RENew Your Mind Because You Need To

If you’re child of God, you belong to a new life that will outlive the one now.

You need to renew your mind to adapt yourself to thinking with an eternal perspective.

I illustrated this point on my dad’s TV broadcast by pointing at his gray hair. Okay, it may have been a little personal, but I wanted the viewers to grasp the understanding that the life around us is dying.

Because of our sin, us and the world as a whole is decaying to the point of death. We will all die someday as the consequence of our sinful nature. We can dye our hair, conduct plastic surgery all we want, but the truth is our body is degrading. Bible describes man’s life as “his days are like grass” (Psalms 103:15 NKJV).

But we who belong to God shouldn’t fret at this because we understand life here is temporary. Rather we anticipate a new life where we will enjoy new glorifying bodies according to what Christ has promised us.

“And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.” 2 Corinthians 4:13-14 NKJV

We enjoy a shared faith in Christ that we “believe” and we profess to others, because we know that God who raised Jesus will raise us up as well someday.

1 John 3:2 advertises us the new bodies we will all enjoy:

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

When we will unite with Christ, we will be like Christ. We enjoy a glorious body that has yet to be revealed and is so marvelous to describe. We won’t need to exercise and diet to modify and maintain it. It is an eternal body.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”  2 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV

We shouldn’t running around like the world, anxious to “immortalize” themselves with the latest cosmetics, because we know that we can’t preserve this body. Our focus is on the man who is being renewed within us.

This man is the new man who Christ has raised from spiritual death and made alive to walk in newness of life. This body is transformed into a new creation in Christ. The body is actually our human soul that is actually the true body. We are not body with a soul, but a soul with a body.

Being made alive to a reality that observes eternity, we “put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Colossians 3:10 NKJV)

Our focus in life should be to nourish, build, mature, shape the new body to conform the wants of Christ and to be content in the pursuit of glorifying God.  We understand that we are not our own because we belong to God in Him making us*, and in Him choosing us to become like Him.** And at salvation, we became doubly owned when God purchased us by Christ.***

We need to escape the world’s thinking. It’s still depraved to sin and it’s blinded from beholding eternity.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”  Romans 12:2 NKJV

Renewing our mind pretty much is changing our appetite. I once hated celery. I had to change my mind to understand that celery is good for my body. Now I eat celery, not because it tastes good, but because I know it does good for my body.

Once we build towards eternity, problems don’t bring us down.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 

while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. -2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NKJV

The world doesn’t bog us down, because we are setting our eyes in eternal perspective. Quickest idea that comes to mind is a passenger given a parachute during his flight. The stewardess comes to him and informs him that the plane will eventually crash, and that he needs to take the parachute in order to survive. The passenger immediately takes the parachute and prepares himself for the jump to come. Let’s say during the course of the flight, the plane experiences turbulence, and a passerby spills hot coffee unto the lap of the passenger.

The passenger does react in pain, but he doesn’t mediate on it. He observes the coffee burn as a light affliction compared to the crash that would have incinerated him had he had not a parachute.

We don’t involve ourselves in the moans of this world, because we know that all our sorrows will all be evaporated one day in eternity. Instead, we run towards God against all odds, because we walk in faith on the promises of God that mark the path for us to walk against any logic that denounces it.

Faith is the eyes that beholds the visible against the invisible and moves out already in sheer confidence towards what he believes in his heart.

We are running towards God. We live by faith that all His promises in the Word are true to the ultimate extent that we act upon them.

But to do this, we need to be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind (Eph 4:23).

Don’t become so adjusted to the culture around that you fit right it. It’s dying! Set our eyes on heaven. It’s eternal! It’s real!

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”  Colossians 3:1-4 NKJV

 

 

 

*Genesis 1:27:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over allthe earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

**Ephesians 1:3-4 :

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love…”

***1 Corinthians 6:20:

For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your bodyand in your spirit, which are God’s.

 

On Suicide

What you won’t see in someone taking their life: taking their life in front of someone they sincerely love.

They won’t do it.

