Changed, from the inside out!
Romans 12:1-2 MSG.
1-2. So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 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.
3. I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
So many people go through life, thinking its all about what they can do or say themselves, to affect the outcome in the situations of their life.
And then, when things seem like there taking to long to happen, they become discouraged.
A lot of people today don’t realize that the reason they’re not happy, the reason they’re not enjoying life
is because they’ve trained to have their minds think in the wrong direction.
The Apostle Paul had it right when he said;
God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
So often, we say don’t put God in a box!
In retrospect, most Christians are really the ones, who are in the box.
Gods not the one in the box, we are
Because we know in the box, it seems safe and we can, or at least we think we can, control what happens in our life, by what we think is safe.
When we do that, what we really do is limit what God can and wants to do in our circumstances,
We basically tie His hands and then we wonder why its taking so long in our lives, for things to happen
And when they don't happen on our timetable, we then somehow end up blaming Him, when they don't!
That’s really some crazy thinking, wouldn’t you agree?
Like that is going to get us where we should be in our relationship with God,
it's times like that, we should grateful for His Unmerited Grace, because when we deserve it the least, He still gives it to us!
Paul tells us in the word, but when you think about , its really what God is telling us to do,
And I say that, because all scripture is the inspired word of God to us and for us! Amen?
“TBS.(the bible says) Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.”
So many of us, go through life on auto-pilot.
Even when things don’t happen like we think they should, we still just keep thinking,
There has to be something else that I can do, and we say or think to ourselves,
If I just keep trying, I’ll come up with something.
And little by little, discouragement, doubt and defeat creeps in,
and those negatives become a standard way of living and cheat you out of every blessing that God has for you!
God doesn’t want you to have a negative mindset, He wants you to be positive about your life and your situation!
Living life shut up, on the inside the box, with the worlds influence all around, will beat you down Continually
We need to start living life outside the box, with maximum exposure to the benefits and blessings of God and what He wants to do for us!
Jerm. 29:11 HCSB.
11. For I know the plans I have for you”— this is the LORD’s declaration—“ plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Praise God for the declaration, what I really should say is declarations,
because just like His mercies, I believe they are new for us, each and everyday!
Praise the Lord, Thank You Jesus, Great is Your Faithfulness!!!
TBS. When you fix your attention on God’s Grace and what He can do in your life,
Instead of what your capable of, you'll be changed from the inside out, which is something only God can do!
Matt. 11:28-30 MSG.
28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
His yoke is easy, His burden is light, were the ones who make it difficult.
TBS. to Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Make God and what He wants for you, your first choice in every situation in your life,
Realize that there are things you have to let go of, have some faith and just let God do what He does best,
Things that you could never do in the natural, but God can do them easily, in the supernatural realm from the inside out, in your life.
Pretty soon your attitude will go from can’t do anything, to can do everything and it won’t be from your doing,
but what God has done on the inside of you first,
By the time that you become aware of it on the outside, He will have already woven it into the fabric of your soul
And will have made a lifelong difference in your life, something lasting and permanent,
instead of something only temporary that would just fade away!
TBS. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
Ill. Watergate figure Charles Colson, died Saturday April 21 2012, at a Northern Virginia hospital after a brief illness, according to a family spokesman. He was 80 yrs. old.
Colson, with his trademark horn-rimmed glasses, was known as the "evil genius" of the Nixon administration,
who once said he'd walk over his grandmother to get the president elected for a second term.
Colson, will be remembered as the tough-as-nails special counsel to President Richard Nixon
who went to prison for his role in a Watergate-related case and became a Christian evangelical dedicated to helping inmates.
"I shudder to think of what I'd been if I had not gone to prison," Colson said in 1993. "Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it's not prosperity or pleasure that's important, but the maturing of the soul."
It was during all the controversy, Colson later told the Christian Broadcasting Network, he visited a friend who wanted him to turn to Jesus.
Colson was unpersuaded, but as he was leaving, he was overcome.
"I think about that night in the driveway, when I cried out to God and I realized for the first time what a sinner I was,
and I realized that Christ died on the cross for my sins," he recalled in the interview.
"And I felt so free, but so grateful to God that ever since I'll do anything that God calls me to do."
The Boston Globe wrote in 1973, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everyone."
Colson pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice and ended up serving 7 mos. of a 1-3 prison sentence.
Colson stayed with his faith and went on to use his efforts to help others.
He later called going to prison a "great blessing."
His daily radio commentary, Break Point, was heard on more than 1,400 outlets across the United States, with some 8 million followers.
Chuck Colson’s famous redemption story and tireless advocacy on behalf of the marginalized and the outcast have called all of us to a deeper reflection on our lives and priorities," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. "He lives on as a modern model of redemption and a permanent rebuttal to the cynical claim that there are no second chances in life.'
Colson received 15 honorary doctorates, and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest annual award (over US$1 million) in the field of religion, given to a person who "has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension".
He donated this prize to further the work of Prison Fellowship, as he did all his speaking fees and royalties
Later in life, he lived in Naples, Florida, and in 2000 Florida Governor Jeb Bush restored his civil rights, including the right to vote, 25 years after he left prison.
In February 2005, Colson was named one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America".
In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.
Biographer Aitken says that in the end, Colson's biggest legacy probably won't be his books or his prison ministry.
"I think Chuck Colson's legacy is above all the story of his life," he says.
It's a story about a bad man turned good through grace
Only God could have turned a life around like He did Chuck Colsons,
And the same can be said, of All our lives, all of us each one changed from the inside out! Praise God
TBS. “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”
God did an amazing work in Chuck Colson’s life,
As a result, countless thousands upon hundreds of thousands, millions of lives have been affected for the kingdom of God.
All made possible by the Grace and Unmerited Favor, extended and freely given to us, by Jesus finished work on the cross.
Romans 1:16-17 MSG.
16-17. It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives."
Chuck Colson, had many great things happen in his life, even his worst critics would have defined him as successful.
But he never experienced true success and the life changing forgiveness he sought,
until he put his trust in Jesus and let Him change him, from the inside out! Amen?
Do you Know Him today, or do you just no about Him?
I would pray, that you would get to know Him intimently
Eph. 1:15-19 MSG.
15-19. That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!
What is God calling you to do, for the kingdom?
God is not a respecter of persons,
Chuck Colson, did amazing things for the Kingdom of God
And what an amazing redemption story his was,
He was no different than you or I, he just said yes to the work that God had for him.
Say yes to the Lord today and He will do miraculous things in your life too,
He will take you places you never dreamed of and amaze not only you, but everyone around you, when you do!
Praise God, Lets pray
