My thoughts are that when I first came to know that God is that I had been fooled about the past and that life was not what I thought it was. I was shocked, devastated etc.
I was amazed, Jesus was real. His work real. And I knew all of this without reading the Bible. Then I learned more about Salvation. I didn’t know about God’s love and the stories of the Bible. I knew nothing of Job, Ruth, the gospels etc. What a lot of learning we need to do, we must read the ancient text, the Scriptures to learn of what people have known since God’s first relationship with people.
What became very important was that our change of lifestyle was not supposed to be brief.
I knew that God needs a total change in our life in order for us to be closer to Him.
I knew that God needs a total change in our life in order for us to be closer to Him.
From the learning’s of my past that the more we are like our teacher the more “attuned” we are to their thoughts and we understand them better. So if you have someone who has taught you and you have learned a great deal from that person, enough to sink in so much that it has deeply affected your life then it will be because you are both on the same track mentally and spiritually. That’s very important for success.
One of the most common complaints from Christians is that they cannot understand God’s will for their lives.
The Preacher is supposed to be more like Jesus so that he understands God better. You and I are supposed to become more like Jesus too. All things become new.
If we claim to be a follower of Christ but deliberately do ungodly things then we deceive ourselves. We must be doers of the Word. We are supposed to see the good in being a good person and want to cast aside our bad ways of the past and follow Christ.
Taking up our cross and following Christ is about that. Its going to hurt, its a battle, and people get hurt in battles. This is fighting the good fight.
Paul didn’t go out gambling with the Bro’s before he went out preaching – in other words he had to walk the walk of goodness.
If we look at the self destruction of the bad life we can see that it is not good for us.
To pray to God and say that “we give ourself to Him” and then go to parties, go dating, abuse our bodies, and such, maybe abuse alcohol, drugs etc then we are not walking the walk. We are choosing to follow Jesus in lip service but not in truth.
What reward do we expect from telling ourself untruths and telling them to God? God loves to see us fight the good fight. The better examples we are then the more likely others will follow, including those we hold so near to our hearts.
God knows our untruths and so does Satan.
One cries a tear of sorrow and the other laughs sarcastically for joy because we put ourselves in evil hands by our actions.
If we really want to know God’s will in our life then we must be more like Christ and live good gentle lives following Christ in belief, love, trust, deeds and true dedication.
The rewards are too many to mention. A total change of life with a total faith in God will bring a life worth living. The closer we are to God in thought then the easier it is to understand what God wants to tell us and we understand His guidance so much more.
We must be doers of the Word and not hearers only – for our own good and for those in future.
Lots of love from James M Sandbrook.
22nd of November, 2012.
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