01-Aug-2021: Ps. Joshua
Re-cap:
- Our workplace is our mission field & is where we ought to shine our light.
- Our everyday ordinary life is the offering before God & every day is a mission.
- Attitude of gratitude & Attitude becomes our altitude.
- Embracing what God has done for us.
Principles of the world vs Principles of God’s Word
- Compartmentalized focus on God vs relationship with God as His children.
- Unhealthy fear of God vs embracing God’s love
How do we renew our minds?
• Pray and as God for the source
• By Speaking Gods word into & over our lives & minds.
• Replace our thoughts with Gods truth.
• To have accountability.
Today:
Romans 1:2 MSG
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Col 3:2 NIV
2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
It’s difficult to fix our attention on God. The most natural reaction is to panic and display fear. We need His Grace and He will help us.
When our mind is renewed, our attention is refocused & a mountain becomes a molehill.
Sometimes when God speaks, we don’t pay attention, or we delay our response. With God, delayed obedience is disobedience.
Are we obeying because we don’t have a choice or are we doing it willingly?
We see delayed obedience in the life of King Saul – delayed obedience became disobedience.
We should quickly recognize what God wants & respond to it!
Phil 2:13 NIV
13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
God helps us but, we must do our part – in willing obedience.
2 Cor 4:16-18 NIV
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Cor 4:16-18 MSG
16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
God’s word changes us from the inside out! When we look to God, our focus changes from the temporary and shifts to God.
Hard times are small compared to the coming good times. Not one day goes by without His unfolding grace.
As we give time to God that’s when we shift our attention to God. There is a reward. Something better is being prepared for us.
Romans 12:2 NIV
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
The world and its desires will pass away. The temporary is attractive and tries to bring us to its level.
When we renew our minds with His word, with His people, in his presence – we recognize the temporary vs the permanent.
God is maturing us. He is bringing the best out of us.
By spending time with God, we allow God to mold us.
Romans 8:18 NIV
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18 MSG
That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times.
The world has its standards – to its pattern of behavior of thinking.
But, for us the WORD is the standard, our pattern & our thinking.
The secret is – Knowing who we are & whose we are.
Knowing that we are the righteousness of God. Christ is in us! We are a new creation! We belong to God.
We are not away from the world – we are in the world. BUT we are not like the word.
1 Pet 2:9 NIV
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Israel was God’s chosen, a holy nation. But, now we – Christ’s chosen – are the chosen people, Gods special possession!
Ps 139:14 NIV
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Eph 2:10 NIV
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Summary:
- We do not confirm pattern of the world. Let’s not get bogged down with the patterns of this world!
- We fix out minds on things above not earthly things.
- Today’s things are temporary & remember that God is preparing us for eternal things
- God expects us to joyfully & willing obey him and want to obey him!
- There is a future glory awaiting us and this present suffering is just for a moment.
- We are a new creation and are wonderfully made!