Changing The Traditional Way
God wants us to enjoy life in abundance right now, right here on earth! He wants us to stop resting in the traditional way of thinking which tells us that salvation only keeps us out of hell. He wants us to renew out mind to the many earthly blessings that we receive when we are born again, and to stop thinking that we have to wait to get to heaven to receive his best!
~ Dr. Wanda Hudson
Hi there!
Let’s go to the Lord in Prayer:
Father God thank you for another opportunity to be on Spiritual Situations to share the Word that you gave me. Anointed these listener ears to hear and open their hearts to receive exactly what they need from you. Let their minds be the fertile ground in which your word is planted. In Jesus’s name we pray AMEN!
Before I start I want to let you know that I will be interjecting some prayers throughout this Word of Inspiration and if they apply to you please repeat them after me!
A request (not a requirement) at my church is to be Spiritually employed. Since June of 2003 until last December of last year, I was a part of the Nursing Home Ministry where we would go out and have service with those who are confined to a convalescent home. Our service would follow the same flow as our church service: we would have praise and worship, opening prayer, share the Word and then close with the following three questions: 1) Does anyone need prayer? 2) Are you filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues? And 3) Do you need to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
What I noticed was that the same people would raise their hand every visit for all three questions. The residents knew that the most important thing any of us can ever is to get saved and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior! But what they did not realize is that accepting Jesus is NOT something that they continually had to do. As a born again believer religion will have you thinking that you are a sinner saved by grace every time you messed up and that you have to do something to get back in right standing with God. But when you are in a relationship with God, when you read and study His word you will find out that that is not true. Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins.
Christ was the true sacrifice provided by God for the sins of the world. He died a real death, one time. His death paid the penalty for the sins of those who lived in the past, those who are living now, and those who are to come! Jesus didn’t have to suffer over and over again. He suffered once and he suffered for everyone. Therefore, we do not have to repeatedly accept the Lord as our Savior, we only have to do it once and for all time.
When we were under the law there had to be a yearly sacrifice so that we could be forgiven of our sins, but unfortunately the sacrifices had the opposite effect, it reminded us of our sins, But when Jesus died on the cross he settled everything once and for all.
Hebrews 10:17-18 Then he (talking about Jesus) adds, I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.” Now when sins have been forgiven there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. (I recommend you read Hebrews 10:1-18)
Galatians 3:13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
Romans 6:5-11 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
Make sure you catch these:
1) Jesus will no longer remember our sins
2) Since Jesus died for our sins there is no need for any other sacrifices
3) Christ rescued us from the curse that we were under by the law
4) Christ was raised from the dead and will never die again
5) He died once to break the power of sin
6) Death no longer has any power over him
7) We need to consider our self as dead to the power of sine and alive in God through Jesus Christ
So, what do we mean when we say we are born-again?
While working on my dissertation I asked several people what being Born Again meant to them.
The responses differed by age:
A person in their 20s:
“To be born again is like a caterpillar evolving into a butterfly. You are essentially evolving into a better you”.
Two people in their 30s
“From the Christian perspective, being born again means that you accept/re-accept Christ in your heart and your slate is wiped clean. You basically start your life again in Christ. It’s the same as renewing wedding vows, except you renew yourself in your lord”.
“When we acknowledge that Christ is Lord and Savior over our lives, we are than born again. What is born again is our new spirit in Christ. Just by being born we had the old nature of Satan, now by being-born again we have the new nature of Christ. We let go of the old and put on the new. This includes getting saved from all the rules and regulations religion puts us under.”
A 40ish
“The meaning of being born again is spiritual renewal as a result of believing in and accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior”.
My 50ish
Being born again to me is not about being perfect! It is more about trying to live as Jesus did but knowing that you may fall short, but with faith and your belief in Jesus Christ you keep striving to live according to the word”.
I even had a response from a 77-year old: This young lady said, When you are Born Again, your life will be transformed from the worldly life you used to live. As you become more knowledgeable about the Word of God, you begin to have a desire to please the Lord and to live for Him! Your old ways begin to change as you become transformed by the "Renewing of your Mind." As an educated woman, I was astonished in my early Christian years at the information that I read in the Bible. I felt totally ignorant of the revelations that I discovered in God's Word. I only knew Bible stories from my years as a child in Sunday School. Today, my life is totally different from what it used to be! My thinking and mindset have matured because of the teachings, discovery and experiential relationship that I have with My Precious Lord and Savior. I know and Love the Father dearly. He has given me a marvelous life of Faith, hope, love, health, prosperity and expectation of a future with Him!”
A life of Faith, Hope, Love, Health, Prosperity and an expectation of a future with Him!
Wow!!!! Look at God!!!!
These were definitely great responses but the most common response that I received was that being born-again meant that you are no longer going to hell.
While this is true it is only a small portion of what the blessing of being born-again means, because God does not want anyone to go to hell. In John 3:13-15 Jesus said, “For only I, the Son of Man, have come to earth and will return to heaven again. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, So I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.”
