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.

Conformed – suschematizo

to fashion alike or put on the form, fashion , or appearance of another

Transformed – Metamorphoo

metamorphoses, change, transfigure, transform

Renewing – anakainosis

Renovation

Prove – dokimazo

To test, literally or figuratively, allow, discern, examine, try

Good – agates

Good in ant sense, benefit, well

Acceptable – euarestos

Fully agreeable, well pleasing

Perfect – teleios

Complete, in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, completeness, of full age

Will of God – thelema

A determination or choice, purpose, decree, inclination, desire

We as Christians should not conform to the patterns and habits of the world, but God wants us to renew our mind and stay in that pattern of renewal on a daily basis. The Bible uses the term “new creature” when referring to one who has asked Jesus into his heart, so it is God’s desire that we be totally renewed from the inside first. He knows once the inside has been renewed it will spill over into our daily actions without us even thinking about it.

It is possible to fool others for awhile by pretending to be someone you are not, but eventually the real person will show through regardless of your best efforts.

If you will let God renew your mind, then you can have lasting change through your actions and interactions with others. They will be able to see that even though you might be having severe problems in certain areas of your life, you now handle it in a completely different way than before.

This is something that only God can do, and others will be able to tell the huge difference He has made in your life.

In the end it will never be easier to just conform to the world and live by its principles, never having any of your own.

So how do you renew your mind? Read, believe, and LIVE (put into daily practice) the principles of the Word of God.

The mind is not renewed by the study of the Word alone. You must practice what it says and let it live in you so much that it becomes a part of you, just like your bones and muscles are woven into the fiber of your very being.

Then when something comes along that shakes you to your very core, your renewed mind will automatically do the right thing immediately instead of the flesh kicking in and trying to overwhelm you with fear, anxiety, hopelessness, or anger.

God truly does have your best interest at heart in every way.

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Being a Christian for most of my life, I knew that God expected me to read the Bible and obey what its words told me to do. At first I used the excuse that it was just too hard to change, but God didn’t let me get away with that for very long. If He could send His totally Sinless Son to die for sins that He had not commited, how could I possibly tell God that I wouldn’t be obedient to what His Word told me to do.

God expects obedience from His children, and He expects us to obey whether others understand or not. His way of doing things is much different than the way man thinks they should be done. He can see the big picture and has an awesome plan for each child of God. The only problem is that many times since we can’t see things through God’s eyes, we think that what He tells us to do doesn’t make much sense.

I Corinthians 3: 19

For this world’s wisdom is foolishness (absurdity and stupidity) with God, for it is written, He lays hold of the wise in their [own] craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts and reasonings of the [humanly] wise and recognizes how futile they are. AMP

I Corinthians 1: 27 – 29

For God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.

And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are,

So that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God. AMP

So according to the above verses, even the smartest people on earth don’t have a clue how God thinks. He has everything totally under control, but many times it doesn’t look that way from where we are standing.

Here are two examples from the Bible where God promised victory, but in a way that no human would ever think about.

JOSHUA AND JERICHO

When God told Joshua that He would help Him win the victory over Jericho, I’m sure it never entered into his mind about the way it would actually happen.

In verse 2 He told Joshua that He had already given Jericho to them along with its king and troops. Now all he had to do was follow the instructions God gave.

Here are his instructions from God in verses 3 – 5 from The Message Bible:

March around the city, all your soldiers.

Circle the city once and repeat this for 6 days.

Have 7 priests carry 7 ram’s horn trumpets in front of the Chest. (The Chest was the Ark of the Covenant.)

On the 7^th day march around the city 7 times with the priests blowing away on the trumpets.

And then, a long blast on the ram’s horn – when you hear that, all the people are to shout at the top of their lungs. The city wall will collapse at once;

Then all the people are to enter, every man straight on in.

Who would think God would actually choose to fight a battle with the singers going first and just walking around a city? It certainly never would have entered my mind.

MOSES AND THE RED SEA

The Israelites had left Egypt and had started their trek into the wilderness when they came upon the Red Sea. How would so many people and animals be able to cross it? So God came to Moses with a plan.

The path they had taken hadn’t caught God by surprise at all. In fact, He had led the Israelites there in order to reveal to them His Glory and show them that He would always take care of them if they would just follow Him and put Him first in their lives.

