Categories
Politics and Society today

Reaching out – Looking in: 7 choosing grace over sensationalism

Reaching Out – Looking In

Reaching Out – Looking In is a new diary journal which speaks my inner thoughts as I walk my walk in a society that is rapidly imploding. Will the church: the body of believers — will it implode or move through to where Jesus prescribes we are to be as part of His Church?

Some years ago (@2012 link), I began and wrote a weekly journal An Examined Life based on Socrates’ adage, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I continued for a few years, and a few years after I’d stopped, I had the idea to revive it (@2020 link), but failed. 

Now in a new frame, I’m beginning again, this time not to copy the original idea but to take it and suit it to today in my walk with Jesus.

Reaching Out weekly

I’ll aim to have an insert every week, which I also plan to share in my weekly newsletter, Preparing the Bride for what better preparation than to walk together, with Jesus, through these times until this walk on earth is finished…

Hallelujah! Maranatha: Come Lord Jesus! And in the meanwhile, come one and all to the place of the heart, where Jesus abides with us and we abide with Him (John 15).

What’s on my mind this week: Sensationalism

COMMENTARY: Choosing grace over sensationalism

“My grace is sufficient for you” (1 Corinthians 12:9a)

I long for His grace to permeate my soul and the soul of every Believer.

Concern about sensationalism

The more I see negative information plastered all over social media and the more I watch tv news (msn and alternative), the more I’m aware of the sensationalism rife over the audio/visual waves.

As though war was not extreme enough, it seems some people cannot resist stating opinions as fact (Am I doing that now?), and raising the fear game to such a degree that families and dear friends are arguing over what is true and what is not.

Whew! I just want peace, don’t you? Shalom. Yes, worldwide literal peace of course. But the peace within, which passes all understanding: GOD’s peace.

Some caught up in innuendo and false accusation

There are some in this world who seek to control, to diminish freedom, and take life itself. Are we praying for them?

What concerns me about people who watch and study the evil that some dark areas of humanity are engaged in: to terminate our freedoms and even our lives, to control-control-control, is that those focusing on this evil may actually be enamoured with the strategies and movements of the enemy, or worse, are hating man rather than the principalities and powers behind the thoughts and actions of man. This I determine, is not the way to walk. In fact, it seems to be a distraction from our call to minister the Gospel and the truth of Yeshua.

How much time is spent in looking at the dark web or main stream media and condemning in our hearts the possible motives or actions of others?

Some watchmen will have a call to sound the alarm against such evil. But are all sharing these things actually posting the alarm to the lost, or only watching? Are some in fact savouring? For in the end, this is gossip: true or false, it is still gossip.

“A perverse man sows strife, And a whisperer separates the best of friends.” (Proverbs 16:28)

Fight the good fight

So I am saddened that many believers seem to be diverted. Some may have a call to warn and protect, but are mixed up in with the world’s counter-agenda: to fight against flesh and blood, to expose the evil of the elite, to hearken to the fleshly attacks, and to get embroiled in a fight that is not theirs to fight. Are we praying against the evil one and are we praying for those under him? I hope more prayer is happening than what I surmise.

It saddens me. It angers me at Satan, and saddens me for my fellow Believers. This fight against the machinations of the darker side of humanity is not my fight.

Ephesians 6:10-18 states, 

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—“

What is my call?

Where do each of us fit into this scenario? Where do you? Where to I? Let us ensure we are watchmen on the walls GOD has given us to watch, without judging (myself included) the walls over which others are called to watch.

Categories
Examining Biblical Scripture

Walking in the New Man… permanently

The New Man

What is the ‘new man’? How can I walk in the new man every day, all day, forever? I’m saved by grace, but don’t I have to work hard to be a Good Christian? The answer is simply, “No, you don’t.”

“Give me back my stuff,” said Jesus to Author and Prophet Graham Cooke in a personal encounter.