God wants us to enjoy life in abundance right now, right here on earth! He wants us to stop resting in the traditional way of thinking which tells us that salvation only keeps us out of hell. He wants us to renew out mind to the many earthly blessings that we receive when we are born again, and to stop thinking that we have to wait to get to heaven to receive his best!
Jesus shed his blood for our salvation:
Who remembers the lines in these two songs?
“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Or
“The blood that gives me strength from day to day will never loose it’s power. It reaches to the highest mountain and flows to the lowest valley. The blood that gives me strength from day to day will never loose it’s power”.
Just two lines from each of these songs proclaim that the blood of Jesus is cleansing, it is comforting, and it is powerful. It is powerful enough to purchase our salvation, so that there is nothing else we must do except receive it. And if you noticed I said “it is” not it was because Jesus blood that he shed once is still providing for our salvation over 2,000 years later! We are redeemed!
To be redeemed means to compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something or to gain or regain possession of something in the exchange for payment. For the born-again believer the Bible makes it clear – to be redeem means to be delivered from sin (Ephesians 1:7). We no longer work to be redeemed. Once we accept God as our Lord and Savior the Blood has made us Holy (1st Peter 1:13-23 and Galatians 3:13-14).
Now, tell me a goat, sheep or bull could do that!
Father I thank you for the Blood!
Romans 10:9
For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
If that is where you are this morning and you want to be saved just repeat this Prayer for Salvation after me:
Father God, I am sorry for my sins Right now, I turn from sin and ask you to forgive me.
Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.
Jesus come into my heart as my Lord and Saviour.
Thank you for forgiving me and giving me eternal life.
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen
If you prayed this prayer and mean it, God has forgiven you and has welcomed you back into His Family. You are Born-Again.
So now what??? You have taken the most important first step in your life – so where do you go from here?
There are two things that I recommend you start now (1) Find your church home (2) Renew your mind
Find your brook – your church home where the man or woman of God is teaching the word; not just giving their opinion or playing on your emotions. Just keep in mind that this might not be the family church; the church big mamma goes to, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Hebrews 10:25 states, “And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.
With modern technology it is so easy and convenient to watch a church service on-line or on the television, in the privacy of your own home, but this scripture tells us not to do that.
The King James Version of that scripture says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Forsaking, Assembling, and Exhorting, these three words are what I want to touch on from this scripture. To forsake means to abandon, renounce or give up, to assemble means to gather together in one place for a common purpose and to exhort means to use a loud or enthusiastic urging any time you really want to encourage someone to do something.
As a born-again believer how can you be enthusiastically urged and be encouraged to do something if you give up gathering together in one place for common purpose ~ the purpose of building your spiritual life.
Church Shopping vs Church Hopping
There is a difference between church shopping and church hopping. When looking for your new church home, your brook, it is normal to visits other churches. A born-again believer should enter the process with the intent of finding a new, permanent church home. You want to study the teaching to ensure that it is based on the Word and is scripture sound. You also want to make sure there is a place for you to serve. Of course, this may take some time, but it will be well worth it to know you are at the place where God wants you to be.
Church Hopping is defined as going from one church to another without committing to any one church for any significant period of time. For some this is done to avoid having a connection with the church or having responsibility to leadership.
When I found my Church Home
When I met Roger, my husband, he told me that he went to World Changers (Church International – where the Pastors are Dr. Creflo A. and Taffi L. Dollar). Because I had “heard”
such negativity regarding this Pastor, my first comment was, “Eel don’t ask me to go”. Well, he didn’t! But he did call me after Friday night services and came over for breakfast after Sunday services. One a Tuesday I said, “I’m going to church with you tomorrow” which would have to a Wednesday night bible study. That Wednesday was a typical work day. But when I left to
go home (and go to church afterwards) this homeless man spat on me as I walked to my car! Oh, I was so upset and felt so dirty. My first thought was, “I can’t hardly go anywhere now.” You see the devil tried to stop me! When I finally looked down at my outfit the spit had missed it’s mark and only landed on a bag I was carrying. Immediately I felt relieved. I kept it mowing and made my way to Bible Study.
Now World Changers is described as a Megachurch, which is defined by Webster as a church having an extremely large congregation. The services are held in what is called “the Dome” which holds 30,000 seats. When I entered the Dome, Pastor Dollar was already ministering so I took my seat and start listening. Immediately it was like everything he said was directed to me. In his natural comedic way, he was addressing all the things that I had “heard” about the church. The other seats and the people in them seem to disappear, I was the only one in the Dome. And when the Word came forth, he wasn’t hooting and hollering or just reading scripture from the King James version of the bible. I not only understood the words he was saying, I actually understood what he was talking about, so much that I wanted to go and read it for myself.
In July 2002 I officially became a member of World Changers Church International and have been a member ever since. It may not be the place for everybody, but I have found my brook.
