Tuesday: Living a God-centered Life
In an age of consumerism, when secular values have made self the center, heaven’s appeal is to turn from the tyranny of self-centeredness and the bondage of self-inflated importance and to place God at the center of our lives. For some, money is the center of their lives. For others, it is pleasure or power. For some, it may be sports, music, or entertainment. Revelation’s message is a clarion call to fear, respect, and honor God as life’s true center.
Read Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:1-2, and Hebrews 12:1-2. What do these passages tell us about making God the true center of our lives?
Image © Darrel Tank from GoodSalt.com
The central issue in earth’s final conflict is a battle for the mind. It is really one of allegiance, authority, and commitment to God’s will.
The final battle in the great controversy is between good and evil to control our thoughts. The apostle Paul gives us this admonition: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NKJV). The mind is the citadel of our being. It is the wellspring of our actions. The word “let” means to allow or to choose. It speaks of a volitional act of the will. The choice to have the mind of Christ is the choice to allow Jesus to shape our thinking by filling our minds with the things of eternity. Our actions reveal where our thinking process is. To fear God is to make Him first in our lives.
Think about how easy, in one sense, it is to control your thoughts, at least when you are conscious that you need to control them. Often the problem is that unless we make a conscious effort to dwell on the right things, the “things above, not on things on the earth,” our minds, fallen and sinful as they are, will naturally tend toward the base things, the things of the world. Hence, we need to, as Paul said, purposely and deliberately choose, using the sacred gift of free will, to dwell on the heavenly things.
| “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8, NKJV). How do we learn to do what Paul tells us here? |
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One of the greatest dangers in life is not from an outside source! The greatest danger a person can face is an undisciplined life! There have been those who nearly conquered the world but never themselves, men like Napoleon, many of the Herods, Alexander the Great, and even many of the Pharaohs of Egypt. We have seen this failure even in our modern political leaders whose discipline over their own lives was sorely lacking though they led the people of God to democracy. Success in conquering others but failing to conquer self makes men and women unproductive, unfulfilled, sometimes broken and depressed which many of these leaders experienced.
Much of the unproductiveness, pain, and unhappiness in our culture today are the result of undisciplined lives.
Greatness does not come from power over others; it comes from power over self. It is a terrible lie that it does not matter how a leader lives his/her own personal life as long as he governs well -- the example of an undisciplined life will only encourage another generation of undisciplined lives!
Victory and happiness does not come from what we have but who we are.
Courage without self-control becomes craziness,
Joy without self-control becomes giddiness,
It is impossible to be what God wants us to be without self-control.
The Bible teaches us that an undisciplined life results in terrible losses; no one is truly victorious in life without real self-control.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with clarity, Paul – I agree 100%. John Adams stated that: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
We are called to pray for our leaders. This is incredibly important as we can clearly observe the consequences when our ‘democracy’ is being governed by individuals who are unwilling to discipline themselves first. I very much appreciate the candidness of your thoughts.
To be willing to be with God is to get to know Him. He attracts those looking for rest, peace, and complete joy. But one has to have resilience and fight for mercy. Mercy for the gift of the Spirit, mercy for transformation! Especially today, we ought to be ready for a change! The world is going fast toward something that is probably a hard crash, but we can be protected by the wings of the One Who gave His life for you and me!
I believe that often we focus on things of the world that trip us into a sinful existence. It’s important to understand that these things can and will separate us from God.
But there are also those things that we depend on that aren’t bad in themselves, but can also separate us from God and each other if we rely on them, or use them as tools for measuring our self-righteousness -- things like diet, social rank or status, race, church attendance, missionary work, sacrifices of money or time and a host of “good behaviors” that can’t and won’t be accepted in place of a sincerely surrendered mind, heart and body to Christ. There’s danger in believing these will be accepted in place of a sincere sacrifice of all of our “self” focus.
I have a friend, West, (not his real name, but what his mother always called him) and he is truly one of God's very special, chosen servants! I first met him 20 odd years ago, and he was very different. No razor or blade had touched his head, and I'm sure the rest of his body, anywhere, in many years. He wore a suit made completely out of unbleached muslin canvas, including his hat. I generally saw him several times a year.
