Synopsis
A very brief summary of the topics we have covered in this series:
- We are transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2)
- We have been given spiritual weapons to cast down thought habits (strongholds) that are against the true knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
- We can use our spiritual imagination to build up good thought habits in our minds
- Real transformation comes from changing our beliefs. Believing is done with the heart, which is the boundary that includes your spirit and soul (Romans 10:10, Hebrews 4:12)
- Your identity – who you believe you are, what your have, and what you can do lies at the core of our being and is the most important part to be transformed
- The best way to build and enforce your identity is through your tongue – making declarations and confessions
- Your tongue controls the direction your life is going. If you want to change direction, you have to change what you are saying
- The second path of transformation is to behold His glory – spend time with God and He will rub off on you
- We look in the mirror, behold His glory, and we are transformed into that image (2 Corinthian 3:17-18)
Transformation and Beliefs
Igniting Hope Ministries: We get saved because we believe IN Jesus. We get transformed and free because we believe LIKE Jesus.
Igniting Hope Ministries: If you want to get different results, you are going to have to believe something different.
People think the word “repent” means to change your behavior. But it really means to change your thinking. You change your thinking/believing, and the behavior change will follow.
Galatians 3:1-3 1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
The Galatians (a region consisting of multiple cities) were among Paul’s first converts amongst the Gentiles. Galatia is where he went on his first missionary journey.
After he left, some Jewish believers that came from the Jerusalem church started teaching them that to be really spiritual they had to start obeying the law of Moses. This of course is that age old conflict between faith vs. works.
What is the difference? Faith is all about what you believe. Works is about what you do – your behavior.
Paul says the Galatians began their spiritual journey in the spirit – i.e., by the “hearing with faith”. But now they were trying to be perfected – i.e., become mature and complete – by the flesh.
Now in this verse, don’t think of “the flesh” as the unregenerate hangings on of the old man, but as doing things through human effort – by your own natural willpower.
Paul had real experience with that, and some real failures. He talks about it in Romans 7. In vs. 1 he starts out that he is addressing his comments to those who knew the law (i.e., Jews). He is talking about his experience as a Jew trying to keep the law.
Romans 7:14-15 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
Romans 7:22-23 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Paul uses his strongest language when addressing this issue with the Galatians. Because he had been there and done that, and knew that it didn’t work.
I have a theory, that the reason Saul (pre conversion Paul) was so zealous is because he was frustrated with his own spiritual walk and his inability to be “perfect”, so he looked for more and more things he could do to “prove” he loved God. And that led him to his persecution of Christians, which he viewed as heretics to the Jewish faith. It was his own insecurities driving him.
On a side note, I think that a similar dynamic is at work with the social justice warriors. They have a real desire to “do good”, but it is misdirected, and they end up attacking others. Perpetrating injustice in the name of wanting to bring about “justice”.
Some Beliefs we Should Change
Identity
Igniting Hope Ministries: You can’t consistently do what you don’t believe you are. If you try to act like a good Christian, you’re going to get tired because you’re just acting.
We have to stop letting our sense of identity depend on our performance. This is the struggle Paul had in Romans 7. It’s actually a pretty hard habit to kick.
Don’t let your past experiences – especially failures – define what you believe the future will hold. Hope! The expectation of good.
Igniting Hope Ministries: the amount of hope you have determines your spiritual load bearing capability.
If you have hope for the future, difficulties in the present will not get you down. But if you have little hope – expectation that the future will be better than the present – even little things can throw you for a loop.
God is more interested in progress than He is in perfection.
But what about “Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48). We think that is impossible. But apparently Jesus didn’t think so. Maybe we have the wrong idea of what “perfect” is.
Greek word teleios translated “perfect” means lit. of full age; mature, complete. It means to fulfill the purpose it was designed for.
Colossians 2:9-10 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Most translations don’t dare to say what the scripture actually says in the Greek. The word fullness in vs. 9 is plerōma. The word mostly translated complete in vs. 10 is the verb plēroō (pronounced play-ro’-oh) which means to be made full. The Amplified Classic comes the closest:
Colossians 2:10 AMPC And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead – Father Son and Holy Spirit – and reach full spiritual stature].
We should be speaking to ourselves, I am full of God.
I am not God’s “problem child”. I am the one He delights in.
I am righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21) and all the blessings of the righteous belong to me.