Finding your church home may not happen as quickly for you as it did for me but, when you do find your place as long as the Leader is ministering the Word and you have a place where you can serve, you will be alright.
Keep in mind that no church is perfect:
When selecting your Church-home, your brook, it is important to find a church that teaches the gospel, directly from the Word of God, and one that can develop you spiritually. The search for a church should be done with the expectation of finding one that fits, but also with the
realization that churches are filled with people, and for that reason no church is going to be perfect.
Don’t forget to Pray
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42 AMP).
God already has a place set up for you. Ask Him where He wants you to be and devote yourself to that place.
Prayer
Father God, thank you that my church home has already been established.
Give me an ear to hear where You are sending me. I know that I have already been assigned so, Holy Spirit lead me to the man or woman of God who has been given the charge to watch over me. I thank you for it right now. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
The second thing that I suggest that you do is twofold: Renew your mind and study!
To grow in the things of God you need to renew your mind: going from a carnal mindset (thinking that goes against the word of God) to a spiritual mindset (thinking that lines up with the word of God). In Romans it states, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2 NLT).
God wants us to renew our mind to the many earthly blessing that we receive when we are born again. Keep in mind that renewing your mind is a process!
Have you every started a new job and once you get there you decide to make some changes to existing policies or routines? Or if you are an entrepreneur you may tell your clients that you have decided to make a few changes to their account. Most likely the resistance will immediately come, followed by “but that is how we always do it”. Once the changes are made these same coworkers and clients, who were reluctant to change, are happier or even more profitable than before.
Renewing your mind is essentially getting rid of the “that is how I always do it” mentality. People often resist change because they believe they will lose something of value or fear they will not be able to adapt to the new ways of doing things. The bad thing is that these thoughts of lose and fear come before the thought of, “this change maybe for the better, ” even has the chance to form. How to renew your mind:
1) Ask the Holy Spirit for guidance
Since you now know that renewing your mind is not a one-time task, that it is a process that you will continue to do through-out your lifetime, the first thing you want to do is allow the Holy Spirit to lead you through this journey. Have you ever said to yourself “something told me that wasn’t right”? That wasn’t a something but a Somebody! Once you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you He will let you know when something is not right. He is speaking to you. That feeling you get in the pit of your belly; that’s Him. Have a question? Ask Him.
2) Study, study, study
A lot of the way we think comes from your culture and our environment; how we were raised and where we were raised. Our people group has a great influence on the way we think ~ we grew up thinking that a thing was either good or bad based on what our parents, grandparents
and those in our immediate surroundings may have thought. Unfortunately, that isn’t always what God said. Renewing your mind involves reading and studying the Bible to find out what God actually said.
As a new believer I only knew “of” the Bible. When talking to other believers I always wanted to know, “how did they know that?” or “I didn’t see that in my bible”. This is where bibliology (the study of the bible) comes into play. Study to shew thyself approved (2nd Timothy 2:15) requires you to look beyond the 66 books of the Bible. Today there are several books to help you in the renewal process. A few to have on hand are the Bible Study Guides, the Companion Bibles, The Bible Dictionary, the Bible Handbook and the Bible Commentary. There is even a Bible for Dummies Series that is in plain language and very beneficial. It sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that the thing to remember is: it is a process!
My mother, Barbara Carter, has gone home to be with the Lord but the first scripture I ever memorized is one that I recall her reading was, “When I was a child I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, and reasoned as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things” (1st Corinthians 13:11 NLT). That was over 40-years ago, and I remember it as clear as if it was yesterday. As a born-again believer that scripture fits us perfectly when it comes to renewing our mind. As a baby we learned to speak a certain way, to think a certain way and to come to certain conclusions based on what we were taught and who we were taught by. Now as your maturity as a Christian grows (when you became a man) the word will challenge how you speak, how you think and how you reason. Study to show thyself approved!
Prayer:
Father I thank you that my mind is constantly being renewed by your word. The way I used to think has changed based on the knowledge that I have in your word. Things that I use to say, I no longer say. Things I previously agreed with I now know are not of you. And things that I was taught that you said I now know were not from you but from man. Thank you for allowing me to know you and your word for myself! I am no longer a child but a man, therefore I have put away childish things. Your word is true, and I thank you for it.
In Jesus’s name. Amen
Now that you know being born again means more than just not going to hell, it is time to start expecting for your prayers to be answered now (as long as they line up with the Word. As a born again believer you have the same authority to speak over things just as Jesus does. You just have to trust and believe that you do. When the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out a spirit he told them it was because of their unbelief, but when we have faith, even the faith the size of a mustard seed there isn’t anything we cannot do. Matthew 17:20
So, in closing, God wants us to renew our mind regarding our salvation and know that it is mush more than not going to hell. He wants us to know that through His blood our salvation has been paid for in full and His promises are available to us NOW – we don’t have to wait to get to leaven to see the Glory!