B) The Power of the Gospel
B.1) The basis of all issues and the solution to your problems
All these personality issues, sin and disorders has a root of people feeling worthless, not valuable, not loved, not treasured, the “last one to be chosen”, rejected, etc. The solution for all these issues is when they understand how valuable, beautiful (Mat 13:5-46), precious (Ish 43:4), special (1Pet2:9) and loved (1Jn4:10) they are. If you can get your mind around these facts, you will be VERY FAR down the road of recovery. For this reason you need to know and believe God’s love for you (1Jn4:12), and only then will it impact your life. By just going to church or listening to teachings and not spending time WITH HIM alone, how will you ever have an intimate relationship with Him and know and believe His love for you? Teachings (which is vital) and discipleship is like preparing for the time that you spend with Jesus. Teachings and discipleship is not the substitute for your time with Jesus, but it prepares you for that special time. You have to get a balance between teachings and worship. Another example is like a long distance relationship between a man and a woman, where the woman just receives letters from the man or someone else just tell her about the man. That can never be a healthy relationship in the long run. You want to be WITH the one you love. You need to spend time WITH Jesus (Jn 15:5).
Another important point is that there are a number of prayers in this document, but these are not prayers in the sense that I used to understand prayers. You cannot take 5 minutes every morning to quickly recite these prayers and then think your life will change. These are not prayers to read and recite; these are topics of discussion between you and Jesus. You need to talk to Jesus throughout your day, when you drive in the car, walk in the shop, gym or run. These must take over your thought life.
B.2) In Summary:
How to transform your life
The
Old Testament was a list of rules, do this or don’t do that, and the people had
to try as hard as they could to keep these. The New Testament is not a list of rules;
it helps you to understand who you have become after you go born again. Let’s
say you read 1Cor 13:4 where it says that love is patient. Let’s say you were a
very impatient person before you got born again. Now that you are born again, you
might still be very impatient. But the two are COMPLETELY different. In the
first instance your nature was impatience; that was who you were made to be – because
you had the nature of darkness in you. In the second instance it’s not you that
are impatient; if you are born again you cannot be impatient, God birthed you and
you are made in His image. Then why do I get impatient? Because the devil is
taking a chance (through your old thought patterns or speaking directly to you),
he is giving you feelings of impatience, and hopes that you don’t realize that
you are born again, so that you take that emotion again as if it’s still you.
That’s why to read your bible does not really help to transform your life if
you don’t speak it out in communion with Jesus and realize this strategy. When
you read 1Cor 13:4 it’s not a matter of you reading this rule, and trying to be
more patient, it’s a matter of you spending time with Jesus in your room, and tell
Him, “Jesus, thank You so much that I have
been made patient. Thank You so much that I have Your nature, and that I am
patient. I have been born again into your image, and You are perfectly patient.
Thank You Father that through Your Grace You help me to realize how patient You
have made me, and that my mind will start to see the love and beauty that You
have placed inside me”. The person who will change the quickest,
is the one who spends the most time with Jesus in prayer, and speak to Jesus
like this, because you get to know yourself in prayer, you get to know who you
really are. Then, when a situation arises that had all the potential to
make you angry, those hours you were alone with Jesus where you found out who
you really are, is more clear in our mind that the old pattern of getting impatient,
and you start to act like you were made to be. This is how you transform your
life.
