Based upon Matthew 6:33 – "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you." (NASB) A blog about what the Kingdom of Heaven is; and how believers can inherit it.
Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; - 2 Peter 1:1-2
11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
For you have been called for this purpose, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you would follow in His steps, HE WHO COMMITTED NO sin, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT found IN HIS MOUTH; and while being abusively insulted, He did not insult in return; while suffering, He did not threaten, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you were healed.
“But I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” – Galatians 5:16
Now we come to the second lesson in our 7 lesson series from the movie 7 Days in Utopia.
We saw with the first lesson, you must have conviction. Why do you believe what you believe and can you show your proof? It may seem like a mundane task, but the importance of knowing what you believe is imperative. The enemy is far too good at deception for us to leave that to chance.
The next thing that we learn will connect with our emotions.
Now, I know for myself, that my emotions can run the gambit. I can be happy, then sad, then mad, then irritated, then depressed.
But in the same way that we asked, “Why do you believe what you believe?” we need to ask a similar question here, “Why do you react the way you do?”
Hold on. This is a lesson for all of us who truly are at our “wits end” with our emotions pulling us directions that we don’t want to go.
In the movie, as in golf, a player may be out on the course and have a bad hole. If he becomes so focused on that bad hole, the rest of his round will be played just as poorly as that bad hole.
Why? Because 1) his fleshly emotions are controlling his thoughts, and 2) he hasn’t gotten past the bad hole. (i.e., he hasn’t “forgiven” himself…)
On that one golf hole, he made a mistake, he missed the mark, (how sin is described in Scipture…) and he never got past it.
Why?
He was looking at the past.
Emotional control is not something you do.
Emotional control is something you submit to Jesus.
Every single day, there are traps set for us to fall into. Many of those traps are set around emotional responses. Our flesh adamantly wants what it wants. But what the flesh doesn’t realize is that it is powerless and useless.
Then how can I have such terrible outbursts?
Because I default back to what I used to know. I am not realizing that the Power of God for Him to use His emotions through me is available and that I do not need to be a prisoner to my fleshly emotions.
And how do we know what emotions are fleshly?
Every emotion that says “You deserve…”, “you should have…”, “this is OWED to you”.
Do not beloved… do NOT fall into this trap! It is the emotional trap that many (including the character in the movie) fall into and almost all regret it.
So how do I control my emotions? How do I keep them in check?
First things first, give yourself mercy. This is a process, but the process is not about you being perfect right away, this is about growing closer to the Father. The closer we are to Him, the more He works through us.
Hear me now… EMOTIONAL CONTROL IS NOT A LOST CAUSE!
For us to say that we are always going to be a product of our emotions is a fatalistic approach; and it also places no trust in what God can do!
So, your first practice lesson with “Emotional Control” is to go to your Father and express exactly what you struggle with and what you need Him to do for you for the day.
The first practice lesson we will talk about in more detail tomorrow (Lord willing). It is a LITERAL and PRACTICAL way for you to use your Spirit, your Mind, and your mouth and defeat that flesh once and for all!
That is a saying my grandmother used to say. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but for some strange reason, it sounded funny. Well, the idea goes back to the 1800’s when one family would draw water in the tub and everyone in the family took a bath in it. Then, you tossed the water out.
The moral: your conviction has a Rock of truth. If it is found to be lacking, the LORD will give you clarity.
Okay. Now that’s a pretty big jump from bathwater to my conviction.
One thing we are sure of is that our lives must be lived in Truth. Truth of what we say, Truth of how we think, and the Truth of what we believe.
So, what happens when what you thought wasn’t correct? What if what you believed, what you were taught about something, was actually not complete, or it was flawed in some way?
Let me give you a biblical example of this: “When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.” Jonah 4:6
But wait. This is the king of Nineveh. How did he change his convictions? He didn’t even have any.
Actually. He did. His conviction was to be a world conqueror and to do so in the harshest way possible.
But then he met God… or rather… God’s man, who spoke God’s message. And when Truth entered the ears of the king, he relented, he repented, and his convictions changed.
