“He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like His own, using the same power with which He will bring everything under His control.” (Philippians 3:21 NLT)
If you’re a Jesus follower one day you’ll no longer have to deal with sickness, sin, Satan, or his devilish emissaries. Why not? We’ll be in heaven, and we’ll have new sinless and perfect bodies. What a day that will be!
In the meantime, life can be hard, and Satan is our relentless enemy who seeks in every conceivable way to keep us from being effective for Jesus. The primary tool Satan uses is our mind. If he can keep us distracted by errant thoughts, he can keep us from changing our world. What will it take for us to make a difference in our spheres of influence?
Two primary things: we need to learn to think right, from which will come our ability to live right. Implicit in accomplishing these two things is devotion to Jesus and dependence upon the Holy Spirit to be our constant companion and guide. Apart from Jesus we are nothing and can do nothing of eternal significance.
John Wesley wrote: “Give me ten men that hate nothing but sin and love nothing but God and we will change the world.” What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you read that quote? What came to my mind was – “I’d love to be one of those ten men!” Wouldn’t you? But how? By allowing the Lord to teach us to think right, resulting in our determination to live right. What might that look like?
What we think about comes about, so, we must constantly fill our thoughts with God oriented things. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8-9: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me – everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Did you notice the progression of his thought? “Fix your thoughts” then “putting into practice.” How we behave, how we live our lives grows out of that upon which our minds are fed. Feed them junk and your life will be a mess, but feed them the things which Paul wrote above, and you’ll be prepared to change your world.
What might that look like for you and me? We tend to think too globally when we imagine how to change anything. What I would propose is to think more linearly. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What will be our first step? How do we become men (and women) who “hate nothing but sin and love nothing but God?” We do what Jesus did – we discipline ourselves to know God intimately through prayer and devotion to His Word.
We flood our mind with that which is wholesome, pure, and worthy of remembrance. We train our mind to desire God above all others, then we align ourselves with those who are of like mind. Our mission is to win the lost and train (disciple) them to walk faithfully with an eye to win those in their spheres of influence. But it all begins with prayer.
Laura Bailey wrote: “In May of 1934, Christian businessmen in Charlotte, North Carolina, held an all-day prayer meeting on his father’s pasture. Billy Graham’s father, William Franklin Graham, Sr., recalled one of the men’s prayers that day: ‘That out of Charlotte the Lord would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.’ At that time, in 1934, it certainly wasn’t obvious that that someone might be me.”
There’s no doubt the Lord used Billy Graham to change the world for millions of people. We may never be the next Billy Graham, but the Lord might lead us to pray for him or her!
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 