B3) The 14 key points I learned during this journey of transformation:
Ø (1) You have to be born again
Ø (2) You have the responsibility to change your life
Ø (3) The Gospel does not promise perfect circumstances, but the transformation of life
Ø (4) The truth will set you free (proper teachings and the Word)
Ø (5) You need to have faith that your life can transform
Ø (6) Water baptism gave me the confidence that my old life is dead
Ø (7) Intimacy with Jesus and Holy Spirit is absolutely vital
Ø (8) You need to receive and believe God’s love for you
Ø (9) Make thanksgiving a habit
Ø (10) Don’t just quote verses, but use the word to build communion with Jesus
Ø (11) You need to give God’s love by serving your neighbor
Ø (12) Righteousness becomes the basis of your identity and the measure of emotions and thoughts
Ø (13) Your identity must be based on the Cross of Christ, not earthly things
Ø (14) Use sin or wrong thoughts to trigger thanksgiving and establish your identity
(1) I had given my life fully to Jesus, I realized I have no other option or answer in life. I was born again (Jn 3:3). Some other terms that describes this are: Born of the Sprit (Jn 3:6) or born of the Word (1Pet 1:23) or a new man (Col 3:9-10) or New Creation (2Cor 5:17). If you are not born again, none of this will work for you. You have to realize, that your physical birth was not good enough. Jesus said (Jn 1:13, Jn 3:6, Jn 3:3, Jn 3:5) that to be born of flesh (your mother), was not good enough to make you God’s child, you have to allow Holy Spirit to re-birth you (this is not applicable to children until they reach the age of accountability). When you are physically born, you are not a child of God, you have to become that through new birth to let the old man die and become a new creation. When you are physically born you are your parents’ child, when you get born again, you are God's child [Notice how shocked Nicodemus was when Jesus said "born again" in Jn3:3. Nicodemus understood Jesus to say that the new birth was as real as the first birth (Jn3:4). Jesus did not correct Nicodemus and told him "new birth is only a metaphor", Jesus went on to say "You have to be born a second time"]. Therefore, the new birth is very real, and does not automatically happens when you go to church every Sunday, give to the church, serve or if pray every now and then. It's a vital and most important event in your life.
(2) I started to understand that the responsibility for my freedom is on me, not a counselor or Pastor. When Jesus addressed Jairus (Lk 8:50) Jesus did not cast a demon of fear out of Jairus, Jesus said “Fear Not!” (Also see 2 Tim 1:7 where Paul did not cast a demon of fear or rejection out of Timothy). This might sound offensive, but not even Jesus is going to help me and supernaturally wipe away fear when I suffer, cry and complain enough, Jesus has done everything already for me when he destroyed the devil (Heb 2:14) and gave me Holy Spirit and His Word. I had to find out what the tools are that Jesus gave me to transform my life, I had to study it and apply it myself, no one else can do this for me; a counselor can guide me on what to do and how to do this, but Jesus and me has to do the work (the work is the renewing of your mind).
(3) The Gospel does not promise that you will have perfect circumstances and you will be without problems, but it does promise the transformation of life. Many people accept Jesus so that they can be financially more blessed or that they can get married or that their boss can stop yelling at them or that their spouse can stop abusing them, etc. They use their faith to try to get their circumstances to change, instead of using it to transform their lives so that the circumstances do not matter anymore. As soon as these issues are not solved for them, some give up on the Gospel because they feel that it did not deliver on the promises or their faith failed. Jesus said that the same storm will come on the believers and the non-believers (Mt 7:24-25). In Jn 16:33 Jesus said that you will have trouble in this world, but in that trouble you can be at peace. Paul said that all believers will suffer prosecution (2Tim 3:12, Php 1:29, 2Tim2:3, etc). There are various places in scripture where “war / solders” are used as an example for the Believers life (2Tim2:3, Eph 6:10-18, Mat 11:12). Think of this example: when you enrol into your countries’ army, you don’t enrol so that you can have an easy relaxed life with lots of blessings. You enter the army so that you can give your life for a bigger purpose than yourself. You are not thinking about your comfort when you enrol into the army, you think of your country. If during war time someone is shooting at you, or you have to sleep under a tree, if you have lots of discomforts and a lack of proper food, you cannot quit. Your focus is not your own comfort; your focus is on the safety of your country. This is the same when we get into the Kingdom. It’s not about your comfort and luxury and what God is not doing for you. The Gospel promises that your life will be transformed, but it does not promise that your life will never have problems. Therefore, use your faith and energy to transform your life, not to try and get your circumstances to become perfect. When your life is transformed, the circumstances will not have the same negative effect on you, and in many instances circumstances will change after it becomes clear that it has no impact on you anymore.
