Transforming You
2:47 – 24/7
Now is the time for change
January 31, 1829
To President Jackson:
The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as "railroads.’ The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons:
One, if canal boats are supplanted by ’railroads," serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for the horses.
Two. Boat builders would suffer and towline, whip and harness makers would be left destitute.
Three. Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States. In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Eric Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modem war.
As you may well know, Mr. President, "railroad" carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of fifteen miles per hour by "engines" which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the country side, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children.
The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.
Martin Van Buren Governor of New York
Michelle Casto whose profession is that of a “Life Coach” says, “Everywhere you look, change is occurring: for the individual, families, corporations, communities, states, countries, and ultimately the world. The pace of change has increased to keep up with the human desire to create more change. You wouldn’t have to look very far in your own life to identify something you would like to change. Now is the perfect time to transform yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually or otherwise.”
What you may have noticed is that it is time for a change. We all want things to be better. We all hunger for purpose and meaning in life. We want there to be more to life than the production of carbon dioxide as we breathe the air.
I’ve spent a lot of time this week talking to people who are struggling with stuff in life. One person said, “I know better but I wonder if God is picking on me sometimes.”
What you probably don’t know is how to go about transforming your life.
Let’s begin with a simple proposition. If you want to be transformed you have to change something.
Life Coach Michelle Casto put it this way, “The first thing you need to learn about change, is that in order to change your outer reality, you must transform your inner programming. All change begins with you---on the inside---your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about how life works or doesn’t work determine what you will create in your outer world.”
She goes on to say, “What changes your life is not learning more, though education is important. What changes your life is not making decisions, although making choices and acting on them is important.”
Then she adds this final statement, "What changes your life is being in touch with your inner self and designing your life around what is important and true for you.”
WRONG!
This doesn’t change your life. This is how most people live their lives everyday and it isn’t working all that well. This is how many people mess up their lives - by seeing to please their "inner self" and to do what is right "for them". This kind of personal truth is both selfish and ineffective - it does not produce peace, contentment and joy. It produces dissatisfaction, chaos, and a haunting emptiness.
Rollo May, a renowned psychotherapist said, “The cause for insanity is doing the same thing the same way expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein, noted scientist of the last century said, “Nothing happens until something moves.”
What Really Changes Your Life… Is a different way of thinking.
What really changes your life is being in touch with God designing your life around what is important and true as He is revealed to you
Let’s look at what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 12.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.
Thermometer or Thermostat
There are two items that measure temperature: The first is the thermometer.
It measures the temperature of the body or surrounding environment. It is usually used to check whether a person has a fever, how hot the home is, or how hot the internal temperature of the meat is. Although it reads the temperature of the body, it cannot change it.
The second is the thermostat. It measures the temperature of the house and then calls for heat or cooling to change the environment. A thermostat has the added ability to change it’s surroundings.
God has called us to be thermostats – not thermometers. He has called us to first be changed and then to change our world.
The difference between a thermometer and a thermostat?
One takes and the other gives. This is a new way of thinking. This is the mind of Christ
Philippians 2:5-8
5 In your lives you must think and act like Christ Jesus.
WWJD is a really good concept. What would Jesus do? It’s a great question to ask yourself. He would be a servant. Let’s look at the next couple of verses.
The Mind of Christ
Philippians 2:5-8
6 Christ himself was like God in everything.
But he did not think that being equal with God was something to be used for his own benefit.
7 But he gave up his place with God and made himself nothing. He was born to be a man and became like a servant.
He was born to be a man
What is man? Some see his greatness and power.
They see builders, architects, kings and emperors. We write books and make movies about these great men and women. Some are tragic others heroic but what we see in them all is their supremacy and power.
Julius Caesar, Alexander, Gengus Khan, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, David Ben-Gurion, Ho Chi Minh, Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, V.I. Lenin, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Sanger, Lech Walesa, Mao Zedong
The work of man is in what he accomplishes! But there is another way to see man – not in what he does but in what he is.
Man is the image of God! HERE IS GREATNESS – IT’S BUILT INTO OUR DNA! Our value is inside of us - not in what we do!
Jesus became a man. He became one of us. We are a people of great value - because we were made to be like God. Every person here has great value - no matter where and when they were born. It doesn’t matter how bright or how talented. God built into you the essence of all that is precious and valuable.
Jesus was born to be a man
“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself… He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels.
In himself, nothing; in God, everything..."
– A. W. Tozer, Today in the Word, September, 1989, p. 19.
He became like a servant
Today I want to challenge you with an extremely important question – would Jesus see himself as a “consumer”?
Would Jesus see himself as a person who takes, gets, saves, and uses for his own consumption all that he can lay his hands on? I don’t think so. In fact, I’m quite sure that Jesus would never have seen himself as anything in this world except a servant to all that were in his world.
If we would have the mind of Christ. If we would be transformed by the renewing of the mind we must be changed and have a new way of thinking…
Jesus became a servant. From consumer to provider. From master to servant. From taker to giver. From
What changes others is not being a great leader. It is being a humble servant.
Mother Teresa spoke at a prayer breakfast in Washington DC in 1994. The President, Vice President, Senators, Congressmen, and Supreme Court Justices all listened to her quiet voice. Great leaders listened as spoke for 25 minutes - barely looking up as she read. She spoke for the unborn. She spoke for the poor, the broken, for people.
What gave her such moral power? It was not an elected office. It wasn’t an appointed position of ministry. It wasn’t power at the tip of a spear or the threat of a rocket propelled grenade. It was her servant heart.
Small things done with great love change the world.
You change the world only by changing yourself
Let me tell you about a certain lady here at MCC. She came up to a friend of mine and said, It’s all your fault. I prayed for someone last week and it’s your fault. I had this really warm feeling afterward…"
When you pray with someone it changes people. A couple of months ago I got this email on a Monday morning. It made my day.
"On Sunday, it was hard for me and I sort of lost my bearings there for a bit, so I stepped into the restroom to get a hold of myself, and was praying in hopes that God would give me comfort and strength to go back into church. And all of a sudden, this lady
whom I didn’t know at the time, asked if I was ok and saw that I was crying and upset, and she asked if she could pray with me. That was just what I needed at that time, she really made me feel better. I would really like to thank her in person. I just can’t get over how much so many people care for one another even if they don’t know you. You should be proud of the wonderful family you have established here at Meridian Christian Church, I have also found my home. Thank you."
Transforming You begins today. Understand that you are a child of God and begin today to be a giver - not a taker...
