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We come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and begin to experience what it means to live in the Kingdom of God by the work and power of God’s grace alone. I believe all of us come into the Kingdom of God on the arm of a trusted friend through whom the Lord Jesus has been revealing Himself to us SO THAT His Word and His ways begin to shed light into a heart and mind that once were profoundly dark and dead.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to renew our minds and we cooperate with Him as we read, memorize and meditate on the Word of God written, the Bible. It is the Holy Spirit Who makes that Word come alive and begin to transform the way we think about everything. Jesus made it very clear that, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” It is not my “right thinking” that attracts God to me so that I might know Him and His ways. A dead man is not a decisive man. I must be given a new life, a new heart and a new Spirit indwelt by and filled by the Holy Spirit.

IF the Lord is my Shepherd, then it is HE who teaches me, enlightens me and moves upon me to set my mind on Who He is. “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is set on You, because he trusts in You.” I will set my mind and heart on the Lord Jesus BECAUSE I trust in Him. Why else would someone do such a thing? Why would I have someone as the fixed point of my thoughts, and actions flowing from those thoughts, IF I didn’t trust that one! He is the Author and Perfector of my faith; meaning that my faith depends upon Him from start to finish.

Right thinking does not save, redeem, restore or heal me. Salvation, restoration, healing and life-transformation come from the Lord as His gifts of grace. He even enables me to respond and cooperate with Him. My “mind can be fixed” upon the Lord because He makes it possible. IF the Lord IS my Shepherd, then it’s not my “right thinking” that makes it so. I learn to hear His voice because He speaks to me. I learn to recognize His voice by the Holy Spirit making the written Word alive within my mind, my will, my emotions and even my body. The Word of God and the Love and faithfulness of God impact the whole of who I am as a human being.

Because I belong to Him, my true Home, Heaven, is a given, and the Kingdom of God (the rule of God in, over and through a follower of Jesus Christ) can begin to be lived into BECAUSE He is faithful to finish in me that which He has begun. Am I called to be diligent? Is a sheep called to follow its Shepherd? YES! I am to trust Him BECAUSE in every commandment there is embedded His own covenant faithfulness and promise to empower and enable my obedience and faithfulness.

Jesus Christ said specifically that those who would live their lives following Him would be DOING the very things He had been doing. As the Father showed Jesus what He was doing so that the Son might be doing just that, the Holy Spirit reveals and empowers Jesus’ followers to see and do what Jesus continues to do. It wasn’t due to “right-thinking”, but by Holy Spirit-renewed minds to think and act in the power of Jesus’ resurrection that we see in the Book of Acts Jesus still at work.

The longer I have been following Jesus Christ and seeking Him, the more I am aware that it has been Him seeking me, calling me and empowering me by the Holy Spirit to follow Him all along.




  

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