Transformation is to truly believe, 'He's ALIVE!'

In II Corinthians 3, Paul talks about the Corinthians being the living epistles. He explains, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”

Jordan says, “It struck me one day, ‘If they were the epistles ministered by Paul, didn’t Paul write some epistles? In essence, he’s saying that you and I are really Romans through Philemon. That’s what He writes in your heart.’

“Now, God doesn’t automatically write it in there. It’s what He writes in your heart as you take in that truth. It’s the intake.

“Paul said, ‘The outward man perishes but the inward man is renewed day by day.’ How’s it renewed?  You’re renewed in the SPIRIT of your mind. Paul says, ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’

“How often should your mind be being renewed? DAY by DAY. It’s that daily intake, that moment-by- moment application of the truth of God’s Word in the details of your life. That’s really called PRAYER.

“It’s looking at everything that happens in your life and thinking before God; talking to God about what’s going on, and what His Word says about what’s going on, and how His Word can be applied to that. How what His Word says your attitude should be about that insult, that temptation, that rejection, etc.

“You say, ‘Well, I don’t know what it says.’ But you do know. Because when you don’t know you do know. When you don’t know, what do you do? You go find out.

“Now all of a sudden I need to know how to ‘rightly divide.’ You wouldn’t have to talk people into rightly dividing if they lived like THAT!

*****

“You see how this thing just becomes life; becomes living? Why? Because He is our life. That’s how He IS your life. Folks, these are not mindless clichés designed for preachers to have something to talk about and you go, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh.’

“This is the living reality for the way God made your soul, your inner man, to function and a guy like me is trying to say them in 15 different ways so that maybe one of them will, ‘DING!,’ turn on the light for you and make it real.

“If it isn’t real in your life, it’s just because you haven’t believed it; the verse says the ‘word WORKS in you that believe.’

“You can say, ‘I don’t really care,’ but there will be a day when you do. You can say, ‘It’s not for me.’ There will be a day when it will be for you. Just remember some little old nut told you there was an answer and get in Romans through Philemon and find it.

*****

“The expression ‘living God’ occurs a number of times in the pastoral epistles and you can trace that title through the Bible. The ‘living God’ is a title given to God, the God of the Bible, in relationship to Him actively working and doing things. He’s put in comparison to the ‘dead god.’ At Ephesus, there’s the 'religion' god, Diana.

“What I’m talking about is the opposite of religion. It’s the living God who does all those things in the Old Testament. When David goes to kill Goliath, he says, ‘Who is this that defies the armies of the living God?!' He's saying, 'We got a God who can go out and take care of this bird! What are you guys sitting here quaking in your boots for?!’

“Over and over, Paul understood who God was. That’s why he wrote in Romans, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the POWER of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’

“Paul understood his message, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of life in Christ Jesus DID change things and God DID work. He’s the Savior who comes and provides life, and because I’m trusting in the living God, all this stuff, the wrath of the world and the wrath of the religious system, just comes all down on me.

*****

“Now, if you’re trusting the living God, the God whose LIFE is the issue, you’re not trusting in yourself.

“You abandon all of your trust in your own righteousness and you trust God’s righteousness. You abandon all your trust in your religion and the ‘fair show of the flesh’ and all that and when you do that, you begin to suffer the persecution of the religious system, of the world, because you’re telling the world they’re lost and there’s no hope.

“You know, at Christmastime it’s, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men,’ and then you stand up and say, ‘There will be no peace on this planet until Jesus Christ comes back as the prince of peace.’

“ ‘Oh, geez. What kind of intolerant, bigoted message is that?!’ You look at somebody and say, ‘You’re lost, and you can trust in a baby in a manger and give gifts and be good to people all you want to but that baby came in a manger and there is no more manger, no baby crying in swaddling clothes. There’s  a Cross that you have to go to because of your sin. You’re separated from God.’

“You tell people that and you get very different reactions. Paul said, ‘If I preach circumcision, why am I suffering persecution?’ Well, if you preach circumcision, some operation you can do to get favor with God, you wouldn’t be persecuted, because you’re telling people, ‘I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay, let’s just do it and God’ll be happy.’ There’s no offense to the flesh in that!”

 (new article tomorrow)