(4) I found out that truthsets me free (Jn 8:32), not laying on of hands or counseling or casting out a demon fear. Truth and understanding (renewing of the mind – Rom 1:2) is the key to freedom and a transformed life. In many of the counselling sessions the process of the discussion was that I told my sad story and cried, then they would say, yes you definitely have a problem, we are going to help you to get free. Then they would start their counselling technique or prayer. But the point is I don’t have a problem. I am a new creation, I am brand new, the man to whom those sad stories belonged to is DEAD!. When the counselors said’ Yes, you do have a problem”, they immediately made those problems mine, whereas it was not mine. The only problem was that I was lied to and I believed it. Truth can destroy the lies. Furthermore, Jesus did not say in Mat 28:19 “Go into the entire world and give them bibles”. But Jesus said “Go into all the world and make disciples”. To read your bible or to sit in church and cell twice a week did not help me. God used audio teachings to disciple me into truth and lead me to freedom. I found that proper audio teachings were absolutely vital to wash the lies out of my mind. It took hours and hours of teachings for my mind to start to think different. But once you start, it became like an addiction to truth, I could not stop listening. Initially I had to force myself to listen, but once I recognized truth, I could not get enough. Visit www.TheGospelMadeSimple.blogspot.com for free resources.
(5) I always thought that faith is an impossible and unattainable thing. But the bible says we live by faith, therefore it should be simple. Jesus spoke about faith as big as a mustard seed, therefore it cannot be impossible. Faith is cultivated in relationship, worship and communion with Jesus. You cannot have healthy faith if you don’t spend time with Jesus in worship is fellowship. The thing that made me stumble is that I thought that if I feel like something is not going to work, that it’s the evidence that I don’t have faith for it. But that is not how faith works at all. The way faith works, is demonstrated in this simple prayer: “Jesus, I feel that my miserable life is never going to change and that I will be stuck in this mess forever. But Jesus, You said that You love me so much that You died for me (Jn 3:16). Holy Spirit, Your Word says that You will teach me (Jn 14:26). Jesus, Your Word says that when my mind is thinking differently, my life will change (Rom 12:2). Jesus Your Word says that You have a good plan for my future (Jer 33:11). Therefore, Jesus, regardless of my feelings, I see that You love me, I see You want to teach me, and I see that my life will change when I think differently, and I see that You have a plan for my life. Therefore I thank You for my mew life, because it’s going to happen.” To pray this prayer while you are depressed and feeling like a mess, is what reveals that you have faith, and this will build up your faith, until your feelings will obey your words and faith.
(6) It happened many times that my mind was consumed by old thoughts: I’m worthless, I’m going to take revenge on someone, I’m afraid, I’m not going to make it or I’m offended. But the bible says that the old man is dead, he was united into Christ’s death during baptism and I am a new creation. I started to talk to Jesus in these instances: “Jesus, thank You that the old man I used to be, has been crucified with You (Rom 6:4-6) and died during my baptism in the Komati river on 17 December 2000, I was there, I saw it. Jesus these bad emotions used to belong to that old man that died on that day, these emotions do not belong to me. I thank You Jesus that I am loved (1Jn 3:16), and am chosen, I am special (1Pet2:9), I have no fear because Your love is in me (Rom 5:5, 1Jn4:18) I’m Holy, Perfect and Innocent (Col 1:22)”. These emotions did not go away easily, and sometimes they did not leave at all, but I kept on doing it. I was able to use my baptism as the evidence that the old man was dead, and it gave me the ability to withstand lies with truth.
