Part 2 - The Thinking Pillar Series

The House of Faith Series

Part 2 – The Thinking Pillar

† SCRIPTURE READING

II Corinthians 10:3 – 5

“3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

PRAYER

† Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

Remember, our battle is a spiritual one, and our minds are the battlefields.

God, through the Holy Spirit, has given us divine power to destroy Satan’s strongholds.

We are to destroy arguments, or anything contrary to God and His word, which arises in our minds.

And we take captive, or control, of EVERY thought and MAKE it obedient to Christ.

† Last week we talked about the house of faith representing a person, our family or a church. And the armor of God is like our roof, protecting us from the devils attacks just as a roof of a house would protect us from storms.

We know that to have a roof, we must have something under it to support it.

And we talked about how every construction must start with a foundation. And every foundation must have a cornerstone if it is to be strong.

† Our cornerstone is Christ, and the foundation is built from there with the teachings in the word of God, the Holy Bible which gives testament from beginning to end of Christ.

Our foundation begins with salvation and baptism, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus gave us this example when He was baptized.

God proclaimed Him as His son, Jesus expressed outwardly to all those watching that He was washed cleaned spiritually through baptism, and afterwards, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him.

We are to follow this example in our lives today by accepting Christ’s FREE gift of salvation, then getting baptized to show outwardly to all what has happened inwardly, thus opening the door for the Holy Spirit to come into us and our lives.

It is only then that God can work in our lives, and we can be true servants to the Lord, for nothing is possible without the Holy Spirit, for it is not us, but God within us that do these good and holy works.

But once we have this foundation, we’ve accepted Christ, we’ve been baptized and the Holy Spirit has entered us and our lives, we make Christ the cornerstone of our lives and the Bible the foundation, but we can’t have a roof without pillars to support it.

You don’t place a roof on a foundation.

Last week we read a few scriptures about works. How after we have accepted Christ we must DO.

Faith without works is dead.

Though salvation is free,

Following Christ costs little,

Serving Christ costs everything.

Through works, we serve our Lord.

So what are some of the things we must do?

There are 4 pillars that hold up the roof, which is our protection and armor in the house of faith.

Each one must be preformed in the sequence we are going to be studying them. They work together, but the beginning of each pillar is a result of the previous one.

† The first result we have is the beginning of the Thinking pillar.

This is the first of the 4 pillars and the focus of our study today.

The thinking pillar is the result of accepting Christ and the foundation of our house of faith.

We begin to think about ourselves and the lives we’ve been living.

We were probably told that now that we are saved, we are NEW creatures in Christ, and the old has passed away.

We may ask ourselves, if the old is passed away, why do I still struggle with the things my old self did?

Because, our old selves developed habits from serving another master, whether that master is our self, the devil, or what ever.

When we get saved, we have a new master, the Lord. And we are new creatures in Him.

But habits that took years to develop cannot be changed over night.

My grandfather smoked for many years. He got cancer and almost died.

He quit smoking Cold-Turkey. After 40 years of smoking a couple packs a day, he just quit.

He went from being a chain smoker, to being a non-smoker instantly. He was a new creature.

But, the habits he developed over smoking for 40 years took time to get rid of.

After we ate at a restaurant, I would see him holding his straw like a cigarette.