RETHINKING

  RETHINKING       Thursday, January 18, 2018

Romans [ESV] 12:1-3 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has ssigned.

  We, as followers of Christ are to be relentless rethinkers. 

  But why?

  Along with the reason to discern truly worshipping God by pleasing Him, two important reasons:

       > Without studying and appropriating His Word we remain nominal heaven bound Christians.

1Corinthians [GW] 3:9-16 We are God's coworkers. Your are God's field. You are God's building. As a skilled and experienced builder, I used the gift that God gave me to lay the foundation for that building. However, someone else is building on it. Each person must be careful how he builds on it. After all, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is already laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. People may build on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. The day will make what each person does clearly visible because fire will reveal it. That fire will determine what kind of work each person has done. If what a person has built survives, he will receive a reward. If his work is burned up, he will suffer loss. [Rom.14:1-12; 2Cor.5:10] However, he will be saved, though it will be like going thruough a fire. Don't you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

       > Without studying and appropriating His Word we cannot serve as faithful ambassadors of reconciliation. 2Corinthians [ESV] 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin that knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

  In his essay THE SCANDAL OF BIBLICAL ILLITERACY Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. explained "We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches."

  Last evening at Pastor John's provocation I began rethinking a lack of understanding. And today for you and I, what will we be rethinking?

EBB4