West had been gone from here for a little over two years; I know that he spent much of the time in Israel. He's been back here, probably about three months, when he leaves my driveway and I ask, "Which way are you headed, West?" He says, "I will know when I reach the corner."
There are many lives in this town that have been touched by him, and many people weep when they see him and embrace him. Unfortunately, most of the members of our little church look at him as an unbalanced weirdo. I think sometimes, when I grow up, I would like to be like him. I know I do not have the intestinal fortitude.
God bless you, West, and the rest of you too… Royce
Hello Royce - you call West your friend, and I assume you have personal reasons to do so. I am happy that you see him as a 'special' person, not judging him and not 'changing to walk on the other side of the road' when you see him. I believe that you include him in your prayers, and I pray that your relationship with him will blossom and grow in ways that honor and glorify the loving spirit of Jesus Christ.
I hope you understood the point. West goes on GOD's errands so he waits for GOD to tell him which way to turn!… Royce.
Yes, Royce, I understood your point and expressed my appreciation about your seeing, feeling and interacting with him as a 'friend', and not as others see and react to him as they considering him an 'unbalanced weirdo'.
Those living their lives wrapped around a worldly center probably are not aware that there is a spiritual center which will bring life into the right focus. For us, looking from the ‘inside’ out, it appears easy to separate the 'things of the world from the things of heaven.' As we are not motivated by things of the world, we are called to carefully observe our motivations as we live in the world.
Is it not an amazing blessing to know that our spiritual center is designed to bring everything in life into the right focus? Do we really appreciate the gravity, the importance and significance, the seriousness of our response to our having been called to become a member of the family of God whiles living in His kingdom here on earth?
Have you found that it is possible to live ‘comfortably’ whiles accepting certain nuances of a ‘compromising’ life; not to give our all to Jesus to be changed? The battle for the mind takes place whenever we take our focus off the Word of God and search for reasons to excuse our self-will – ‘the quality of obstinately doing what one wants in spite of the wishes or orders of our God’. (Oxford Languages)
Do we realize that our ability to scrutinize our thoughts in order to offset negativity with the clarity of thought coming from the Word of God is also one of the immeasurable blessings of the new nature - understanding the Spirit's wisdom?!
Withdrawing from giving in to negative, compromising thoughts, not dwelling on things which are a thorn in our side, is getting easier and easier as we bring all our thoughts into captivity to make it obedient to Christ for change – 2Cor.10:5;
I'm not sure I agree with the author that it is easy to control our thoughts. I feel it is actually quite hard - much easier to control our actions. Yes, we absolutely can choose to focus on spiritual things and Jesus, but ultimately He must do a makeover of our mind.
The lesson seems to be suggesting that the things that jeopardize our mind are things like entertainment, money, pleasure, etc. These things can be problems, but we can avoid them religiously and still have bad thoughts.
When I think of the passage in Philippians 2 and having the mind of Christ, the following verses really show what that is. It's a servant mentality, being willing to give of ourselves. And having that mind is much harder than avoiding the wrong TV shows.
There are many attitudes I struggle with that are at odds with this "mind of Christ". For example, I can be quite critical in my thoughts. Sometimes this criticism is for "righteous" reasons. But it's not the mind of Christ. And to be honest, choosing not to think critical thoughts doesn't work. The thoughts come. So I need a transformation. Not easy at all. Only God can do that. My willpower is hopeless in this situation, aside from choosing to connect with Jesus. And that's what's most important.
Christina, I do agree with what you wrote in the last paragraph and many of us do struggle still with that issue.
The lesson today suggests, in one sense it is possible and easy to control our thoughts on one condition that we make a conscious effort to do so. However, we can‘t make it on our own, and we need the power of the Holy Spirit to help us in such moments when we don‘t dwell on the right things.
I have experienced that in my life and witnessed real transformation of mind.
As a reminder, Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:57-58
God bless!
Living God-centred is a life that God asks us to live, because we are so naive in every circumstance that we must depend upon God. From the beginning, God asks us to glorifying him in order to live a better life. He asks Adam, Eve and us to do so. That is what God intend for us to do.