WHAT IS TRUE DEATH TO THE INFLUENCE OF THIS WORLD?
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
All this week I have been trying to bring to you different thoughts on a piece by piece giving of our lives God, and what that might mean to you. Ultimately the goal that we have in this life is to be able to fit into the eternal life that God has set up for us in his kingdom.
We tend to drag along with us however, the experiences and the emotions that we gather along the way. Those things that we have seen and felt in this life are most certainly a part of who we are as people, and yet one of the things that we learn as we go deeper with Jesus Christ in life is that this is only the beginning of eternity for us, and not the end. So often as people we tend to get mixed up in our direction as to what is important in this life. In many cases the means to get to an end becomes the end itself. In other words along the way we get sidetracked as we experience things that tug at our heartstrings like looking into the eyes of the small puppy in a box we get mesmerized and our heart for a time gets carried away as does our emotions. It is easy for us to get sidetracked and redirected into a lesser goal in this life than that of seeking after God.
I heard a very important point made once that has stuck with me through the years, which is: someone who is actually dead to something will no longer respond to that thing. A dead the body will no longer respond to pain or to any of the sensations that we feel in life. As we die to the influence of this world in our spiritual lives there should also be a death experienced to our sensitivity to the slings and arrows thrown at us by a world which we have begun to disconnect with. I have myself seen a change within my life over the last several years that has in some cases been very puzzling to me as well as to those who or close to me. That change has been in my ability to allow myself to be angered and frustrated by the sheer stupidity of the world around me in its reaction to God's truth. I can see the efforts being made by the world to influence the minds and hearts of people by trying to direct their attention towards sex, money, influence and power. Strangely enough I find almost on a daily basis now that I am becoming an infected by both the pleas and the attempts to distract me from a daily routine of seeking after God in my life. It is becoming easier for me to focus on my relationship with the father as I seem to spiritually and least, be dying more and more to the influence of what I see around me. I have even tried to test myself to see how much of the old man still exists within me, but I am finding there is little to no thrill left within me to even get the chance to see you or be influenced by the old world that my life was tangled in. Sometimes it is important that we test God's word for our lives to see the changes that have been made in us.
If we are indeed dying to the influence of this world around us, we should be able to since it in our daily lives. The person we are now must be transformed by the renewing of our mind and our hearts to fit into the kingdom of heaven. We are the ones who change it is not God or the kingdom of heaven that changes to fit into our personal sense of what is right and wrong. God's word and his kingdom remain true and righteous while all that is in this world remains temporary. That includes our life here and it includes our attitude of what is important. It is our duty to give to God all of the pieces of the puzzle of our lives so that he can put us together as a complete child of God. I'd love each and every one of you with all of my heart, and it is my prayer that you might find yourself in a situation where you too can say that you can feel yourself dying to this world's influence on you. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
All this week I have been trying to bring to you different thoughts on a piece by piece giving of our lives God, and what that might mean to you. Ultimately the goal that we have in this life is to be able to fit into the eternal life that God has set up for us in his kingdom.
We tend to drag along with us however, the experiences and the emotions that we gather along the way. Those things that we have seen and felt in this life are most certainly a part of who we are as people, and yet one of the things that we learn as we go deeper with Jesus Christ in life is that this is only the beginning of eternity for us, and not the end. So often as people we tend to get mixed up in our direction as to what is important in this life. In many cases the means to get to an end becomes the end itself. In other words along the way we get sidetracked as we experience things that tug at our heartstrings like looking into the eyes of the small puppy in a box we get mesmerized and our heart for a time gets carried away as does our emotions. It is easy for us to get sidetracked and redirected into a lesser goal in this life than that of seeking after God.
I heard a very important point made once that has stuck with me through the years, which is: someone who is actually dead to something will no longer respond to that thing. A dead the body will no longer respond to pain or to any of the sensations that we feel in life. As we die to the influence of this world in our spiritual lives there should also be a death experienced to our sensitivity to the slings and arrows thrown at us by a world which we have begun to disconnect with. I have myself seen a change within my life over the last several years that has in some cases been very puzzling to me as well as to those who or close to me. That change has been in my ability to allow myself to be angered and frustrated by the sheer stupidity of the world around me in its reaction to God's truth. I can see the efforts being made by the world to influence the minds and hearts of people by trying to direct their attention towards sex, money, influence and power. Strangely enough I find almost on a daily basis now that I am becoming an infected by both the pleas and the attempts to distract me from a daily routine of seeking after God in my life. It is becoming easier for me to focus on my relationship with the father as I seem to spiritually and least, be dying more and more to the influence of what I see around me. I have even tried to test myself to see how much of the old man still exists within me, but I am finding there is little to no thrill left within me to even get the chance to see you or be influenced by the old world that my life was tangled in. Sometimes it is important that we test God's word for our lives to see the changes that have been made in us.
If we are indeed dying to the influence of this world around us, we should be able to since it in our daily lives. The person we are now must be transformed by the renewing of our mind and our hearts to fit into the kingdom of heaven. We are the ones who change it is not God or the kingdom of heaven that changes to fit into our personal sense of what is right and wrong. God's word and his kingdom remain true and righteous while all that is in this world remains temporary. That includes our life here and it includes our attitude of what is important. It is our duty to give to God all of the pieces of the puzzle of our lives so that he can put us together as a complete child of God. I'd love each and every one of you with all of my heart, and it is my prayer that you might find yourself in a situation where you too can say that you can feel yourself dying to this world's influence on you. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
Comments
Post a Comment