Exodus 14: 1 – 4

God spoke to Moses: Tell the Israelites to turn around and make camp at Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. Camp on the shore of the sea opposite Baal Zephon.

Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are lost; they’re confused. The wilderness has closed in on them.’

Then I’ll make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn again and he’ll chase after them. And I’ll use Pharaoh and his army to put my Glory on display. Then the Egyptians will realize that I am God.

…..

So… God had already thought out this plan and wanted to also show the Egyptians that He was the ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD. I guess sometimes it is hard for us to see that we are not the only ones God wants to deal with. He died for every person in the world and wants them to see who He is.

In order to do that, we have to ask God to let us see things through His eyes, not just look at things from our own perspective.

There are many more instances in the Bible where God told people to do things that made absolutely no sense to them at the time, but when they obeyed they saw the wondrous Glory of God give them victory before their eyes. They could excitedly talk of these things to their children and granchildren.

Joshua and Moses were ordinary people just like you and me. The defining moments in both of their lives were when they decided to take God at His Word even though His plan of action didn’t make complete sense to their physical mind. They had both gotten to the point that they had seen enough of the Character of God that they could trust His plan to bring forth victory in spite of them not understanding how it would work.

They had problems and struggles just as we do today, but somehow they got past their own SELF and the fleshly needs that went with it and consecrated their life to God to live and walk in obedience.

Don’t try to make things work out your way any more. Give your problems, trials, struggles, and everyday life to God and let Him work it out according to His plan. Who knows what He will tell you to do, but I can pretty much assure you that you won’t be able to guess which way God will handle things.

Life certainly won’t be dull if you will set your heart and mind to walk in obedience to God!

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-H. Blankenship-

I came across this quote and I have to admit that it made me think about this Bible verse in a whole new way.

The actual verses are written in Matthew 22: 37-40

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect.) This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment. And a second  is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.   AMP

Jesus summed up in two verses what had been the whole Ten Commandments that had been given to the Israelites in the wilderness.

The word “shall” gives a command to do it – not just if you feel like it or agree with it.

Also we don’t get to choose one of the three ways to love God. He said with ALL our heart AND all our soul AND all our mind.

God wants every part of you to be able to produce the kind of fruit that can do some great damage to the kingdom of Satan here on earth.

I know it seems to be the popular thing to live life in a way that pleases you, but there is no greater feeling than knowing that God is in control. What an awesome thing that the Most High and Holy God would choose any human to do work on His behalf. He has not chosen just any human – he has chosen YOU.

Give your heart, soul, and mind to Him and let Him accomplish what He desires through your life.

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–Jentzen Franklin–

There are people in the Bible who were what we would think of as just an ordinary person if we had known them at the time. If we had been their next door neighbor, we probably would have thought of them as a person just like us who struggled with problems and issues that were sometimes overwhelming.

Yet God looked at them and knew He would be able to work through them to do some awesome and supernatural things. He gave them a vision or told them a particular thing and they had to decide whether they would believe it and expect it to come to pass or if they would let the passage of time dim the vision enough that it would be forgotten and die.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he was threshing wheat for food in a hidden place so the Midianites would not come and take it away. The Israelites had disobeyed God repeatedly and had been delivered into the hands of the Midianites for seven years. They had pretty much impoverished the children of Israel and they were greatly discouraged to the point that they were crying out to God to save them.

Hardly any human person would have been able to look at Gideon and see that he would have the potential to become a mighty and courageous warrior who would lead the fight for freedom from their oppression. Yet God saw what he was capable of doing with HIS supernatural strength and ability. God chose Gideon, but he had to make the choice of whether he would step out on faith or stay hidden in the winepress where the angel of the Lord had found him.

**********

Being sold out to God is not for the fainthearted. You don’t always have to have superhuman physical strength, but you do need a supernatural touch from God and have HIS ability working in you to accomplish what He desires.

God can see so much more in you than you will ever be able to see in yourself.  He knows what you can accomplish, so don’t limit Him by telling yourself you will never be able to accomplish the “impossible” looking thing He has called you to do. He already knows you can do it with HIS strength and ability.

Make the choice to go with God. One thing I can promise you is that your life will never be boring and mundane again because you don’t feel you have a purpose.

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We use the excuse that we don’t have a degree in theology or Bible, or the Pastor is the one who is supposed to make sure we know these things. There is no possible way he can do that in a couple of hours a week. You must read and study the Word for yourself – then if you have any questions you should ask your pastor or another mature Christian to explain what you don’t understand.