I am His sheep and He is my Shepherd. I hear and know His voice, follow Him, and He leads me. I do not follow the voice of a stranger because I recognize that it is not the voice of my Shepherd. Baaaa!
Financial
Sowing and Reaping. The church talks a lot about sowing – giving and tithing – but not so much about reaping.
When a farmer sows seed, he expects a harvest.
People, when they give something, they think it’s gone. It is a law that you can’t spend the same money twice. But you need to look at it as an investment – you should expect a return on it. The farmer sows in the hope of a harvest. You should be looking for a return on your giving.
Proverbs 10:5 5 He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.
Proverbs 10:5 Living Bible What a shame to see a lad that sleeps away his window of opportunity.
Is it possible that someone could sleep through a harvest? Do all the work of sowing, but not benefit because you miss the harvest.
We understand that sowing takes work. But so does reaping. When God gave the Israelites the manna – bread from heaven – they still had to go out and gather it. When Elisha asked the widow of one of the prophets who had debt what she had in the house, he told her to borrow as many vessels as she could, and the little jar of oil filled all those vessels. God performed a miracle! But she was still broke until she did something – she had to go out and sell the oil. (2 Kings 4:1-7)
Ecclesiastes 11:4 He who observes the wind will not sow, And he who regards the clouds will not reap.
If you are waiting for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. That is what Ecclesiastes is talking about. When it is time, you have to move.
Many times God’s provision and blessings come in the form of opportunities.
The Goal in Finances
2 Corinthians 9:8 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
The goal is abundance – which means more than enough.
All my bills are paid in full, on time, with more than enough left over.
Physical
Expectation plays a lot here. People expect to get sick. Maybe they believe in healing, but they don’t really believe in divine health.
People especially believe as they get older that their bodies are going to fall apart. They make jokes about it. Don’t do this!
Speak to your body. Tell it that it is healthy and strong.
“Thank you Lord for the health of my body, which you quicken with the same power that raised Christ from the dead.
Thank you that all my systems are working properly and efficiently.
Like Moses my strength is not abated nor my eyesight dim. Like Caleb I am as strong at 80 as I was at 40.
My mind and wit remains sharp. The memory of the righteous is blessed. (Proverbs 10:7)
If you have an area where your body is acting up, address it directly. Tell it not how it is, but how it is supposed to be. Remember the tongue is like a steering wheel of a car. If you want to go in a different direction, you need to turn the wheel.
What Being Transformed Enables Us to Do
Romans 12:1-2 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
2 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 Passion Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.
Verse 2 has four parts to it.
What not to do, or to stop doing: Don’t be conformed to this world. The Passion translation says it well: Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you.
What we should do: Be transformed
How to do it: By the renewing of the mind
The results of being transformed: you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
I want to break down that last part.
Prove. Gr. Dokimazein. Prove, approve, discern, allow, examine. The idea is that something is examined or put to the test for the sake of approval. “Inspected by #5”. Quality control.
Tests given in a school. The purpose? To find out if you know what you are supposed to know. The stamp of approval is the diploma.
The one doing the examining wants the thing being examined to pass the test.
Also used in James 1:12
James 1:12 12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
Note: the word translated trial or temptation in James 1 all comes from the same root, which means a temptation, test, or trial.
Another idea presented in this word is the idea of experience. For example, you’ve heard the phrase “proven technology”. That means it has been tested out in real life experience and it has been shown to work as intended. It is not just theoretical.
If we are honest with ourselves, there are many areas of our life where the word of God is just theoretical – we see it, we accept it, but we have not yet experienced it as it says.
Being transformed gets us to the place where that “theory” becomes real life experience.
Examination on two levels
- We examine to discern what God’s will is
- We are being examined to see the level at which we fulfill God’s will. I.e., are we obedient to that will.
Three Levels of God’s Will
Good
Gr. Agathos – good or beneficial.
You are doing the basic good things the Bible talks about. Going to church, tithing, reading your Bible and growing, loving people, etc. Being a good Christian. And that is good! It is beneficial.
Acceptable
Gr. Euareston – well pleasing. You’re not just doing the things in general that the Bible says, but you’re being led by the Spirit – when He talks to you and tells you to do something, and you are obedient. That is well pleasing to God. “Well done, good and faithful servant”.
Perfect
Gr. Teleion – complete. Mature, of full age. Completely fulfilling what it is designed for. You are walking in your destiny and fulfilling God’s calling.
