Help us, O God of our salvation! Help us for the glory of
your name. Save us and forgive our sins for the honor of your name. This morning
I am thinking of people that are new to our faith or newly restored. When we
encounter Jesus Christ, our lives change and we become a new person. Transformed
from our old way of life into a new way of living and thinking. Paul writes in
2 Corinthians 3, “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and
reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord - who is the Spirit - makes us more
and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image”.
You see we are transformed not just once but it is a daily
process. We are transformed from a worldly type of living into a Jesus type of
living. Now when I say a daily process I mean we should not think once we have
given our lives to Jesus, we are now in the clear. Now the enemy knows a new
Christian can be an easy target, even someone who renewed their life for Jesus
can sometimes still be an easy target.
I have written to you before on how important your
relationship with the Holy Spirit is. Look what Paul writes in Romans 8, “Those
who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who
are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So
letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the
Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is
always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s
why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never
please God”.
The only way we can overcome our sinful nature, resist the devil
and please God is through the Holy Spirit. It is by committing time in His Word
and in prayer. It is walking in a day-by-day relationship with the Holy Spirit.
It is by renewing our minds on a daily basis through scripture and finally by
faith in Jesus and trusting Him in all things.
It is by our faithful seeking and our obedience in His Word
that we are transformed not just once, but every day. It is by living like this
that we find true peace and power in the Holy Spirit, to stand when facing impossible
odds and to continue in the midst of our storms. It is by this that we will
receive the reward for running the race to the end.
My dear friend, I know sometimes all of this can be difficult
and some days it feels impossible. Believe me we all face days like that and
days where we just do not want to do anything. It is in these times when you
are at the end of your rope and you are tired and you do not feel like this,
that we must above all turn to God. It will calm your heart, align your goals and
set you back on your path.
I just want to say this to you today – I know what it feels
like, I know how tough things can be and I know how hard life can be, but I also
know how amazing God is. How wonderful His love is and how He can take all that
was intended to destroy us and turn it around. I know the pit is deep and I know
how heavy guilt can be. That is why Jesus said come to me all who are heavily burdened.
Come to me when you can not go on. Come to me when you heart is broken. Come to
me when the doctors give you the bad news. Come to me for I have come to give
you life and life in abundance.
Come with me today as we lay our lives at the altar and just
seek Him with all our hearts and trust Him in all that we do.
Have and awesome day.
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