Today we begin week #3 of our spiritual growth campaign - The ME I Want to Be. This weeks memory verse is Romans 12:2 (NIV)- "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The New Living Translation of Romans 12:2 says this - "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think."
The Message Bible says in Romans 12:2 - "Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
What is all this leading up to? You? God's Word changes our mind, renews our resolve, refreshes our spirit and soul. We've got to read God's word, study God's word, memorize God's word, but most of all, we've got to obey God's word if it's going to change the way we think and live.
I’d like to read with you a passage that details a man who Jesus described as having the greatest faith he had ever seen. In Matthew 8:5-10 - “One day a Roman army officer came to Jesus and said, “I have a servant who’s very ill. In fact, he’s paralyzed and he’s suffering in bed.’ Jesus said, ‘I'll go to your house and heal him.’ And the Roman centurion said, ‘O Lord, You don’t need to do that. I understand authority and I’m not worthy for You to come to my house. But I know this obedience and authority thing. I’m a captain in the army. I give commands to my soldiers and they obey immediately. I make commands to my servants and they obey me immediately. They do whatever I tell them to do. So I understand authority and obedience. You don’t need to come to my house, Jesus. If You just say the word from right here I’m sure he’ll be healed instantly.’ Jesus looked at that man and said, ‘This is the greatest faith I’ve ever seen in Israel.’”
The greatest faith. Why? Because faith and obedience are interlocked. When you trust someone you do what they say. If you don’t do what someone tells you to do it means you don’t trust them. God has linked faith and obedience together so that all of the promises of God are conditioned upon you following the directions that He gives you.
Notice Deuteronomy 5:33 – it says “Follow all the directions the Lord has given you. Then life will go well for you.” That’s a great promise – a promise you can build your life and faith upon.How are you doing so far with the memory verses? Hang in there, stay at it – even if you have not followed through to this date, it is not to late to start – it is never to late.
I want you to know this morning, that God has made some incredible promises in His word about obedience. In fact, there were so many promises about obedience in God's word I couldn’t list them all. I just picked and chose a few of them. Notice what God promises if we obey Him.
God blesses those who obey Him.
God saves those who obey Him.
God watches over those who obey Him. The Lord
takes care of those who obey Him.
God helps those who obey Him.
He gives us what we ask for because we obey His commands.
The Bible says that if you follow God's directions you will be happy. You will live longer. You will lack nothing good and you will have all that you need. And guess what? That’s just 10 of the more than 7000 promises in the bible. Think about it, you could memorize a promise a week and it would take you 20+ years to get through them all. What would you’re faith look like if you claimed them all? If you knew them and trusted them? You could /would change the world!
Folks, I know that a lot of these commands, they don’t make sense from a human standpoint. But God says do it. It’s a matter of trust. It’s a matter of obedience! Obedience is a demonstration of faith. Obedience unlocks the key to all of God's blessings in life. God promises to reward you if you’ll just follow His directions.
As your pastor, I don’t want you to miss out on all the promises. I don’t want you to miss out that God will bless you and save you and watch over you and take care of you and help you and you’ll be happy and live longer and you’ll lack nothing and you’ll have what you need and you’ll have perfect freedom.
So this week, I want us to look at how to receive the promises of God. What you must do in order to appropriate all these things in your life. The Bible is very clear. You do four things -we'll look at those this week.
Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!
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