Partner, Forgive, Create and be in the best possible physical shape.
What should be said to someone having a hard time? How do you take care of yourself? How do you get out of a pit of maybe despair, anxiety, whatever.
It’s all about the right first question.
How do you transform your life? This is the wrong first question. How do you partner with God to change your life? is the right first question. When you make it about God and give him the vested interest. Things will change.
Wisdom cries from the street the book of Proverbs says. Partner with God He wants to help.
“For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;”
Proverbs 2:6 NKJV
The second step is to forgive. Forgiveness is the essential spiritual principle which will restore your relationship with God, other people and ultimately your relationship to creation itself.
You have to forgive. It’s a commandment of God, and God really can’t do much with you until you commit to forgiveness.
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
Ephesians 4:32 NKJV
This doesn’t mean hashing things out and looking at them a thousand different ways., making it all about your story, then telling your friends why you can’t forgive or have been eternally wronged.
This is not about your story anymore. This is about God’s story. He’s adopting you, that old story has not helped you up to now, you need to hand it over to God.
“having predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”
Ephesians 1:5-6 NKJV
He’s the judge he’s the jury. Seriously let go of the rattlesnake thinking the person who wronged you is going to get bit. Drop it, and get over it. Sounds harsh but it’s the best thing.
Forgiveness is unmerited and is in the best interest of the person forgiving and not on the person being forgiven.
The Bible tells us to forgive our brother 70 times 7. Which means constantly forgive. Be ready for it. Don’t be surprised that you need to forgive someone.
“Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”
Matthew 18:22 NKJV
A person’s ability to get along with others is based on their ability to forgive. Strong families are characterized by forgiveness. Strong churches as well.
Forgiveness also is a tremendous power because it brings humility. When we think about how God forgives us we can then realize the power of the Grace of God, ultimately the power of the Gospel.
We can forgive others because Christ has forgiven us and has given us access, total and complete access to God. This grace is God’s power everyday to bring to your life.
No one can boast about it because if is ultimately the power of God. It is available, and is a surrendering to His will.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV
This is probably the most important part of this paper, utterly rely on God alone. That is asking for the power of God in your life. Partnering with God.
When you start operating in Gods grace you have restored all of your relationships and have allowed yourself to persue the next step being the person God wants you to be.
This is a creative person, as opposed to a person who just consumes. The first thing God tells us about himself in the Bible is that he is creative. This is a person who is going to leave the world better than when they first arrived.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1 NKJV
With grace a believer can start to seek the Gospel, the power of God, and his wisdom for life. Wisdom in many ways is God himself. God promises us two things which are similar:
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
James 4:8 NKJV
And
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”
James 1:5-6 NKJV
That’s in James and also in James it says if anyone lacks wisdom they should ask God. These two promises are similar God will show up when we pursue Him and He will give us the wisdom to make good decisions.
But what is great is to know is God is pursuing us.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”
Psalms 23:6 NKJV
“Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.””
James 4:5-6 NKJV
This is another piece of wisdom. God has so much to give us as we are open to allowing him to create in us a new heart and renew a steadfast spirit within us.
“Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalms 51:9-10 NKJV
We read the Bible to acquire more of the life God wants for us, and out of worship for him we offer each thing we are doing to him. We are a living sacrifice like it says in Romans 12. This mindset of service to God allows us to fully function.
“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. 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.”
Romans 12:1-2 NKJV
It’s ultimately allowing God to create a new life as a person partners with him.
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old has passed away. Everything is new. As far as you’re concerned creation has been restored with God, with others, and your family.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
II Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
All of this is really good, but there is the possibility someone is struggling with addiction or other bad habits.
The way to combat bad habits is with
different patterns. This is where the Bible is essential because it has the best pattern for life. Godly patterns are the remedy to addictions and bad habits.
Patterns like being around good people, going to church every Sunday, being generous, forgiving other people. Following the Ten Commandments which ultimately are a pattern, all of this will change a person’s life.
Ten Commandments
“And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “
- “You shall have no other gods before Me.
- “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
- “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
- “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
- “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
- “You shall not murder.
- “You shall not commit adultery.
- “You shall not steal.
- “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.””
Exodus 20:1-17 NKJV
Then there is the last thing which will be essential in pulling someone out of poverty, and that’s being in the best possible physical shape.
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. - Isaiah 40:31
Health and wellness are essential if God is going to use you. This is a place being a consumer, conforming to the world really can have negative effects on people’s health.
Fast food, a sedimentary lifestyle are typical parts of modern society and they need to be avoided. These things drain a person’s real energy for life.
Discipleship should include physical exercise. All throughout time people have grown stronger together working together.
This is a story of how working helps relationships.
There was a water leak on my land last Sunday my neighbor texted me there was water along one of my ditches. I found out about it in the middle of teaching Sunday school. I finished the class, and then I left church, I called the water department to fix it, but it was Sunday and figured no one would come.
So I searched my property for the leak got my shovels and started digging. What else could I do, water is coming out the ground because of the recent freeze. People down the road probably don’t have water which means animals don’t have water.
We did have water which was odd. We have a smaller pieces of land for Texas but it’s at a critical spot where two major roads meet. We must have had water from another line coming down the other road.
Anyways, the water guys work everyday I found out. The guy who came out had so much respect for me because I was working to try and fix it myself.
We talked for a long time and got to know each other. That’s how discipleship needs to be.
Not just some holy huddle but trench work with other men trying to get a mutual result. Building a house, fighting the enemy, fixing a problem, building a deck, brainstorming a solution. Something mutually beneficial. The most beneficial bonding is physical fitness or physical work with others.
It should also be noted that men are the most destructive when they are in a group so always be prayerful about the groups you join.
The churches in Brownwood have in the past focused on physical fitness in a number ways. There is a Baptist center, a huge gym at our church, things like that. These should be taken advantage of.
The ultimate point is partner with God, forgive, create, and be in the best possible physical shape