(7) Intimacywith Jesus and Holy Spirit became the most important aspect of my life. I used to complain in prayer that my life is a mess and used to ask God for many things. I used to have a time table for prayer: 5 minutes this and 5 minutes that. But you need to spend time with God as is if He is your spouse, just you and Him alone. Worship Him, sing to Him, tell Him how amazing He is. Take the Word and pray a verse back to Him and thank Him (Eph 5:19b-20). Don’t ask Him things or complain, just love Him. “God You are so amazing, You love me so much, You have saved my life, You have given me a hope and a future, You have made me a brand new man. Father, You are absolutely wonderful.”
(8) I had to start to realize how valuable and how loved I am (1Jn 4:16). God loves me so much He send His Son to die for me. 1Cor 8:11 Says “the one for whom Christ died”. Christ died for every one of us, in some way He had every one not even born yet, in mind when He went to the cross. It took the precious blood of Christ (1Pet 1:19) to buy you, that means you are precious. In the gospel of John, he wrote 5 time “The disciple whom Jesus loved”. John is writing that he is the disciple whom Jesus loved. It’s as if John is making himself more special than the others. But John understood that Jesus loves Him, and also each every person individually. You need to talk to Jesus like this: “Jesus, thank You that You love me so much that You died for me. Jesus You are amazing, You gave Your life for me, this shows me how precious I am to You. I am the one whom You died for. Father, thank You that I am the one whom You love.“
(9) I had to learn how to stop complaining about my life, and start to live a life of thanksgivingto God (Php 2:14, Eph 5:20, Col 3:15, etc). I was so used to complaining about politics, the weather, economy, my boss, my lack of a girlfriend and my circumstances. I even complained that the Word is not working for me and my life will never change. As soon as you catch yourself complaining and in a negative mind about something, start to thank God: “Father, I thank You that You are amazing, I thank You that You made me amazing (Heb 2:6), I thank You for Your Word which is the truth and which sets me free from these negative emotions. Holy Spirit, these negative emotions do not belong to me, they belong to the old man that died. I have a living hope in You, and have a bright future (Jer 29:11). Thank You Jesus”.
(10) I could quote entire bible books, but my life did not change. I started to see that I can use the bible to talk with Jesus in fellowship with Holy Spirit. I started to pray like this when I felt fear (instead of quoting a verse): “Jesus, thank You so much that I do not have any fear in me (2Tim 1:7). Your love is in me through Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), and therefore there cannot be any fear in me (1Jn 4:18). Jesus, thank You that the old man which I was (2Cor 5:17) died with You on the cross (Rom 6:6), the old man had fear, but I am a New Creation, this fear that I feel, does not belong to me, it cannot be mine, I don’t have fear. Thank You Jesus.”
(11) The Gospel is all about giving and loving others, regardless of how we feel. But because I struggled with myself, my entire life was focused on myself and in some way by feeling sorry for myself, trying to get myself healed, etc. Because I was completely focused on myself and my misery, it held me captive and I could not get free. As soon as I started to pray for the sick and recognize other people’s needs, I moved the focus away from myself, and this opened the door for the grip that this pain had on my life to be released. I had to force myself to start to reach out to other people because I used to be a withdrawn person. But I had to remind myself that I was not that withdrawn person anymore because I was born again, that withdrawn and isolated guy had died. So I started to thank God for my freedom, even though I did not feel like it, and God provided me a place where I could serve and love people. This is much like a chicken and egg question “which one came first”. I felt that I could not reach out to people until I was healed. But until I reached out to other people’s needs, I could not be healed. The risk we run is that ministry can now become your new identity (you feel good about yourself because you did something for God and impressed people by your good works). Ministry must NEVER be your identity, Christ determines your identity. I used to pray these kinds of prayer: “Father, I thank You that my ministry is not my identity. I don't need to impress You through the things I do in ministry. Father, You were so impressed with me, that You send Jesus to die for me when I was still a complete mess (Rom 5:8). Thanks You Father that You love me and I don’t need to perform to earn Your love.”
(12) Righteousness is very important to understand. The Gospel has power because of Righteousness (Rom 1:16-17); if you don’t understand righteousness, you will stay a spiritual baby (Heb 5:13). Righteousness simply means that through the blood of Jesus, you are made perfect and holy (Col1:22) because you are born of Holy Spirit (Jn 3:6). Therefore you look like Him and are one with Him (1Cor 6:17).