You see, your convictions are attached to what you believe. Again, if you don’t know why you believe what you believe, you can be easily pulled away when the next best thing comes along.
We see this most in society. Fads change on a whim it seems; but the idea is that the next best thing is what “they” want you to wear.
So, some person creates an outfit, someone else says that outfit is incredible and amazing and then, people will… watch this now… CHANGE THEIR LIFESTYLE in order to get it. They REPENT, they CHANGE THEIR MIND. What I had was no longer good enough, I need the next best thing.
All repentance is a change of mind.
Godly repentance sticks.
Let me leave you with one last example. I was brought up in a Catholic home, when I accepted Christ’s gifts of salvation, I connected to a Southern Baptist church. By what I had been taught, and what was even TAUGHT TO ME IN COLLEGE… said that Holy Spirit was the 3rd person of the Trinity, he would lead you into all truth, but miracles, signs, and wonders ceased with he disciples.
Then I read John 14:12.
Then I read John 20:21 and then Acts 2:4 and began to see that my conviction about Holy Spirit was INCOMPLETE. It isn’t that I was wrong, 2/3 of what I said was Truth.
But now that I see the Word of God that HE revealed to me, my convictions have changed.
But hear this: stay with your convictions and don’t you move until and unless God shows you Truth to add.
“…we are not going to serve your gods…” – Daniel 3:18
To other people, sometimes conviction may be ludicrous.
You see, one of the hardest times in your life to be remain true to your convictions as a believer in Christ will come in the middle of a large group. When everyone around you is doing something, participating in something, we don’t want to be left out so many times, we “just go along.”
But I want you to take an imaginary trip with me to the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Imagine a courtyard filled with people… thousands. And off in the distance is the huge golden statue of this man, King Nebuchadnezzar.
And then from all around you, you hear music and blasts of trumpet and all sorts of music…
And every single one of those people falls to their knees, almost in unison, and tuck their heads to the ground. Instead of a sea of standing people, there is a sea of hunched backs and bowed heads.
Except for these three men.
Please don’t lose this picture, because it is a picture of something that we as believers face every day. Three men standing, knowing it will mean death (there was no doubt about that for them…) in a sea of thousands all bowing to a false god.
Now, what is interesting about their conviction is that they are able to voice it when asked by King Nebuchadnezzar and it is recorded.
They said in response, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18)
They were convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gods ole Neb’ was serving were false.
Why?
Because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had experienced God in their lives. They had seen his ways of kindness and love, of compassion and mercy, they saw His hand of discipline… knowing full well His children needed it!
Those young men KNEW GOD. That is what makes them stand when thousands bow.
IT is the SAME thing with us!
We live, walk, work, and breath surrounded by people (some our own famILY), that live in a prone position to the gods of this world.
But we have a choice.
But what if they were wrong? What if God didn’t save them? What if it were NEVER God’s will to spare them.
In other words, what if they were wrong??? What do you do when your convictions are found to be wrong…?
Tomorrow, Lord willing, we are going to take a look into some biblical examples of when this happened, some personal experiences I myself would like to share, but more importantly, the way God views these times of growth, when what we may have been standing on, isn’t the full Truth….
“So the king said to me, “Why is your face sad though you are not sick?” – Nehemiah 2:2
In the same way that we said, “Without conviction, you will be pulled away.” The opposite is most definitely true. “With conviction, you will stand.”
We also said that conviction meant to stand behind what you believed, but also understanding why we believe what we believe.
But what does conviction look like in life? When we want to see an example of a man or woman who had godly conviction that we could glean from, where can we look.
The first person Holy Spirit brought to my mind to share with you is Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was a man that was sent into exile with the rest of Judah after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. He was in service as a cupbearer to the king at the time, which happened to be King Atrexerxes.
As a servant to a king, one must be extremely formal and cause no attention to come to themselves; it could mean death. So, for a cupbearer to have a “sad face” kind of day was normally NOT tolerated.
But Nehemiah didn’t care about the king.
Nehemiah had a conviction. His conviction was, his home, his real home in Jerusalem had no walls and could fall right back into chaos without them.
No walls meant no protection.
