Romans 12:1 -2
(12:1) I Beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
(12:2) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
You may be seated…
Subject of todays message is: Got Million dollar ideas but my minds on Credit…
Got Million dollar ideas…
But my Minds on Credit…
There was a guy and His name was …… (find out who the winner of th e lottery is)
This guy is a self proclaimed “easy going guy”
Never had much…
Never wanted much…
Worked a regular job and lived a regular life…
He was the kind of guy who never took more than he needed…
And never needed more than he took…
A gentlemen … A family man … Good community citizen
This man named xxxxxxxxxx won 300 million dollars just a few weeks ago with big lottery that was held around the country…
And xxxx, this man was on Television and after winning these dollars they asked him whether it was going to change his outlook on life…
And he said something like , “Im just not a changing kind of guy”....
In other words… When I was poor I was this way … When I was working 10 hours a day at the factory I was this way…
And now as someone blessed I am going to stay this way…
Now of course, only he and the Lord know whether he will remain humble and sincere in this way but this is an example of someone who understands that money could not and should not change the mind set of someone…
Money (or the lack thereof) should not be the definer of your personality …
Or the driver for all of your emotions and actions…
And even the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil and that we have to choose… You cannot love God and Mammon…
For you will love one and hate the other…
In other words you will ultimately choose one over another …
And just as the scripture bears out that wherever your treasure there your heart shall be also…
The reality is that The Love of money is just as hemmed into Idolatry as any cult that you can read up on …
The reality is that people in general have a passion for the pursuit of prosperity and provision but they have no purpose…
And without a purpose we lack a key ingredient to our success…
A Vision…
And without a Vision the people will perish…
But beyond that without a vision you cannot see….
And when you cannot see…
You will be misdirected, misguided and often times mistaken…
And when your vision is misguided, misdirected and mistaken You may have a million dollar idea but your mind is still on credit…
Your mind is credit
When something is on credit it is on a time schedule before the payoff…
It’s on borrowed time…
Its on someone elses nickel…
And Its when your situation is on credit… One thing is for certain…
the payoff that you are making is not to yourself…
But we have to ask ourselves… Because you are royalty…
You are given wisdom…
As we talked about last week You are given the God’s Riches and Glory …
To be strengthened with might through His spirit in the Inner Man…
That He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly…
Above all that we can ask or think according to the power that works in us,
In other words, knowing what we know about our God… (All Powerful, All Knowing,etc)
And knowing what we know about ourselves… (ambitious but disobient, determined but not disciplined…, set aside but still subject to sin.)
We have to ask ourselves…
Why do we have these million dollar ideas but we still stuck on credit?
Why does it seem like every time I get blessed by God something comes through and snatches it from me?
Why does it seem like my family is constantly being attacked…
Well lets look at the scripture shall we?
Romans 12:1 -2
(12:1) I Beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
See one thing we ave to know about Christianity is that Christianity …
Followers of Christ …
Can’t ever be mistaken as only a system of notions and/or a guide to speculations about religion.
But Christianity is designed to inform and reform our hearts and lives…
And that a belief system…
Built on Christian knowledge… Historical knowledge…
And Faith …
Will change the mindset of the believer to a new level of thinking both internally and externally…
But that said…
God wants you to come to him just where you are…
And its true … He also loves you too much to keep you there…
But He needs us in the game with him to bring us from the credit thinking to the Million dollar mindset…
Look at what He says through Paul…
He says…
(12:1) I Beseech you…
When God says I beseech you…
He is basically saying to you I Implore you…
I beg you…
God wants more than anything to get your attention…
And God is not a God that needs to Hide or Beg for what he wants from you…
In other words…
God will get your attention one way or another…
Sometimes He will speak that sweet soft whisper in your ear…
Nudge you with the Holy Ghost…
Speak a word into you just when you need it…
Than other times…
God feels like Mike Tyson in his prime…
Sometime God gives us spiritual whippings and tests… and messages that feel like some one woke you up with a giant bucket of gatorade …
Your coulda apologized for what you did and you didn’t so … God made you …
You coulda did what you are called to do but you didn’t so God made you….
You coulda had compassion for that person but you didn’t so God now has you seeking compassion from someone else…
Paul said to the Church concerning there relationship with God…
My brother and Sisters I Implore you…
I beg you …
By the Mercies of God, that you Present your bodies a Living Sacrifice…
Beseech means to Implore…
Mercies means the Compassion… In the Hebrew it meant by the Favor of God…
Meaning you are blessed by God…
You have the help of God…
By the Favor of God
You would PRESENT your bodies …
To present means to Be with someone at a specific place…
As a LIVING
Living means something Active … Somethingg Thriving…
SACRIFICE …
Sacrifice Means to Surrender to him…
I got Million dollar Ideas but my Minds on Credit…
I ‘m sick of being sick…
Im tired of being trifling …
I’m too broke to joke and too busted to be trusted…
All I got is a dozen dimes and my dollars arentmaking any sense…
Its time for a Change…
Tell somebody its TIME FOR A CHANGE…
See Paul begged the Roman church in his day …
He said MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS…
I speak to you By the compassion of God… That you bring your bodies to this specific place that God has ordained for you…
And when you do this …
You do this as an active participant, a thriving participant which is your logical service…
See God used Paul to get the people out of credit thinking and into Kingdom thinking…
Out of sideline thinking and into game time thing …
Out of not enough and into overflow…come on somebody…
Out of can God … and into God can…
Out of will God and into God will…
That’s why Christian with the Power can say bolding…
I am the Head and NOT the tail…
I am Lender and Not a borrower…
Victor not the Victim…
Conqueror not the Condemned…
What the Devil called the Lost the Least and the left out…
God said is the Favored the Fruitful and is given Fertile Ground…
And for that Ground God shall provide a seed…
And from that Seed God will provide increase
And from that increase God will provide expansion…
And from that expansion God will provide extension…
And extension means connection…
So YOUR ONE seed…
ONE MAN…
ONE WOMAN
One LIVING God Will provide your Increase, Your Expansion, Your Extension and Your Connection and when Your Connection comes…
Baby You better what out because that’s when YOU become BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING…
THAT’S WHEN YOUR CUP START RUNNING OVER>>>
THAT’S when the windows of Heaven start to open and you wont have enough room to keep it all …
Your in overflow Mentality, Physically, Financially and Spirtually… And God will get the glory because if It had not been for the LORD who was on your side when you where actively, present when He begged you to Surrender to Him and you did…
Come on and Lift him up with me …
Isnt it funny He says that first of all that when you surrender to God…
You become HOLY…
He said holy, acceptable to God, … And He says that is your reasonable service…
Your reasonable service in the old text Is literally recorded as your “Logical” it is not unreasonable to surrender to Gods in fact it is logical to submit to someone who is so much greater that you… So much more intelligent than you understands and manages emotions, and thoughts and love so much better than us…
It becomes a logical thing….
