Mature believer's template

“If you typed into Google or Bing, ‘Give me a profile of a mature grace believer/what the grace life would look like,’ it would come back, 'Become a Romans 12 Believer,' ” says Jordan.

“Romans 12 is designed to be for you a template that demonstrates the specifics of what the grace life looks like in practice. It’s a profile of what spiritually mature believers look like and it’s the path to the transforming power of grace in our life. When God’s Word works effectually in you that believe, there has to be something in God’s Word that you’re thinking about.

“At the Bible conference in Florida the other week, time and time again people came and said, ‘What I’m learning about right division has completely changed my whole life.’

“The first thing it changes for about 90% of people is where they go to church because what their church teaches doesn’t fit any more. The second thing it does is change their prayer life.

“Over and over, people find right division and the first thing that falls apart is their prayer life. They realize the way they’ve been praying, they’ve either been praying like the heathen pray or they’ve been praying like Israel prays, but they weren’t praying like members of the Body of Christ.

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“Before the Word of God was completed, God gave supernaturally to different people the capacity to do jobs that needed to be done. After the Word was completed, though, He didn’t need to give you those job assignments because they’re written for you in Scripture. The jobs still need to be done; the method for filling the jobs is different.

“There are no spiritual gifts today. All of evangelicalism now is trying to get you to discover your spiritual gift. You don’t discover a spiritual gift. You don’t seek a gift; that’s crazy. If it’s a gift you don’t discover it!

“All this preacher talk—the religious mumbo-jumbo that goes on out there—spiritual gifts are something God gave as it pleased Him, I Corinthians 12 says. You don’t seek them. He’d give one one and another one the other because the assembly needed the function that the gift is going to do.

“But once the Word of God was completed, gifts weren't needed any longer to be a perfected saint. You got all the information you need in a Book and everybody’s equally got it.

“So the point is when you assess yourself, sit down and realize as a saint of the most high God--who’s been equipped to live on Planet Earth as a member of the Body of Christ--there are things I can do, and verses 6-8 says, ‘If you got this gift or that gift, get on with it!’

“Sit down before God and say, ‘Lord, I want to honor you with my body and renew my mind. I want to live in light of who I am and not let the world decide what my life is about. I’m going to cherish who you’ve made me and I’m going to look at myself and evaluate myself on an ongoing basis and see how I can make a contribution,;how I can most effectively contribute, and then get on with it!’

“I hope you’re writing this down; this works, folks! All of a sudden, you don’t wonder what a profile of a mature believer would look like if he lived in my skin; you can make it yourself. If you’ll by faith take this plan, you know what you’ll find? You’ll find the joy that it produces.

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“When Paul says ‘let love be without dissimulation,’ that’s a negative way of saying a positive thing. He’s just saying, ‘Be real. Don’t put on a face.’ When you simulate something, you model it. If you ‘dis’ it, it’s a phony. Don’t be a phony; be real. I mean, take off the mask, and if you take off the mask, and you’re real, Paul says, ‘Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.’ ” You have a bent toward wanting what’s right in God’s eyes.

“One of the most wonderful things in the Christian life for me, and it’s kind of scary because it’s difficult and a lot of folks never get here, is the ability to take off the mask and be real. It’s the ability to hurt when you hurt and let other people know you hurt because they’ll hurt with you. It’s the ability to rejoice when you rejoice because other people, instead of being jealous, will rejoice with you. That’s what I Corinthians 13 talks about charity being.”