God is in the business of changing men’s lives. Change is wrapped up in the the spiritual truths of salvation, repentance, and transformation. For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. When we accepted salvation in Christ, God created within us a new creation… his gift of holy spirit. Therefore, behold old things are passed away, all things are become new. When God changes us, it doesn’t look like the changes that the world inflicts upon us…. the world puts us through mental, emotional and physical changes, sort of like a Waring blender. However transformation in Christ means to put off the old man of the flesh and put on the new man of the spirit. Jesus said, any man that follows me must take up his cross and follow me… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. As we turn to him and away from the world and as we turn from sin and unto the righteousness in Christ, we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord are changed from the glory of the flesh to the glory of the spirit.
In Romans chapter 7, Paul laments, “in the flesh… I do I don’t do what I want to do, but what I don’t want to do, that I do… O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver from this dead body?” However, in the very next chapter, Romans 8, the scripture says we’re doing better than we deserve: There is therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For the spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.
Ambition is from the word “ambivalence.” It means to be torn between conflicting desires: to walk according to the flesh or according to the spirit. James 1:8 says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. ” Therefore turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of the world will become strangely dim in the light of his glorious grace. Galatians 6:8 says, He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he who soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. Walking in the spirit of God in Christ strikes a fine balance between living in both reason and passion according to the spirit. When we set our affections on things above… when we delight ourselves in the Lord, when make his desire our desire, when we align our heart with his heart, only then will he give us the desires of our heart.
God uses the path of death to lead us to the fork in the road. He uses addiction, self centeredness, strife, contention, bitterness, envy, discouragement, and disappointment to get us to the point that we need to take the alternate path. This is the definition of repentance. Repentance means to turn from the pride of self, to surrender the right to my self and my carnal desires and to turn my eyes upon Jesus. The point of repentance is the inflection point: to change direction. To turn away from the wretched man that I am and toward the one who is faithful and just to forgive our sins. For God sent not his son to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Did we in our own strength confide our battle would be loosing, were not the right man on our side, the an of God’s own Choosing. Doth ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is he, and he must win the battle. The “come to Jesus” moments in life are precious moments where we turn from darkness unto the light.
Every moment of this life is a moment of decision. We have been given the ability to choose our direction moment by moment. God always gives us the choice to choose either life or death… life is only through Christ. Each moment is a “come to Jesus moment.” Therefore, come to Jesus… and live!
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael