Renewing Your Mind

I thank God for Madison Street Baptist Church, our pastoral staff and our Pastor, Bro. Chad Everson. I thank God that they emphatically preach the Word of God to us and deliver the truths of the Word of God through every area of our Church. From our Sunday School lessons that teach us of the sovereignty of God, to our children's ministry summer reading program where the kids are studying heroes of the Christian faith. One such ministry at Madison Street that is a great blessing to me is the Renewing Your Mind book fellowship. Every other month, Bro. Chad and Bro. Jarrod highlight one book that we will read and study as a Church, in addition to our other Bible Studies/Sunday School materials.

If you are like most of us, your reading materials each day are probably limited to the newspaper, browsing a magazine or the TV Guide. If you are doing really well, it includes a quick perusal of the Word of God from whatever the My Utmost for His Highest lesson was from the day, right? (let's don't hurt ourselves patting ourselves on the back). Then some of us who really want to dig deep in the things of God will do things like reading the latest Power of a Praying... or Purpose Driven..., or even better yet - put our sacrifice on display by mortifying our flesh with a 30 minute a day commitment to a Beth Moore study. Now before anyone gets defensive (already felt it welling up didn't you?), notice I said "patting ourselves on the back" right? We have all been here!

Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with a Beth Moore study or a Power of a Praying -you name it book, but there is something wrong with the pride we take in our effort. Through the books we have been reading in the Renewing Your Mind fellowships, I have realized a different type of growth in my spiritual walk; a different kind of hunger for the Word of God. You see, I used to think that as long as I read my due chapter in whatever book of the Bible I was going through, did some time in a good study book and keep my leisure reading to Christian mystery novels, I was in good shape. I could accomplish all that and still have time for Survivor on the tube! But this challenge of reading deep doctrinal truths from the likes of John Bunyan and now evaluating my Spiritual health with D. Whitney, I am realizing how shallow some of what I call the "quick application" books really are - the secret to my spiritual growth and health is not found in a chapter a day of how-to's or even in a weeks of study on how someone else experienced God. My Spiritual health must be evaluated and diagnosed in light of the Word of God and how passionately I desire it - not books or studies - but how much to I desire Him and His Word. We get so caught up in feeling good about ourselves for finishing the latest study but when was the last time we read the Word of God and it deeply changed our perspective, the way we viewed our lives and who we are? Whitney states "many professing Christians bump along from Sunday to Sunday, year to year, with no recollection of changes in beliefs or practices as a result of new discoveries in the Word....they carry a Bible to church, but they couldn't tell you the last time their daily life was altered by it. They may even be daily Bible readers, and they have heard one or more sermons per week for years. Yet with all their exposure to the Bible, generally its inspired words leave no more imprint upon their minds than spoken words do upon the air. It could never be said of them that they deliberately govern their lives by God's Word." Don't let it be said of me!

After the studies in Daniel on Sunday mornings, the Great Words of the Faith and Doctrine we are being taught in services and reading doctrinally sound books as we are in Renewing Your Mind, I AM CHANGING - my perspective, my actions, my motives - everything has been impacted by the Word of God. How can we so blindly walk through our daily lives making decision after decision based on how we feel or what we think and then, when some crisis hits - then look in the back of our minds for that Scripture we memorized that day when we were on fire for God! God forgive our unfaithfulness! Let us passionately crave your Word and let us diligently train our appetites to feast on Your Truths! You see, I am realizing what Piper states is true "loving the truth [Word of God] is a matter of perishing or being saved. Indifference to truth is a mark of spiritual death." While we can train our appetites, if there is no deep down desire for the Word apart from a selfish "what can I get from it?" attitude, then we may not have what we think we have. I am fearful that so many who passively and casually peruse the Word of God as a notch of pride in accomplishing their daily quiet time, will find that 2 Thessalonians 2:10 "those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved" is indeed truth. The Bible shows throughout Psalm that a true believer does not just admire God's Word or revel in the knowledge and application they can gain from it for their benefit, but the true believer is one who LOVES it...

So, are you indifferent? When was the last time the Word of God changed who you are, what you believe or how you viewed a situation - or is that, in your mind a sign of immaturity that someone could change your perspective? When was the last time you read the Word, not because you were looking for the answer to some problem you were having or a quick fix to an emotional hurt, but because you truly wanted to know God more through His Word? When have we passionately wanted to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18) so much so that we turned off the TV, put down our Utmost books and picked up the Word of God and meditated on Scripture? Just asking....