FRESH START TODAY - Renewing your mind will change your heart’s condition
Romans 12:2 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. NIV
This week’s verse will be challenging, but the FRESH START TODAY study has been preparing you to begin to really focus on renewing your mind. If you have been memorizing the previous week’s scriptures, or at least re-reading them every day, you are in the beginning stages of changing your attitude. God has a plan for you and the only way you will recognize it is by no longer conforming or accepting the patterns of this world. We do live in the world, as believers, but we can choose not to believe the lies that are thrown at us every day. You may have been a believer for a long time or just a short time, but at sometime you realize that we live in a dark world. It is spurred on by information from the current media, which does not include the negative conversations we hear from people every day. The people in the world and the negative activity can bring us down emotionally, physically and spiritually. What do you really want to put in your mind?
Where do you find your friends? Most of us, as believers, find our friends in school, at work and/or at church. What are they sharing with you? Do they encourage your walk with the Lord? Do they bring you down? What do they see in you? How many of them share their thoughts with you after reading the Bible? How often do you share with friends your thoughts after you read Scripture? No? You do not share any thoughts regarding the scriptures that you read? No? You do not read Scripture? I am sorry to say this, but you are still conforming to the ways of the world!
My pastor husband has said that some people are so “heavenly minded that they are of no earthy value”. There needs to be a balance, because we do live in this world, but it is not our permanent home. We do not need to become so religious that we cannot reach out to others that are just beginning or do not, understand the truth of God’s Word. People stumble and fall, but need a helping hand to stand again, both physically and spiritually.
I am asking that you allow the Holy Spirit of God to renew your mind and this begins by focusing on the Word of God. The Holy Spirit prepares our hearts for the truth to be accepted. My great grandfather, Rev Braxton McCord Roberts, was a preacher in the mid 1800’s and here is what he preached one time. The title of the sermon was “The Adaptability of the Gospel to the Conditions of the Human Mind”. (Quoted by J.M. Maple in a book called “Missouri Baptist Biography”) “He compared the human mind to a great temple having many compartments. The Gospel of Christ must be heard, the understanding must be opened, and into all the various rooms and recesses, the truth must move until the will was reached and the conflict begun, and action resulted in receiving or rejecting the proffered blessings.” This understanding comes only through the power of God’s Holy Spirit that is allowed to reach all those mental compartments.
Do you want to gain the wisdom of knowing and understanding the will of God?
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