Ø You need to understand how a human is put together to understand righteousness. For purposes of this discussion, we talk about 3 parts of a human: spirit, mind, body. The spirit is the part that gets born again, that is perfect and instantly holy at new birth (because it’s born of the Spirit – Jn 3:6). The mind is not perfect immediately, it’s needs to be renewed over time (Rom 12:2, Eph 4:23). The body will come into order after the spirit and the mind.
Ø You need to understand that thoughts could come to your mind from different places; three are important here:
v (a) From your spirit which is a new creation or a new man, and which is one with Holy Spirit (1Cor 3:17), or
v (b) from the devil, the following scriptures shows that: 2Cor 10:3-5 reads that the devil can give you thoughts, but we should make those thoughts subject to Christ. Jn 10:5 reads that we can hear the stranger’s voice, but we should not follow him.
v (c) mindsets and thought patterns that you had before you were born again, which belonged to the old man that died, created patterns of thinking in your mind. Even though every negative thought in your mind might not the devil that speaks directly to you, these “old man” thoughts are according to the devil’s character, and therefore, we put this with category (b) as well.
Ø You need to evaluate any emotion or thought in your head based on the fact that you are a new creation which is righteousness and holy (Eph 4:23-24). When you start to understand your new identity, you will start to understand which thoughts can belong to you and which thoughts cannot belong to you. It’s difficult because your mind was trained since your physical birth in old dead thoughts, so it comes natural to you. But this is the mind renewal process that Rom 12:2 and Eph 4:23 speaks of. When you study the bible, especially the life of Jesus and other part of the NT, and listen to good teachings, you start to understand how a new creation acts, and you get to know yourself. You will start to see who you really are and how you should act based on your new identity. If a thought in your head is “I am depressed” or “I want to sin” or “I am a looser”, then you need to ask: Can the new creation have such a thought? If the answer is “no”, then this is not your thought, it is placed there by the devil, and you need to withstand it with truth. The way you withstand the sin with truth is to Immediately pray something like: “Jesus, I thank You that I am a new creation, I am worth Your blood, that addiction (drugs, alcohol, immorality, etc) is of a lower class than me, it’s not worth me even thinking about it. I am valuable and precious; I am not giving myself to something as worthless as sin. Thank You Jesus that You delivered me (Col 1:12) and set me free when I got born again.” You can pray this even if you are busy with the sin, eventually your mind will realize your value, your mind will be renewed, and you will crush that sin. When it’s about you feeling depressed or worthless you could pray like this: “Jesus, You told me how valuable I am, You died for me because You saw my potential and value. Thank You Jesus that people cannot devalue me or make me worthless, because You have determined my value once and for all when You died for me on the cross. You cannot reverse that, I am valuable!! Thank You Jesus, that I am called to love people, I'm not called to be angry, upset, hurt or frustrated by people even if they treat me as if I am worthless, they just don’t know my value. Thank you for them, Jesus, I speak blessings over them.”
Ø Righteousness becomes the basis of your identity, and the measure of whether a thought can belong to you or not.
(13) I had to realize that things on earth are not my identity and it cannot determine my joy; Jesus is my source of life and joy. Identity simply means those things that have the biggest ability to make you feel good or bad about yourself. For as long as I can remember I thought that a perfect wife will be my solution, if I can just get a very beautiful little wife, she will make me feel good about myself – she will be my identity. Because I was very seldom in relationships, I was always miserable and without identity. I prayed about it a lot and I got very upset with God because He did not give me a wife. But God did not want to give me an idol. If God would have given me a wife while I was idolizing her, God would have given me something that took my focus away from Him, and put me into idolatry. There was a two year period (from age 40 to 42 when I first met my wife) where I started to understand the truth of the Gospel, and got my focus off myself and my lack of a wife, to Jesus. I got my mind off this idea that a wife is my solution, to the fact that Jesus is my identity. This was a big part of the freedom I experienced. It seems to me that only once I stopped seeing a wife as an idol, that God could send me a wife. There are many people who see their solution in earthly things like, a spouse, a job, a better boss, a better co-worker, money, circumstances, a house, etc. This is a lie. Your joy and peace does not lie in things on earth, it lies in Jesus. Your identity and glory is not from the world, it’s from the cross of Christ (Gal 6:14). If your joy or identity is based on worldly things, you open yourself up to be a very easy target for the devil.
