away; behold all things are become new. Isn't that encouraging? We become a brand new person inside. A new life will begin. A renewed person is one who has been changed to the true image of God, who created us. Having a renewed mind is allowing God to change the way we think from the way we used to be. This transformation begins with the renewing of our minds. We are not to have anything to do with the things of this world. We can be transformed to the image of Christ if we will put off everything concerning the old man and allow God to put on the new man. But this transformation, like anything else, is a process. You have to begin somewhere and you have to have a goal. Our goal is to have the mind of Christ and we must start at the beginning by capturing our thoughts. It is very important what we allow to go into our minds. Godly thoughts produce Godly emotions, the way that ungodly thoughts produce ungodly emotions. If we capture and trap our thoughts at the beginning before they settle into our hearts then there will be no damage. We must realize what God tells us to think about and stay focused on those things. If we are focused on God, we will not have time to think about the things that are not pleasing to Him. Another way to protect our minds is to monitor what we put in them. If we full our eyes and ears with movies, magazines and music that does not honor god then we are allowing those things to plant seeds in our minds. We can not allow things to fall through the cracks. We must protect ourselves from these things. Philippians 4:6-9 "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you." God tells us the things that we need to think on whatsoever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtuous and praiseworthy. In order for us to make sure that we have our minds set on these things we need to make sure our focus is on Christ. We have to learn about Christ and spend time with Him. Romans 12:2 tells us to be not conformed, which means to be like or copy the behavior of the people of this world. We are not supposed to love this world or anything that belongs to it. If we love the world, we cannot love God, for the love of the Father is not in us. We were created to be like God, so we must please God and be truly holy. We can not be holy and righteous by the works that we have done, but according to the mercy of God that saved us. God wants to change the way we do things and the way we think. Once we allow God to make these changes in us we will learn and know what is good and pleasing to God. The way to allow god to begin changing us is by the renewing of our minds. We must change the way we used to think about things. Our foolish desires will destroy us. We must throw off our old evil nature and give up our old way of life with all of its bad habits. Our attitude and thoughts must be constantly changing for the better. We can let the spirit change our way of thinking and make us a new person. To become perfect and to live in peace we must have the mind of Christ. Our thoughts are where everything begins. Let us find out how to have the mind of Christ. We need to realize what has happened to our minds. We need to know that satan has our minds blinded with his hold! We need to shake off those blinders and realize what is happening to us. We must fight back to take from the enemy's camp what the devil has stolen from us. He cannot have our minds. As we learned earlier, everything that God created was good. Sin entered in and corrupted everything of this world. The Bible says in Titus 1:15-16 that everything is pure unto all those that are pure. Once we allow our minds to become defiled then there is nothing pure in our dirty minds. Second Corinthians says that Paul fears that somehow the devil; like the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so our minds may be corrupted from the simplicicty of Christ. There will be many people who will claim to know God, but their actions will prove that they do not really know Him. This unbelief in god will cause them to not obey God, they will be too worthless to do any good deed. God is our Savior, He showed us how good and kind He is. He washed us by His power of the Holy Ghost. He gave us a new birth and a fresh beginning. Let us take this time to learn how to renew our mind back to the child like pureness of Jesus Christ. Jesus tells us that we can be different from the people of the world and from the old man that we were before we were saved. All we have to do is become renewed in the spirit of our minds. After we are renewed we can put on the new man, which God will create in us to be righteous and have true holiness. We can put away lying and speak the truth to everyone about everyone. The kingdom of God, which includes the church, is about righteousness, pleasing God, living in peace, having true happiness, and joy in the Holy Ghost. These are the things that are acceptable to God, approved of men and show that you have Christ in you. If we let Christ be Lord in our lives, and live at peace with each other, harmony should be our goal. We need to edify or build up one another. How can we do these things if we allow our minds to become corrupt? We must stop it at the source. We must shut the door of our minds to the things of the world, but open the door to the things of Christ. You see, before we were saved, we as the natural man, could not receive the things of the Spirit of God. We were not spiritually discerned, they were like foolishness to us. But now that we are saved and have the Spirit of God in our lives we can spiritually judge all things. We must learn what the word of God has to say about things as we learn these things allow the Sprit of God to work through us, then we will have the mind of Christ. The Bible is more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey. It warns us of the harmful things in this world and we are greatly rewarded with success when we obey them. The laws of God are perfect. They protect us and make us wise. The scriptures give us new life. His teachings will last forever and they give wisdom to ordinary people. The instructions from God will always be right. His commands will shine brightly through our lives and this light will make our hearts glad. If this sounds like the kind of life you desire to have than getting into the world of God and spending more time learning from the master is exactly what you need to do to achieve this life. Lady of Virtue Ministries started as Janelle Goodwin attended Bible College in upstate NY. Janelle became burdened to see souls saved from eternal condemnation. Upon returning home from Bible College, she also became burdened to see women of the world develop characteristics of a Proverbs 31 Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |