Developing The Right Attitude
For most of the world, the plan to get into heaven is based on hope, but those who know and trust God, use the word of God as their plan. The knowledge of going to heaven is based on the promises of God and taking advantage of those promises. Even though Christians live in the world, they have died to the world and the fear of spiritual death is no longer something they are concerned with. Even though they may not want to experience death of their body they know that to die is gain because they will be with the Lord.
Christ suffered the death we should have experienced because of our sin. Every Christian suffers from the same dilemma after being born again. Our old man is still alive and fights for control of his mind and spirit. God wants you to renew your mind, but the memories of the past and the former way you lived is still obstructing your desire to obey God. Paul said, I have the desire to do the will of God, but my old man keeps me from doing it.
Even though you delight yourself in God’s word, being called a Christian and acting like one are two different things. Because you sin when you don’t want to sin you may feel like a hypocrite. Though you have the desire to obey God it seems as if you sin more than you obey. This kind of disappointment takes the young Christian to the point of despair and those who made commitments to serve Christ often fall to the wayside. When this happens a number of times the desire to give up trying to be a Christian becomes another choice in a spiritual war. Old habits and what you are comfortable with have to change. Living like Christ doesn’t happen overnight and the child of God will stumble, but learns to stand again in the knowledge of God’s love for them. If those who failed only knew what God has planned for them they would listen to God’s word and know this,
No one on the face of the earth does anything without a plan. Once you have a goal based on a need, you devise a way to obtain it with a method called a plan. From experience you have learned how different things work and what it takes to complete a job. In this case no one has been able to show you the way in heaven except for Jesus Christ. God has drawn up a plan in advance for anyone who believes in his Son to receive eternal life. His plan tells you everything you need to know to arrive in heaven safely.
Jesus Christ is the only name by which man can be saved and the only way to everlasting life. The Holy Scriptures has revealed the way to life is through repentance of your sin and accepting Jesus as your Savior. The moment you promise to make Jesus Christ your Lord you go through the born again experience and your Father in heaven adopts you as his child. At that time you become the child of God, and a member of God’s household. Something important happens the moment you are born again because you have an unshakable knowledge you are going to heaven.
The decision to make Jesus Christ lord must be a sincere choice based on faith. Your confidence in God’s word is the only viable plan acceptable to God,
Faith and plans have similar characteristics in that both have goals not yet seen and feasible ways to obtain them. The proper course of action requires consideration before doing anything for the first time. Without knowing what to do, how can you expect to achieve the desired outcome? Asking the question, what do you have to do to become more like Christ may seem like a proper course of action. In drawing up a plan the first thing you do is to gather information about what is involved in obtaining the goal. The goal of becoming more Christ like has two feasible answers. Read and study all you can about his life and spend time with him to know him.
Its obvious that God thinks differently than men think. God thinks in terms of ages because of his immortal life and man thinks in terms of his life span. God considers all life to be sacred but man first considers his life to be sacred and then other people lives when it is convenient.
Renewing your mind doesn’t remove the wicked thoughts of the old man, rather it rebuilds the thinking pattern of men into the way God thinks. The mind absorbs what ever is placed before it and does not define its good or evil intent. As God’s children we belong to the royal family of God’s kingdom and are subject to higher standards. Throughout God’s word, God defines the difference between good and evil in his eyes, but the choice to decide between good and evil is in our control. Paul reminds us to think on good things.
Before you met Christ at the cross your mind was conformed to the pattern of the world. You lived by the world’s standards and thought you were right in your own eyes. When you meet Christ at the cross you become a new creation and God wants you to renew your mind after the pattern God gave man. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of what God desires from men because Christ became the pattern of truth and sound thinking that God desired. Anyone who studies Christ’s life discovers it was Christ’s earnest desire to do the will of his father in heaven. Making God’s will our desire is a step towards becoming like Christ.
God expects more from his children than he does from the children of the world. His goal is to teach his child to make sound decisions that are reflected by his actions. Actions speak louder than words because actions tell the truth of the inner man. All children that adhere to the discipline given to them by their parents are normally given rewards for good behavior and discipline when they are not. Over time with perseverance of discipline, the child develops limitations that produce acceptable behavior in their adulthood. Well-behaved children mature and gain respect for those who discipline them after they receive the benefits of their training.
