Summary

He created this amazing place and put us here so that we could manifest His love, without humans, His love has no way to become useful. He gave us free will so that we could develop a conscience in this life,  discover Him, His Love and His Truth,  manifest His love on this earth, and live on with Him for eternity. Mankinds free will has gotten us into a lot of trouble over the years. The sinful nature we each now inherit keeps us self conscious and self centered and separates us from God and His agenda for us. He came here in person, in human form, to restore what was lost by Adam and to provide us a path out of the mess we made. We need to renounce our prior flawed ways and fully commit to follow Him going forward. He actually wants to come and live inside us to help us make this happen. This involves a complete transformation of your thinking, your words, and your behaviors. We need to shift from thinking about ourselves and our own interests in this world to thinking about God’s agenda for His kingdom and how we can be of service to Him through our lives here. The fancy words used in scripture are “Crucify” your flesh. Basically all of the temporary earthly interests of our physical being need to be subordinated to God’s interest in developing our eternal soul. Anything less than a full commitment to transformation will delay the benefits and continue to propagate undesired consequences for you and those around you.  

The following is my scriptural logic chain for what is going on.

• God is love (1 john 4:8)
• God made man in His image (Genesis 1:27)
• The image of God was corrupted and died when Adam sinned and ate of the tree in the garden (Genesis 2:17)
  • Adam’s heart became self-centered (Genesis 3:3-6)
    • He wanted to be like a God and know Good and Evil
    • They listened to a lie – “You will not surely die if you eat of the tree”
    • They decided to ignore God’s one command and chose to eat of that tree
  • Adam’s nature changed, he became self-conscious as a result of that decision
    • He became conscious of his nakedness, hid himself, and became afraid (Genesis 3:7,10)
    • They deflected blame for their decision – Blamed Snake, Blamed Eve, Blamed God (Genesis 3:12-14)
  • Adam and Eve suffered consequences of separation from God (Genesis 3:13-16)
    • Exile form the garden
    • Labor, Suffering, Death
  • All have inherited that sinful nature and suffer in this fallen world (Romans 5:12)
• God loves you
  • He loves you so much He sent His only son (John 3:16)
  • You know He loves you because He sent His son (1 John 4:9-10)
• Jesus came to restore that which was lost, The image of God in us, our original purpose (Matthew 18:11)
  • Jesus came in the form of sinful flesh to take the burden of sin off of us (Romans 8:3-5)
  • Jesus’ blood covers that sinful nature and allows us to be born again (Romans 5:19)
• His goal is for you to become love (1 Timothy 1:15), to be rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17)
• Pure Love Is powerful when it is in you (1 Cor 13:4-7)
  • • It suffers long
    • It is kind
    • It never seeks its own. ex, Never expect an I love you back…
    • It bears, believes, hopes, endures all things
• His Love is perfected when it flows through you to others (1 John 4:12)
• He wants to come and live in you to help you enable that flow
  • Youre body is God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16)
  • Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Glorify God with your body. (1 Cor 6:19-20)
  • We have this treasure (Christ Jesus) in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)
  •  Christ in you, the Hope of Glory (Collosians 1:27)
  • “Christ is in you” (Romans 8:10)
• You must get your ”self” out of the way so He can come in
  • Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable ( Romans 12:1)
• Deny Yourself, Pick Up Your Cross, and Follow Me (Matthew 16:24)
  • Deny your self, and your self-centered interests
    • Crucify your self-conscious interests / self-centered agendas
      • Give up your life to find it (Matthew 16:25)
      • Do not love the world or things in the world (1 John 2:15)
      • Be in the world, not of the world (John 17:16-18)
      • Get out of the carnal mind, Do not love the flesh (Romans 8:7-9)
      • Renounce ungoldliness and worldy passions, live self-contolled, uprght and godly lives (Titus 2:12)
    • Clues that you have not yet fully crucified your “self”
      • I deserve…
      • I want…
      • I feel…
      • I am offended by…
      • I am embarrassed by…
  • Pick up your Cross
    • Resist temptation 
      • Guart your heart, out of it flows the issues of life ( Proverbs 4:23)
      • Beware of your desires, they concieve sin ( James 1:14-15)
    • You will stand out when you refuse to participate in things of this world
    • You will suffer persecution at the hands of others in this world
    • Do not let sin against you become sin in you
      • Forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34)
  • Follow Jesus
    • Make Jesus Lord of your life
      • It is no longer ME that lives but Jesus through me (Galatians 2:20)
      • Submit your self to God. ( James 4:7)
      • Submit to God and be at peace with Him (Job 22:21)
    • Yield yourself fully to Him – 100% Committment – Not compliance
      • Your are not your own, you were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20) 
      • He paid a high price for you (1 Cor 7:23)
      • “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:38
    • Speak outloud your comittment to yield your self to Him 
      • My Eyes to see from His perspective
      • My Ears to Hear and understand His word
      • My Heart to love Him and His Kingdom
      • My Mouth to give Him praise
      • My Hands to do His work
      • My Feet to follow where He leads
      • My Resources to serve Him and His kingdom
      • My urges and desires to do His will
    • Follow Him
      • Become a Disciple
      • Get to know Him
      • Follow His commandments –  Love God with ALL your heart,  Love your neighbors more than yourself
      • Follow in His Steps (1 Peter 2:21)
      • Follow where He leads you
  • He is working to shape you, you need to submit and let Him
    • God is the potter, we are the clay. (Isaiah 64:8) 
    • Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ (Isaiah 45:9)
  • Become Like Him, Become Love in Action
    • Speak the truth in love, Grow up into all things in Christ (Ephesians 4:15)
    • Walk in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7)
  • Shine as a bright light in the darkness to bring glory to the Father
    • You are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)
    • Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

• Wait, I’m not ready to deny myself and submit to Him

If you are not willing to deny yourself and follow Jesus – it is a sign you love your earthly “self” more than you love God and His kingdom. You are more focused on satisfying the wants and desires of your temporary physical earthly body rather than investing to develop your spiritual body to fully optimize your life on earth and prepare yourself so you can spend eternity with God.