It becomes our reasonable service
But then He says something so simple yet so profound…
He says…
Church…
God needs you…
God wants you…
So why would you want to act like the things that are opposite of what God loves?
And He does it not to shame them…
And not to blame them..
But He makes this connection and suggestion through LOVE…
First He says:
(12:2) And do not be conformed to this world,
See to be conforming means to be conventional…
It means to play by the rules of the particular game you are playing .
Now in the Hebrew the World is traqnslated to mean literally “ A Fleeting Portion of /time”
Let me try to piece this together for you…
Paul said through the Holy Ghost…
Don’t be similar …
Don’t be the same …
No need to run with the pack of this dying world..
This fleeting portion of time…
How many people know that our time is running out?
But maybe the reason you don’t feel comfortable around the crowd…
Maybe the reason you don’t seem to fit with every else…
Maybe the reason you sometimes fell like an x”X” in a World of “O’s” …Is that God has spoken to you and said Your not part of this click…
You are not part of this dying world …
You are not part of this fleeting place…
But I have called you to Change…
Every body Shout RENEWAL…
See renewal means to restore…
It means literally to bring back new…
When you are renewed you are restored to a former state…
Then Pastor what former state?
See God is not just trying to get folks off drugs…
And move folks toward an abundant life…
And Get there minds out of the credit line…
And out of the bankrupt line…
And into the favor line…
But God is trying to get our mind restored to the way it was before you came and the way it will be when you get to glory…
See God wants your
Let me prove it to you …
Go to Romans 8:28
(8:28) And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according His purpose.
(8:29) For whom he did foreknow, (For whom He knew before)
Knew Before when?
Knew before your earthly existence…
Before your physical life here on earth…
The bible says He also did Predestinate…
(To Predestinate means to Pre Ordain ) And not only pre ordain your situation …
But to Pre-Ordain what is for you by Divine decree or purpose…
So What God says is that BEFORE you where born… He knew you… Ask Jeremiah…
Jeremiah 1:5) God told Jeremiah Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and I sanctified thee… And ordained thee a prophet…
So we have know biblical evidence that God knew you before you where born and has the ability to set forth a DIVINE plan for you BEFORE you enter into the world…
Now Turn to Psalm 51:5 …
When you entered the earth the Bible says that you
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
So He knew you before you came to earth but when you where conceived you where conceived in Sin…
So your mind is now the mind of one who desires good but cant meet the expectation of good because of the curse of sin that plagues our bodies and our minds…
So now lets go back to our scripture in Romans 12:1
Even though it is not your original state…
Even though you are not always desiring to do bad or think bad…
Because our minds our so consumed by the temptations and desires of this world…
We sometimes fall to those temptations and if we are not careful …
We can actually begin a lifestyle of that fallen state …
And when that happens…
When intelligent, promising, articulate, strong, wise people have good ideas but a bad lifestyle…
That’s unfortunately when you have million dollar ideas but your mind is still on credit…
And that’s when the Lord has to IMPLORE upon you to change …
He has to ASK you to Surrender your bodies as that reasonable service…
And then He has to Remind you because your smart, your articulate… you have great potential.. You can do anything you put your mind to…
So he has to remind us DO NOT to be CONFORMED to this world but be Changed by the Renewing
The Restoration
The Revival..
God is trying to get you back to the state you where beforetime…
He is trying to get you to a place that you are conformed to the Image of His son… (8:29)
He wants you to Step out and Step up…
Step up to Lord…
Step up to the Change the God has ordaindd for your life…
Step up to your new mind…
Your new thinking…
You r new journey…
You wondered why you felt different…
You felt different in that place because when your in that place you are not in the place that God wants you to be
But when you walk with the Lord…
God is going to show you a new level of Favor..
God is going to show you a new level of forgiveness…
The fruit of your labor will bring a new harvest…
And you will see your self moving from least positon to the loft position…
From the rejected to the reaper…
From the confused to the committed…
And from sinner to salvation…
And you will know…
That when Jesus died on the Cross…
And they stretched him high and wide…
And He died on the cross that Day…
But on that Sunday …
He rose with all ppwer in His hands…
With the victory …
And when He has it …
We have it too…
But it’s the renewing of out minds…
That’s what God is waiting for … Begging us for it…
We have million dollar ideas… But nothing will happen if we allow our mind to get stuck on credit…
Pay the debt…
Cut that card…
Surrender to God…
Your Body as a living thriving sacrifice…
And then watch him transform you…
And Bless you…
And make your dreams on this fleeting earth… become realities
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
