IMPROVE YOUR LIFE

Change Your Life - New Year Series #2

SW01.07.07am

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. - Romans 12:1-2

(Romans 12:1-2 is the theme for the entire series in that we want to no longer be conformed to what the world, the flesh and the devil wants with our lives - instead we want to present our "bodies”, our lives as living sacrifices to our Lord. This series is an attempt to describe in practical terms how to do that and in the process change and improve our lives for the better to the glory of the Lord.)

Last week to review we talked about how that many people, perhaps millions or even billions of people were not happy with their lives. Some of those people have created imaginary worlds in which to live, work and play. But whether or not you are happy with your life is not the biggest reason, the most important reason to change your life. The very most important reason for someone to want to change their life is if they know God wants them to change. If God wants you to change He will enable you and provide all that you need to change and improve your life.

King David prays in his prayer of confession and repentance, "Create in me a clean heart, O God…(Psalm 51:10).” The apostle John tells us in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confession and repentance will result in a clean heart and a changed life. It is the beginning point for any lasting spiritual change.

We also talked about how some say that there is one most important food to drop from our physical diets if we want to be healthy. That physical food is trans fats. Jeffrey Aron, a medical doctor and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco says, "Emerging data strongly suggests that cancer and dementia are made worse by trans fats. Putting trans fats into your body is like dropping fine grains of sand into a Swiss watch. Eventually the system shuts down.” I then suggested that there may be a spiritual trans fat that you have been dropping like grains of sand into your spiritual life.

Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life it puts a little more distance between you and your Lord.

Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life it slows down your spiritual fervor a little more.

Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life you have more of a concern about what the world wants and what the flesh wants than you do about what God wants in your life.

You get rid of that spiritual trans fat through confession and repentance. But just as with improving our physical bodies - just stopping the eating of some foods is not enough.

In order to improve our physical health we not only need to eliminate those foods which our bad for us but we also need to eat foods that are good for us. Some of those foods are called antioxidants. Briefly here from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is what they are and do: Research suggests that consumption of antioxidant-rich foods reduces damage to cells and biochemicals from free radicals. This may slow down, prevent, or even reverse certain diseases that result from cellulardamage, and perhaps even slow down the natural aging process. This is the basis for the free-radical theory of aging. studies suggest that by destroying free radicals and reducing cellular damage, antioxidants in the diet can have positive health effects, such as preventing macular degeneration (studied in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study);[8] maintaining the immune system;[9] potentially preventing neurodegeneration due to oxidative stress;[10] preventing DNA damage;[11] and lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.[12] The controlled studies using antioxidant vitamins suggest that other antioxidant substances in fruit and vegetables at least partially explain the better health of those who consume more fruit and vegetables.

You can immediately see that to change your physical health you need to stop the bad foods like trans fats and add in the good foods that contain antioxidants like fruits and vegetables. Spiritually it is much the same we need to stop pouring the grains of sin into our lives but at the same time we need to add in the spiritual antioxidants that will protect us from the damaging attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

There are three spiritual antioxidants that need to be added to the life, to be a part of the life of every Christian if they want their spiritual life to be changed and improved. What are they? They are not a super secret and like vegetables and fruits for the body the spiritual antioxidants are available at very little cost and in great quantity. The spiritual antioxidants are Prayer, the Word of God, and the Church.

This is nothing new and yet only a small minority of those professing to be Christians actually take advantage of all three of these spiritual antioxidants. Let’s examine each of these spiritual antioxidants that have the potential of dramatically improving your spiritual life.

First, let’s examine prayer. I will confess that early in my Christian life I was not a prayer warrior and there were days that went by without my uttering a prayer or talking to God in any way. In fact, soon after I was saved there was a period of about a year or more where I don’t remember praying. That prayerless period of my life came to a sudden end when I had a crisis situation come into my life. I could have turned away from God completely but how could I turn away from God when I knew that He was real? He had saved my soul, I was a new creation in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God answered my frantic, desperate plea for help in a dramatic way making it very clear to me that prayer changes things, that prayer is … really is… talking to God. I made a commitment to pray every day and there has not been a day since that day some 35 years ago that I have not talked to God. Sometimes I have prayed very briefly, and sometimes I have prayed long but I believe all of those prayers have been heard and answered by the Creator of the Universe.

For example we made a commitment to fast a pray for seven days about whether to go to another church or not - which church to go to. Seven days later on a Sunday afternoon we received a call from a pastor search committee from a church that at first we thought we would not be interested in - but it was the church God had for us.

Often the answers were not the answers that I wanted but still I knew that they were from the hand of God and in my very best interest to accept them. Praying and fasting for seven days before a job interview for a job that I very much wanted. The result of that interview was that I did not get the job. I was disappointed but accepted it as being from God. With the benefit of hindsight I know now that it was the very best thing for me and my family. It was hard for me to see at the time but God could see very clearly what was best.

The Bible says about prayer: "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).” And in 1 John 15:14-15, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

Samuel Chadwick was a great man of God who preached in England beginning at the age of 21 during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Chadwick’s most famous quote is that, "The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”

William Carey, missionary to India, said, "Prayer - secret, fervent, believing prayer - lies at the root of all personal godliness.”

In his study, "Why Should Christians Pray?” Henry Blackaby answers this question with 6 reasons why spiritual leaders need to pray. (Spiritual Leadership page 153)

(1.) Prayer is an essential leadership (Christian) activity.
(2.) Prayer brings the Spirit’s filling.
(3.) Prayer brings God’s wisdom.
(4.) Prayer accesses God’s power.
(5.) Prayer relieves stress
(6.) Prayer reveals God’s agenda

How can you talk to the living God without His having an effect upon your life? Prayer will change, transform and improve your life.