If you don’t really know the truth, it will be easy for Satan to make you believe a lie. Usually he will give you just enough truth to make you think that everything he says is the truth.

**************************

If we sometimes looked a little more to the connection of sentences, we should be kept from very dangerous errors. The Bible ought to be treated in conformity with common sense, as you would use any other book. If you took the writings of any author, however carefully he might express himself, if you picked out a sentence here and a sentence there, [you] might make the man to say what he never believed; nay, even make him to be the supporter of opinions which he abhors. So it is with the Bible: if you pay no regard to the connection and general run of the passage, you miss the mind of the Spirit of God, and rather thrust your own mind into God’s words than bring out God’s mind from the words of the Holy Ghost.

From a sermon entitled “Working Out What Is Worked In,” delivered July 12, 1868.

The Daily Spurgeon

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No matter what version of the Bible you read, you will never truly be able to understand it without the Holy Spirit opening your mind, comprehension, and ears to hear the real truth – not just the truth as you have always perceived it to be.

If you don’t read the Bible with the determination that you want to know the truth, your mind will filter the parts that make you uncomfortable, telling you that the changes you need to make are far beyond your grasp or helping you justify why you don’t need to change.

*  If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, make it a point to read the Bible for a few minutes each morning. You can start out with 5 or 10 minutes, asking the Holy Spirit to show you truths that you have never seen before. It won’t take long for you to look at the Bible differently. It will change your life to the point that you will never want to go back to where you were before.

Don’t let Satan make you believe the lie that the Bible is boring or just an old fashioned irrelevant book that is out of date for today’s times. Its Words are life, health, and well-being for the one who reads it and applies its words to their life.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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1. Dwell on truth and the things of God.
2. What An Awesome Truth!!!
3. Be Careful When You Open The Door!

God has given each of these for our own best interest, so we all need to get back to the basics and take them seriously. Not only that, but God will bless you for keeping His Commandments.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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You are God’s Child if you have asked Jesus to come into your heart as your Savior; only then can you call Him by name and be one of  His People.

God always has conditions for His Blessings. He promises to do His part if you promise to do yours.

Below are His conditions:

shall humble themselves

AND

pray

AND

seek my face

AND

turn from their wicked ways

In the Greek, the AND connecting all these verses means you must do ALL of them, not just choose which ones you want to do and leave the others out.

Then God says after His Requirements are met, He will hear your request, forgive sin, and bring healing and restoration.

You have to really want revival in your own life and in your church before God will send it. If you are tired of  living a powerless Christian life, make the choice to meet the requirements of this verse. God will reveal Himself to you in a marvelous way.

Don’t settle for powerlessness in your Christian life any longer.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living - Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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A Haptoons Cartoon – haptoons.org

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living - Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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What an awesome word picture!

If God takes care of the birds and flowers, how much more will He take care of you if you will just trust Him. Instead of looking at your problems, set your eyes on Him and don’t let the cares of the world drag you down.

Trust, try, and prove him to see what He will do in your life.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

Related posts:

1. A Story – You don’t have to Worry if God is your Pilot

THE   BELL
I KNOW WHO I AM
I am God’s child (John 1:12)
I am Christ’s friend (John 15:15)
I am united with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17)
I am bought with a price (1 Cor 6:19-20)
I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)
I am a personal witness of Christ.  (Acts 1:8)
I am the salt & light of the earth (Matt 5:13-14)
I am a member of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27)
I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8:1-2)
I am a citizen of Heaven. I am significant (Phil 3:20)
I am free from any charge against me (Rom.. 8:31-34)
I am a minister of reconciliation for God (2 Cor 5:17-21)
I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)
I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)
I cannot be separated from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39)
I am established, anointed, sealed by God  (2 Cor 1:21-22)
I am assured all things work together for good  (Rom. 8:28)
I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16)
I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3:12)
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)
I am the branch of the true vine, a c hannel of His life (John 15: 1-5)
I am God’s temple (1 Cor. 3: 16). I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)
I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).. I have been justified (Romans 5:1)
I am God’s co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1). I am God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10)
I am confident that the good works God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil. 1: 5)
I have been redeemed and forgiven ( Col 1:14). I have been adopted as God’s child (Eph 1:5)
I belong to God
Do you know
Who you are?

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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