Because two things.

(1) They are too (honestly) selfish to value the feelings of those who actually really, really do care about them. (2) And they are too proud to tell them what is burdening them to the extent that they want to take their life.

It is selfish to assume that no one on the entire earth will miss you if you died. It is proud to be “too scared” to tell someone because you will “freak” them out.

Life does suck, but I believe you have enough life in you to change it than to escape it by your own hands.

One thing about wearing a mask is that it isn’t a face. You can take it off.

If you are scared what’s happening to you, don’t endure it alone: please tell someone you trust.

For Me, I trust Jesus. Not because He’s clique. But because I can’t see Him to attempt to hide myself, but He can see me and know that I am lying with my face.

It’s confronting, but it’s also relief. The relief comes because He says things like “I will give you rest”* and “I will never leave you”**.

This relief He offers is produced by His personal extravagant love.***

I do somewhat enjoy unable to see God Jesus, because as God, He already knows everything and everything about me so my masquerade with Him is pointless; But also as a man, He understands hurt, pain, depression, loneliness, rejection, isolation, peer pressure, apathy, etc.****

You may feel too weak to carry on with life, but you bulk immense strength not to leave life early at your own will.

Life is a War that is Fought with Will.

*Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 NKJV)

**For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)

***The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV) This also applies to you. Because God loves all of us, He has provided the “bridge” over His anger against your wrong for you to enjoy Him:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 NKJV)
Accept His free forgiveness of your sins by trusting that He did actually rid of them by dying as God on the cross for payment and coming back to life (Rom 3:23-26); And switch to His plan for your life (Rom 12:1-2)

****For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18 NKJV)

Death is Not a Dead End

The end of life is not the end. The world around us is only skin deep that will one day shed away.

For us believers, this is not the end of us: we will open our eyes to a bright, new world that God has prepared for us (John 14:1-4). Because we belong to our “a far better country” (Heb 11:16), we should not adjust ourselves to the cultures of this world; rather we should have the Holy Spirit renew our minds (Rom 12:2) to set our eyes on heavenly things (Col 3:23) that are our eternal.

C.S. Lewis once said,“All that is not eternal is eternally useless”. Let’s not fix our eyes on what we see around us that is temporary, but value the unseen which is eternal (2 Cor 4:18).

iHope Steve Jobs is in Heaven

Steve Jobs is dead. I’m should most of you know this by now.

Jobs was the patriarch of our social media age. He introduced the iPod which like redeemed the world of shuffling CDs through your CD player to harmonize a mental playlist for only your memory to enjoy.

I still hallmark the iPod like one of the greatest inventions of our century, among jeans pants and Facebook.

Macbooks and iPads are still like the mother of all envies among our peers today. And he founded Pixar! (Toy Story? Finding Nemo?)

Wouldn’t imagine the same Steve Jobs who lead Apple to the high end of its industry was the same person the company had fired years prior.

Jobs did leave a mark on our planet that we will long remember and hail for the years ahead, but I can’t help but think what Jesus said about earthly success:

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

Jobs has earned his place in history, but did he gained his place in eternity?

iHope…

Access to God

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.” -Matthew 27:50-51

When Jesus died, there arose a terrible earthquake. It shook the earth greatly and his spectators fled in fear. A centurion in his awe said,”Truly, this man was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:55). Among the impressive damage the quake left was the tear of the veil of the temple that guarded the Holy of Holies – the imaged presence of God.

But God had a purpose to ruining his furniture. The veil being torn represented man’s now available access to God. The shedding of the Lamb of the God was the completed sacrifice that made the permanent remission of mankind’s sin. No longer will anyone have to give offerings to make peace with God for Christ paid the price of the payment for sin on the cross.

What does this mean? It means the end of traditions, rituals, procedures to come into God’s presence. We can simply come to God just as we are. We enter into community with God by receiving His grace -the grace that brought salvation. Christ giving to us no what other could: peace with God.

May we come to the Lord with reverence. Honor his holiness by confessing sin and requesting Him to be filled of His spirit.