No walls meant no peace.
No walls meant what was… is no more.
But the conviction of Nehemiah didn’t just happen overnight. Some four months before this incident, Nehemiah was approached by his brother who was returning from the area and the report he gave to Nehemiah was grave; the people were in distress and the walls were broken down and the gates were burned.
Nehemiah’s response was to weep bitterly and repent to the Lord.
But why? Why would Nehemiah cry? Maybe the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem was God’s will and he should just move on?
What would cause a man to RISK HIS OWN LIFE by being so focused on a place of ruins that he cannot focus to perform his duty to a king?
Conviction.
You see, Nehemiah knew something many of the people didn’t. There was a prophecy.
The prophet Daniel who also went into captivity, studied the Word of God and saw that the 70 years of captivity were about to end according to the prophet Jeremiah some years earlier (Daniel 9:2). Nehemiah KNEW they were going home, but he did not want to go home to be overtaken again.
Nehemiah’s conviction was based on a PROMISE OF GOD. That is the ONLY conviction that mattered to him.
But understand the sincerity and the intensity of that conviction, if you are going into a royal courtroom to serve the king and all you can think about is home, so much so that the king himself notices you! Then he asks you what’s wrong?!
Conviction answers, “Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire.” (Nehemiah 2:3)
Nehemiah was willing to risk his life because God’s Word was that important to him. I guess we can say that conviction is selfless….
Don’t skim over that question, because it is a very important one—vital even.
In the movie, 7 Days in Utopia, the young professional golfer was asked why he held his club the way he did. His response was something along the lines of, “I dunno. I just swing that way.”
His teacher reminded him that there are many critics in this world, and they all have different opinions; when we listen to them, it may change the way we do things, like constantly changing the grip on a golf club.
The young golfer was tasked with detailing everything about his golf swing, the mechanics, how it felt, when he moved, etc.
And what is the lesson for us?
Let’s go back to that first question DAD posed… Why do you believe what you believe?
What I believe about God is called CONVICTION. Conviction is a decision I make that I believe in as a tenet of my life. This conviction is from God because it resides IN God.
If I tell you that I believe that we cannot lose our salvation, and then go out into the community and find another person who believes you can lose your salvation, AND I HAVE NO CONVICTION, I will be prone to believe what that person has said… just because they said it. Why? I want to fit in.
But then I go to a Bible study, and they talk about how a person cannot lose their salvation, and then I flip back. I would be a picture of a person with no conviction.
No conviction means other people’s OPINION matters more than TRUTH to me.
Ouch. But facts.
This is conviction: I believe that the Word of God teaches that once a person accepts Christ into their lives they can never lose that gift, because, ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF GOD, salvation is a gift given (Ephesians 2:8), and once a person is in the hands of Jesus, they nor any other force can remove that person from that position (John 10:28).
Now, you can give me all sorts of things to tell me otherwise, but I will NOT believe you because I believe God’s Word more. I have proof, and I am convinced.
Convinced… becomes your conviction.
But what if my conviction is that you can lose your salvation? Then you must reveal it according to the Word of God. And the process that takes place between two dueling convictions…? It can be found in Proverbs 27:17.
But here is a very important sub-lesson, it isn’t about “who’s right”. It’s about finding out what God has said about salvation.
So, one more time, let’s end with the question that we began with… why do you believe what you believe?
If you believe in a rapture… why? What verses of the Bible support that?
Do you believe Holy Spirit still moves today as He did in the book of Acts? Where do you draw your basis from?
We’ve covered losing salvation, what about losing your rewards… do you believe that is possible? And again, what Scriptures would you reference?
One last thing. There is a warning here about laziness. For some people, when faced with having convictions, it’s just too much “work”. If you see it as work, it will be. But whether you think about it or not, we all have convictions… how we drive a car, where we shop, where we don’t shop. We can be fiercely aggressive with those convictions, but when it comes to the Word of God and the Life of Christ within me, I dare not leave that to someone else’s opinion.
Please… join me tomorrow, Lord willing, as we continue to delve into our lesson on conviction…
Kingdom Moments 