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The Word of Truth Ministries | |
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God tells us not to be carnally minded. We are to be spiritual minded. The carnal minded person is one who is concerned with the affairs of this life [the now game] more than the affairs of the life to come and his life in Christ [the end-game]. For the mind that is carnal thinks on, values, perceives, and is obsessed with worldly things--money, possessions, sex, reputation among men, foods and drinks not for the survival of the person but survival for the very eating and drinking of these things, which order is corrupted. The carnal mind wars against the laws of God, it is not subject to the law of God and neither indeed can be. [Rom. 8:7] The carnal minded person is often a saint out of control, yet he still calls himself a saint/Christian--one walking with God and one who lives the life of God. But he is not. Many a carnal minded persons have disobeyed God's word so long that they have been given reprobated minds, because to continually disobey God is clear indication that they have not received the love of truth. Most of these men do not know their state in God. The Bible gives us a safety valve to test our walk however: "Let a man examine himself to see if he be in the faith." God moved on Paul to tell the Corinthians and all of us to periodically check ourselves to see if we are in or outside the word of God. [2 Cor. 13:5] One checks himself by the naked and raw word of God, not by a diluted, rationalized, and self-serving glance at the word of God. It is hard to see grass grow as it is growing. It usually takes one who has seen it once and gone away to come back again to see its progress; the analogy is this, it may take another to tell about the state of your grass. You may need to hear the naked word from another, not yourself; you may need to get in the congregation of many counselors to have safety; [Prov. 11:14] your self-absorbed few who think like you because they are heavily influenced by you, want to please you, and are flawed with the same ungodly ways as you can never be the sounding board from which truth and insight come; no truth can come from such a crowd, only self-serving perversions and rationalizations. In academia we talk about it as the marketplace of ideas, and this is analogous to this situation. If your life cannot stand up against the rigorous teaching of the rightly divided word of God, there is something wrong with your life. And if there is something wrong with your life, you are not going on to perfection; you are idling in the way of God (standing) that you should be walking in. That flawed life must be fixed before you can go on to perfection. [Jer. 6:16] Notice that Paul wrote to "…leaving the principles of the doctrine…not laying again the foundation to repentance from dead works." When we engage in dead works, we must repent of them; therefore, he is suggesting that we stop the sin matter and get about the perfection matter. Sin requires repentance and that process slows saints down from going unto perfection--growing up into him. That is why living holy is a prerequisite to perfection. If one cannot live holy after being born again, that one can never go to perfection. [Heb. 6:1-3] Be assured of what I am saying about perfection: I am not talking about perfection as being the same as living holy. They are not the same thing. A child may be age-appropriately intelligent for his particular station in life, but he still must grow to maturity--he must take on the attributes and wisdom of an adult who has had experienced and learned from those experiences to the perfecting of his reasoning, his values, his judgment, and his life. Only that one is an intelligent adult who is capable of accepting and overcoming the challenges of life. And we know of too many individuals who cannot function in this life; too many Christians who have to go to their pastors for decisions normal thinking, mature adults should be capable of making independently of another. (An aside: many a ministers have cultivated this immaturity in God's people, making them cripples in order to control another man's, the Lord's, servants. This is foul and harmful to God's people.) Perfection takes us unto Christ's likeness of mind and behavior, and perfection allows a Christian not to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness of men who lie in wait to deceive. [Eph. 4:11-15] Saints must examine themselves by the naked, unadorned, and rightly divided word of God to see if they are in the faith, and to see if they are going on to perfection. The Bible teaches us to prove all things--we prove them by the immutable, rightly divided word of God--and hold fast to that which is good. We should be noble Christians like the Bereans who received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily to see if the things the minister said were true. Physicians do not heal themselves, and lawyers do not defend themselves. There is an expression among lawyers that goes like this: the man who has himself for a lawyer has a fool for a client. You cannot properly see yourself, you need others who have the word of God rightly divided as the yard stick to help you see. Again I say, if your life cannot stand the scrutiny of the unadorned, naked word of God rigorously preached and rightly divided by any true minister of God, there is a problem with your life! This is the reason God has given all of the ministries, not just the pastor ministry, which, strangely, has elevated itself above all other New Testament ministries. No one ministry can perfect God's people, and no one person has all the ministries given by God. A clear sign that something is wrong within a Christian is when that Christian cannot or will not stand the word of God preached by others because it shows him in a deficit position with God. Hence, he prefers not to hear the word preached by others, he will not read the word of God written by others although he cannot refute what they are saying, yet he won't abide by the truth of God's word. There is a problem when one seeks shelter in the rationalization that, "We believe differently." It is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of truth-a person shall know that truth and the truth shall MAKE him free. That has nothing to do with belief; that has to do with acceptance of the truth, and rejection of the truth. Most of the time, the truth is single and unambiguous on an issue of God's word, yet many who are unwilling to obey God will instead argue that they believe differently, and they twist God's word, extracting such partial sayings as, "According to thy faith, be it unto you." But they fail to take into consideration that Paul has also said, your unbelief will not make the faith of God to no effect. Belief of a lie will only damn a person. [Rom 3:2] The right mind of the Christian Although we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, although we are the sons of the living God, we must maintain a mindset that is Christian because this earth and world system is not our home. [Heb. 11:12-14; 1 Pet. 2:11] We are pilgrims down here and should not get too comfortable in this world so as to make of ourselves earthly reputations--to be highly esteemed by men, for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God. Our notions should always be to please God, now that our minds have been transformed and renewed. [Lk. 16:15] In academia, we say that a college student must transform his/her thinking so that he/she can live the life of the mind. Likewise, Christians must see that they too have been born again into the Kingdom of God, which is a spiritual kingdom, and they have taken on the task of renewing their minds away from this world's perspective and the world's paradigm. At the new birth, the mind of the new saint is not then transformed; it is converted to God and the things of God. The new saint has merely renounced the hidden things of dishonesty and turned to God. But turning to God means turning away from the way you see life, the way you feel about many things, the way you act toward things and other, and apprehending the mind of Christ found in his word. Hence, it is a daily task of walking the word, talking the word, living the word, practicing the word, growing in the word, and growing into the very word of God--sons of God. And that cannot be done unless you study his word and have all the ministries of Ephesians 4 functioning in the church. [1 Cor. 4:1-3] [] Next time, we will discuss Thinking and Speaking as items that we must perfect.
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Copyright © 2004 by The Truth of God