What is stuff? Stuff is the anxiety, worry, anger, hostility, fear, bitterness, resentment…. Stuff is all of the negative thoughts and feelings that are not a part of the Kingdom of God. They are dead, as dead as Jesus was on the cross. And they belong to the Old Man, the man you were and the man I was before accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. The old man is dead (Romans 6:6). The new man lives (Ephesians 4:22-23) and we can allow him to reign in us, by the power of the blood of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit.

We can discern the thoughts and the feelings of the old man versus those of the new man easily enough. Negativity is from the old man. Whatever is not holy, heavenly, delightful, life-giving is not the new man’s thinking or emotion. The fruits of the Spirit which are: love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, patience, faithfulness, self-control, are linked with the thoughts and feelings of the new man.

When Jesus died he took all of our stuff, so that we wouldn’t have to carry it anymore. When we fall into negative thought or emotion, we are taking back what Jesus died to overcome; we are taking back the stuff he died to have, so we wouldn’t have it anymore. He wants us to live in the new man, and let him keep the stuff of the old man.

Although the old man rises up inside of us, we don’t have to allow what is dead to be resurrected. We have the authority and the power to reject the dead man. It is not true that it is a part of us.

“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)

Recognizing the old man as dead and that his negative emotions and thoughts are not actually a part of us is an understanding that comes to the transformed mind. We are no longer ‘dead’ in our sin. Saved by grace, we have access to the thought-life and emotional life of Heaven.

The old man, as cited in Romans 6:6 is, “crucified with Him,that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.”

Continuing, “For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:7-11 NKJV)

Meditate on this. Allow it to sink into your mind and spirit, to transform you from the inside.

Paul’s reference to sin includes thoughts and emotions that are not life-giving.  They are dead, just as we were dead before we knew Jesus. And we do not have to accept them as a part of us any longer. Instead, we choose to turn a corner and to walk full of the newness that life with Christ offers.

The new man is described as, renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” and we are to ‘put him on’ (Colossians 3:10). Now, “The new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24 NKJV) is described as, “as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12) is the person we have become through salvation, whether or not we realize it. We no longer need to walk in the futility of our minds but we have a new mind. Saved by grace we no longer live in despair or darkness except by ignorance.

Becoming Christ-like isn’t about wrestling with our bad habits to overcome them so we can behave more “Christian”. Becoming like Christ is living in the new mindset we’ve already been given supernaturally. We are not only saved by grace, but we are also sanctified by grace. And so let us with this information, walk in the new man, leaving behind the patterns, habits and trappings of the old man. Let us run the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1) with joy, peace, faith and love, knowing the old stuff is false and the new is our true identity, already accessible. We are alive in Christ. So, let us help each other to walk in that new life, knowing the old has passed away and the new is here to stay.

Studies in the world have proven that we will often manifest what we expect. Let us expect a life free from strife, filled with joy, and moving toward the Kingdom of Heaven which has come down to Earth and has already saved us from sinful selves so that we can live in the freedom of our true selves, free to be the people God created us to be.

My favourite scripture is this:

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14

Ready: Take time to unclutter your mind and discover who you are in Christ.

Set: Choose to be resolute. Trust and surrender is letting go of hard work and doubt. It is tenacity at it’s best. It is hope and faith in action.

Go: With faith and focus like flint and with a face to match, I’m going forward in the knowledge and love of Christ, to be the new man, full of God’s grace, truth, hope and joy. Please, will you join me?

 

One sure-fire way to find clarity of mind is to rest in scripture and consider letting go of any insecurity you may carry.

 Sarah Tun: Free to BeFree to Be offers you just the structure and strategy to go through the letting go process:

see and buy US: http://laruspress.com/free-to-be-defeating-insecurity-transforming-relationships-building-character

buy UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Defeating-Insecurity-Transforming-Relationships/dp/1554527317/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1407125539&sr=8-2&keywords=sarah+tun