~ Step 5: Feed Your New Lifestyle ~
NOTE: This Discipleship Model is a special 7-part
series showing a clear path to spiritual victory. One step will be posted each
day for a calendar week. After completion of this series Abundant Life Now will
“resume regular programming.”
What kind of
lifestyle do you currently possess? Is it all you desire? If not, what kind of
lifestyle do you desire?
Here are two good examples
of lifestyles. First, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your
own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your
daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent
on anybody” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). Second, “I am come that they might have
life, and that they might have it more
abundantly”(John 10:10b).
Our thought life is critical since
it forms attitudes. Attitudes are an extremely important aspect of our
motivations. In order to possess a consistent God-pleasing lifestyle and
consistent spiritual victory, we must consistently think correctly. Such a
lifestyle is the result of controlling our thinking. A faulty lifestyle is a
symptom of a spiritual problem which has its roots in our thought life!
“Do
not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and
night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and
successful” (Joshua 1:8). This is the foundational aspect to controlling and
maintaining correct patterns of thinking (attitudes). Our Lord understood
this—recall that when He was tempted to think incorrectly, He quoted Scripture
(Matthew 4:1-11).
Life is a series of changes or “change
points.” Some are gradual and some are abrupt. But we are all being constantly
changed. The key to living in a changing world is the ability to adjust, to
relate, and to take control of the direction of our change. The role of a
disciple is be control their changes in order to become more Christ-like—that
is normal (not average) Christian living. If we are controlled by the Spirit we
are being changed into the image of Christ—a lifelong process that is at work
in us now. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory
of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians
3:18).
Thinking forms attitudes which
motivate our action. Spiritual maturity is the result of training one’s
thinking to discern good and evil thinking. “The mature, who by constant use
have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). In that
passage we have been given a definition of spiritual maturity. “But be doers of
the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer
of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a
mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind
of man he was” (James 1:22-24). We are only mature when we translate
our head knowledge into foot knowledge.
There is a practical side to all of
this. We live in a crazy world. In order to maintain sanity we need to be
looking at the source and completer of our faith. “Let
us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2a).
This has been the source of His people’s strength throughout history. For
example, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was
restored” (Daniel 4:34).
But maturity is a long-term process
and maintaining sanity in an insane world is an on-going process. This is
counter to our environment which is based on an instant mentality. We have fast
food restaurants. In our home we use products labeled shake 'n' bake, pour 'n'
serve, stir 'n' blend, bake 'n' slice, mix 'n' broil, chop 'n' simmer, etc.
Many of us eat junk food rather than nutritious food. We tend to focus on
short-term convenience rather than long-term health. The world is training us
in the opposite direction than we need to go.
The remedy is given to us in
Scripture, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For
what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
The underlying important point is that as humans we live forever. Life on earth
is an extremely tiny portion of forever!
Abraham Lincoln put it this way, “I’d
rather lose in a cause that ultimately wins than win in a cause which
ultimately loses.”
Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, “He
is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
My favorite author said, “For what
will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”
(Jesus Christ, Mark 8:36). The point in all this is that we should not sacrifice
the permanent on the altar of the immediate.
Step 1: Paradox
~ Understand your partnership
with God.
Step 2: Thinking
~ Choose to control your
thoughts!
Step 3: Attitude
~ Increasingly rely on properly
cultivated attitudes.
Step 4: Motivation
~ Be motivated predominately by
yourself, rather than by external factors.
Step 5: Lifestyle
~ Continue to practice the
fundamentals.
The next step will focus on-going spiritual victory.
~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW
