SPIRITUAL MENTAL PREPARATION (PART 3)

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then.

1 Peter 1:14 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Apostle Paul writes this about the transformation a person goes through when they choose to believe in Christ Jesus:

...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Here, these words, inspired by God Himself, make it clear that anyone (and that really means “everyone”) who comes to Jesus and submits to Him as Savior, becomes “a new person”. They are giving up their old way of living, the way of the unsaved sinner, and trading it in for a life that uses Jesus’ way of living as the model.

When we look at the sacrament of baptism, we see this play out with a public display of commitment. Symbolically, when the Christian believer goes under the water, they are putting to death their old selves so they can emerge breathing in the new life that has begun in Christ Jesus.

This new life in Christ involves changing everything so that it is centered on Him.

We are to behave as He behaved with our actions mimicking His.  

We are to speak as He spoke, even going as far as reciting His words verbatim to others.

And we are to allow our thoughts to match the way He would have been thinking on all matters we encounter in life.

This is a critically important element of the spiritual mental preparation we need to engage in as Christians for to truly be Christian, we need to be Christ-like in every way.

One thing that’s important to add here. Jesus was God’s one and only Son at the time of His coming and through the duration of His life here on earth. But afterwards, God’s family grew exponentially for not only do those who choose to believe in Jesus become new creations, they also become adopted children of God. Look at these words from Paul’s letter to the Romans, found in chapter 8:

...all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.” For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory. Vv. 11-17

As soon as we receive Jesus as Savior, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and become adopted as if we were one of God’s own children. This includes a sharing of the inheritance of the very Kingdom of Heaven one day. With this truth in place, we now connect to the words of Peter as he writes to his brothers and sisters in Christ, “God’s elect” who were “scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1):

So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 1 Peter 1:14 NLT

The message here is clear. Christians are to be God’s obedient children and obedient children live the kind of life His Son Jesus lived, a Son who was always about His Father’s business and willing to submit fully to His Father’s will. There is no room to “slip back into...old ways of living” in order to “satisfy” one’s “own desires”. Before coming to Jesus, a sinner “didn’t know any better” but with the spiritual mental preparation that comes with being a new creation, a believer can easily live a life of obedience that is pleasing in the sight of God the Father because it models the life of His Son.

Friends, this message is speaking powerfully to all of us today and challenges us with two simple questions:

1. Does our Christian life reflect a complete, radical change of actions, words, and thoughts, imitating the ways of Jesus?

or

2. Does our life in Christ look no different than it was before we said we believed in Him?

If the answer to question 1 is “yes”, then question 2 is rendered non-applicable and we should continue to exercise the spiritual mental preparation that got us there. But if the answer is “no” which would make the answer to the second question, “yes”, then today is the day to get right with God and the way He expects you to conduct yourself, in step with Jesus who was the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).

My sense is that if we’re honest, we will find ourselves saying “yes” in varying degrees to question 1, knowing that we’ll never be perfectly like Jesus in every way. After all, we are all sinners who fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) and that makes us works in progress as Christians. The good news is that, in our imperfection, we can always be a better version of ourselves in Christ Jesus than we were the day before...and the Holy Spirit is always ready to lead us there. All we need to do is to allow Him to connect us to God’s desires so we’ll not chase after our own.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.