The concern over how his children think is important for their well being to God. You never consider anything without giving the matter some consideration because your thoughts control what you do. Between the desire and the action your thoughts conceives a plan to obtain them. After you conceived a plan you take steps to obtain the things desired. Doing the deeds you considered complete the cycle of sin and death results. See James 1:14-15. Renewing your mind helps you to avoid evil.
Everyone has desires, but it is the way we plan to obtain them that we must control. Not every desire is beneficial to you and some will harm you more than help you. Some desires will detract you from obtaining other desires while other desires will assist you in achieving the more important ones. It’s not wrong to have desires but it is wrong to lust after them. God says that sin can be mastered, but our thoughts and desires must be subject to the desires of Christ.
Setting a goal is the easiest part of any plan because the most desirable things are worth pursuing. As a Christian you can do anything you set your mind on doing. However, there are some things that are not beneficial to your walk with God. Goals can be beneficial to you, but may drive God away in achieving them. Goals need to be both beneficial and practical with our lifetime goals. You must evaluate the worth your time and effort against the affect the goal will have on your life.
We may be have the right to do anything, but the cravings the things of world through immoral means is not beneficial to inheriting the kingdom of God.
Do you not know that wrongdoers, the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers, the impure, debauchery, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy; orgies, flesh and blood, cowardly, unbelieving, vile, murderers, and those who practice magic arts, and all liars will not inherit the kingdom of God. see 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 15:50, Revelation 21:8
A life acceptable to God is a life of holiness that you must master as you develop the skills needed to rule your life. God has given you the responsibility to rule your life in a appropriate manner acceptable to Christ. Within his word God teaches his children to live by the laws he lives by, just as you teach your children the things you believe in. If you are to gain respect for your father and grow to maturity under his tutelage then you need to live the way he tells you to. His plan won’t necessarily tell you how to become successful or wealthy, but it will tell you how to make and sustain relationships over your lifetime.
God has been open about his life revealing how he thinks and feels about sin. God does not want you to be ignorant about the laws he uses to govern his life and is willing to give you additional wisdom without questioning why. God asks that his children forsake the ways of the world and transform their minds to the mindset of Jesus Christ. Having the mindset of Jesus Christ helps you to survive the trials you face every day and gives you reasons to believe that you will be seated beside him during his thousand-year reign. Regardless of your time constraints, you must spend time in God’s word, to learn the wisdom of God and to know what pleases God.
God is life and a healthy respect for God is the beginning of knowledge. Knowledge has the power of increasing what you earn in this world, but knowledge also increases your ability to be productive. The knowledge God gives helps you to live by the truth with practical reasoning.
Solomon said.
Knowledge gives you an advantage of knowing what to do, why you need to do, where to do it, how to do it and when to do it. Ultimately, the more you know about Christ increases your chances of being known by Christ. The knowledge of God’s word is readily available to the world and it incorporates everything we need to know to become like Christ and go to heaven.
You may not be aware that God has plans to prosper you and to give you hope and a future. No one can fathom everything God has in store for man in heaven. However, God’s plan is that you diligently seek him while he may be found with all your heart. While seeking the Lord you will learn to please God and know that he rewards those whom earnestly seek him. Christ said, eternal life is to know God the father and the Son. The question that needs to be asked is what are you doing to know God and to be like Christ?
Everything you do has a cause and effect that is either beneficial or hinders the life you desire. Sin is the stumbling block that destroys your progress towards going to heaven. The study of God’s word helps you to learn the good works God has planned for his children to do before man was created. The only thing left for you to do is to renew your mind to think like Christ and then do the things Christ did.
On earth you represent God as his ambassador and reflect what he looks like to the world. God wants you to use his methods while you represent him and his kingdom. By obeying his word, and putting the best effort you can forward, you produce the picture of Christ that God wants the world to see. Christ obeyed his Father and doing so made the message of the cross appealing to everyone through his life.
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