Second, is the spiritual antioxidant of the Word of God. Jesus says in Matthew 4:4quoting the Old Testament, "It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

One of the most dramatic examples of the Bible’s divine ability to transform men and women involved the famous mutiny on the "Bounty.” Following their rebellion against the notorious Captain Bligh, nine mutineers, along with the Tahitian men and women who accompanied them, found their way to Pitcairn Island, a tiny dot in the South Pacific only two miles long and a mile wide. Ten years later, alcohol and fighting had left only one man alive, John Adams. Eleven women and 23 children made up the rest of the Island’s population.

So far this is the familiar story made famous in the book and movie. But the rest of the story is even more remarkable. About this time, Adams came across the "Bounty’s” Bible in the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it, and the divine power of God’s Word reached into the heart of that hardened murderer on a tiny volcanic speck in the vast Pacific Ocean--and changed his life forever.

The peace and love that Adams found in the Bible entirely replaced the old life of quarreling, brawling, and liquor. He began to teach the children from the Bible until every person on the island had experienced the same amazing change that he had found. Today, with a population of slightly less than 100, nearly every person on Pitcairn Island is a Christian. (From Signs of the Times, August, 1988, p. 5.)

Augustine who was an early church father was during his younger years a wild child but his mother prayed and prayed for him until one day and this his testimony of what happened: I was weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when I heard the voice of children from a neighboring house chanting, "take up and read; take up and read." I could not remember ever having heard the like, so checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. Eagerly then I returned to the place where I had laid the volume of the apostle. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: "Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not is strife and envy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts." No further would I read, nor did I need to. For instantly at the end of this sentence, it seemed as if a light of serenity infused into my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.

The transforming power of the Word of God is demonstrated in so many lives. David’s life is one of them. David, is a prisoner serving a 365 year sentence for murder. An inmate gave him a Gideon New Testament and Psalms. One night in his cell, he picked it up after ignoring it for the longest time and began reading Psalm 34. By the time he got to v. 6 it melted his heart. There he read, "this poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles.”

David remembers that night well and later wrote, "It was at that moment, in 1987, that I began to pour out my heart to God. Everything seemed to hit me at once. The guilt from what I did... the disgust at what I had become... late that night in my cold cell, I got down on my knees and I began to cry to Jesus Christ. I told Him that I was sick and tired of doing evil. I asked Jesus to forgive me for all my sins. I spent a good while on my knees praying to Him. When I got up it felt as if a very heavy but invisible chain that had been around me for so many years was broken. A peace flooded over me. I did not understand what was happening. But in my heart I just knew that my life, somehow, was going to be different.”

Sixteen years later David Berkowitz, a.k.a. The Son of Sam, leads Bible studies inside the walls of his prison, devoted to spending the rest of his life in prison where he now knows the Lord has placed him so he can reach still more.

If the Word of God can change the life of David Berkowitz surely it can change, transform and improve your life.

In Ephesians 6:17bwe read, "…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” And in Hebrews 4:12we are told, "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Allow the Holy Spirit to use His sword, the Word of God. Read the Word, study the Word, memorize the Word, meditate upon the Word and your life will be changed, improved, and transformed.

The third spiritual antioxidant I want us to consider is the church. Make no mistake about the importance of the church. Christ loved the church. Christ died for the church. That should put the church in the proper perspective for you. In Hebrews 10:24-25 we are told very plainly, very bluntly, "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

If you want to see your life changed, improved, and transformed make a commitment to attend every service of the church regularly and faithfully. I made that commitment almost 30 years ago and I’ve never regretted it. I’ve never regretted the time that I have spent in church. No, the only thing that I regret is the years that I was not attending church regularly and faithfully.

Dwight L. Moody that great evangelist of the 19^th Century once said, "Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.”

Sometime ago Time Magazine ran an article that reported on the benefits of religion and the church, and some of the observations included:

(1. Heart-surgery patients who draw comfort from their religious faith have a significantly higher survival rate than those who do not.

(2. The blood pressure of people who attend church is 5 mm lower than that of those who do not.

(3. People with religious faith who attend church regularly experience less depression than nonreligious people.

(4. Suicide is four times higher among non-churchgoers than churchgoers.

The church is for our benefit. It is God’s will for us to be in church, faithfully serving and worshipping Him there. In the church we are lifted up and encouraged, we are "provoked unto love and good works.” In the church we see a focusing of God’s power. Jesus says, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20).” This focus of God’s power cannot be found by simply watching TV on Sunday morning by yourself.

Many times my family would go to church on Sunday morning with frowns on their faces. When we left the church building to go home, replacing those frowns would be a radiance, a glow of joy on our faces. The Church is where you can find people who will love you, help you, lift you up and pray for you. No matter what terrible dark sins you may have committed, in the church you will find people who will forgive you and care about you. Thank God for the Church!

The church is not man’s idea - it is God’s idea and plan. There is no getting around the fact that it is God’s will and plan for you to be in church every time the doors are open. How much does God desire this? Jesus died for the church. The church is the body of Christ on this earth.

Change your life, improve your life, transform your life by attending church regularly and faithfully.

God has given us the spiritual antioxidants that we need to improve our lives. We cannot be living sacrifices to God unless we take advantage of the spiritual antioxidants of Prayer, Bible, and Church.

Transform your life, improve your life by no longer being conformed to the pattern of this world. Instead have a regular intake of Prayer, Bible and Church.

It will change your life forever.