Tag: conformation

We live in a world of mixed messages.

Consider the farmer for example who drove his tractor around his field to make a huge love heart for his wife – the heart, it turns out, was made entirely out of manure! What was he actually saying to his wife? His words said one thing but the medium which he used to express it said something very different.

No word on how the marriage fared as a result…

Here’s a good one:

Moving on, I find that some Christ followers seem to be as spiritually schizophrenic as the secular world around them.

What do I mean?

On Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other more “hip” social media platforms some guys identifying themselves as Christians, post images of both Jesus and pinup girls on their pages and girls likewise – the male equivalent; some believers post quotes too lewd to actually be publicly stated in many circles even today and then their next post is an invitation to a church service or a quote from the Bible or some Christian author; believer and unbeliever alike call each other out and say all manner of evil about each other from behind keyboards and then pretend to love and get along with one another in public – that is spiritual schizophrenia.

What does the Bible say of this?

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8 KJV

“But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.” (James 3:8–12, NKJV)

To be double minded is to be of a different mind at different times such as one who is blown about by every wind of doctrine or new idea. More than a few believers are more than just double minded though; it is not that they have differing thoughts at different times but rather they are in a state of either constant compromise or conflict within themselves. They either believe that to be foul mouthed, vulgar, hateful and lewd are in perfect accord with their profession of faith in Jesus Christ, in which case they are living as carnal Christians or else, they are too spiritually immature to realize that the two mindsets are NOT in accord and cannot be. But before I stay on this soap box too long, let me say this – it isn’t just lewdness, vulgarity, hate and the like which are the only things incongruent with love, joy, peace, etc…the fruit of the Spirit and mind of Christ; many times, our attitudes run counter to our profession of faith as well.

The Bible tells us in (Colossians3:8) for example “put off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your heart…” attitudes like pride, anger, hate, bigotry or prejudice all flow from the same heart that drives our fingers to post lewd, provocative and hateful things on social media etc.

The problem is that each of us has a heart condition.

The Lord Jesus Christ said that “out of the (overflow or) abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34) later, speaking to Peter and the other disciples He said “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man… ” (Matthew 15:18–20, NKJV)

What can we do about our heart condition?

James says, “purify your heart!” (James 4:8)

Quickly, for those who have never been “born again” (see John 3:3) your purification begins with Jesus – trusting in Him for the eternal life He made possible by His sacrificial atoning death on the cross: (John 3:7) “you MUST be born again!” But for we who are the followers of Jesus Christ, the process of purification is our daily sanctification and conformation to the mind and the life of the Lord Jesus. In other words, our purification becomes something we are DIRECTLY involved in. By yielding to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to transform our thoughts and through our daily exposure to the Word of God (see Romans 12:2) our hearts will be purged (purified) over time of those things which are contrary to God and replaced by “the wisdom from above:” (James 3:17) new attitudes, new actions and most of all the kind of consistency which declares to anyone observing our life: “I AM a child of God!”