(14) Use sin, wrong thoughts and emotions as a trigger for worship, communion with Jesus and to establish your identity. People sin because they do not understand their value and their righteousness (1Cor 15:34), if we understand how valuable we are, we will not waste our time with something as worthless as sin. I did not understand that the old man which was weaker than sin died (Rom 6:7, 6:11), the new man who I am, is much more valuable than sin and much stronger than sin. As soon as you realize this, you will look at sin and see it as worthless acts. However, if you sin, or while you are still growing in this revelation of your value, do not get into guilt, condemnation and depression, and do not beg God for weeks to forgive you the sin. God made provision to forgive ALL your sins (1Jn 2:1, Jn 1:29, 1Pet 4:8). We must not sin, but if you do sin, use these sins or mistakes as an opportunity to train your mind in your value and power. The most powerful word to establish your identity even when you made a mistake is “That is so not who I am”. Use this when you have made a mistake, so teach yourself who you really are. It took me a long time, but I taught myself that as soon as sin, wrong emotions and thoughts got into my mind, that it’s a time to stop doing what I am busy with and praise God. Initially you don’t even realize that you are busy with wrong thoughts, because you are so used to them being in your head, but after a long time I could recognize wrong thoughts and emotions, and I could start to act as soon as they came: “Jesus, I feel inferior and worthless after my discussion with that person, Jesus I thank you that it’s a lie, I am not worthless and inferior, I am precious (Ish 43:4), I am absolutely amazing (Heb 2:7), I am worth the precious blood of Jesus (1Pet1:19). Thank You Jesus that You absolutely love me.” Pray like this “God, to commit such a sin is so not who I am. It’s not my heart to sin, it’s my heart to fully obey you. I’m sorry that I committed that sin. God, I am so valuable to you, and you have made me stronger than sin. Father, the old man that I was, he was weaker than sin, but God, the new man You made me, he is stronger and more valuable than sin. I know You will teach me and grow me to overcome that sin. God, thank You that You forgive all my sins.” Every time you recognize a wrong thought, withstand it with truth!
B.4) A summary of the Gospel that Transforms through the Blood of Jesus
The Gospel is that through the death of Jesus my old rotten, miserable life can die. The characteristics of the old selfish life were: being hurt, offended or feel cheated, be jealous or hateful, feel inferior or worthless or alone or depressed, try to impress people to feel valuable, feel impatient or angry, be stressed or anxious or have fear, be subject or weaker than sin and live for temporary pleasure like money, cheap comedy, immorality, addictions, etc, or be self-consciousness. But you can be born again, and get a new life. The characteristics of this new life are rest, joy, peace, love, patience, freedom, etc. This new life is given entirely to Jesus, it’s not about me or my circumstances or comfort anymore, it’s all about Jesus and the people that He loves. You don’t live for your own dreams and desires and luxury anymore, you ask Him where He wants you to go and what He wants you to do. It sounds like a raw deal, because you have to give up your life! But the point is you get to enjoy your new life, you are free and you have peace, you have fun loving people and caring for people. You get a Companion (Holy Spirit), you are extremely loved and you leave a legacy unto eternity! Jesus has given me all things to live this new life. My responsibility is to train my mind with the help of Holy Spirit to understand how amazing I have been made, that I am stronger than darkness, fear and depression. That I am created by God so that He can love me, that I can love Him, and so that I can love others!
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Friedrich (2014/07/03)