Maybe you don’t fully appreciate how much He loves you: All He has done to put you here, All He has invested in you with passions to help you find your true purpose and talents to help you be productive. Maybe you don’t appreciate all He does to support you every second of every day with food in your mouth, housing over your head, clothes on your back, and air in your lungs, All He has done to arrange people in your life to love you, to teach you and support you, Maybe you don’t appreciate how badly He wants to spend eternity with you in heaven, He loves you so much He sent His son so you could fulfil His plans for you.

Maybe you don’t fully appreciate the consequences of not submitting yourself to Him in this life. He knows you inside and out, and He knows your heart. He will give you exactly what you love in your heart; If you forget Him, He will forget you. Sin separates us from Him; If we do not love Him with all of our heart, we will remain separated from Him. If you leave this life loving yourself more than you love God, you will spend eternity with yourself and people just like you rather than spending it with God and with people who love God. The hells are filled with people who chose to focus on themselves and live separated from God.

Maybe deep down inside you are concerned that if you commit to follow Jesus, your earthly oriented activities will be exposed and you will need to stop.

Maybe you just don’t want to give up control; It is your life to live after all. He makes it clear that anyone who tries to save his earthly oriented life will lose it eventually, but anyone who gives up control of his earthly life will discover and awaken a spiritual based life that through Jesus that will transform the earthly life experience and extend into eternity.

The idea is to shift perspective on things: You are an eternal being in a temporary earthly body. You have a purpose here. The purpose can not be fulfilled as long as there are self-orienrted, self-conscious, self-centered agendas at play. He wants to come into you and help you identify those agendas, root them out, and help you transform so you can fulfill your purpose. He can only do that if you get yourself out of the way, invite Him in and listen to Him. He promises that the only things you will loose are the things you were not intended to have.

Ask Him to help you sort your agendas and your activities.

Are you drawing ever closer to God: searching, seeing, listening, learning, gaining understanding

Are you living in a thankful perspective: Continually recognizing what God has done, is doing, will do. Expressing praise and thanksgiving

Are you experiencing God’s love: He sent His son to die for you, so you could live life through Him. Raise Jesus up and Recieve Him as Lord. 

Are you finding more and more ways to flow His love to others through your thoughts, words, and actions.

Are you executing in alignment with His will, avoiding self-centered or self-serving agendas.

Are you living a life worthy of the price He paid?

Are you presenting yourself as a vessel worthy of His presence?

Are you using your passions and talents to serve God and others, or just yourself?

Are you using your resources to serve God and others, or just yourself? (Things, Money, Time)

Are you making yourself available for His use?

Are you reflecting and repenting on your thoughts words and actions as you strive to improve

Just some things to consider

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Supporting Scripture

God is love

“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8

God made man in His image

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27

Adam annd Eve listened to the devil and His lies

“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5.

Adam became self-centered, wanted to become like a god, and chose to ignore Gods rule

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6

Sin changed Adam’s very nature – His eyes were opened, he became self-conscious – fear, naked

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” Geneiss3:7

“So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’” Genesis 3:10

They each deflect blame for their error

“Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’” Genesis 3:12

“The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’” Genesis 3:14

Adam and Eve suffer consequences of sin and the resulting separation from God

“To the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16

“Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall [b]bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.  In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:17-19

We all now inherit Adam’s sinful nature and suffer in this fallen world

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Romans 5:12

God’s Loves You

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:31-32

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:33-39

Jesus redeemed that which was lost through Adam – to restore the image of God in us.

“For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” Matthew 18:11

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19

“For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh” Romans 8:3

Our purpose is to be rooted and gounded in Love, to become love.

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” 1 Timothy 1:5

Pure love is powerful when it is in us

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;  does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;  does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

His love is perfected when it flows through us

“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” 1 John 4:12

He wants to come and live inside us to enable that flow of Love.

“Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'” John 14:23 

“But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”Romans 8:10

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 4:6-7

“To them (us,the saints) God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”Colossians 1:27

We need to get ourselves out of the way and make a place for Him.

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25

Crucify Your Flesh

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” Romans 8:5

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Romans 8:7-9

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 1 John 2:15

“Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,” Titus 2:12

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:5

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” Luke 9:23. Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34

“”knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;” Romans 6:6

“Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24

Submit yourself completely to Jesus

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

“Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.” Job 22:21

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

He paid a high price for you

“You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” 1 Corinthians 7:23

Present Your Self as a Temple Worhty of His Presence

“Or do you not know that your body is a temSupportingple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” Romans 12:1

Resiste Temptation – It starts in the heart

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23 

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:14-15

Seporate yourself from the world

“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” John 17:16-18

Pick up your cross.  Do not let sin agaisnt you become sin in you

“Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they’re doing…'” Luke 23:34 

Follow in His Steps

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”1 Peter 2:21

He is trying to shape you, you need to submit and let Him

“But now, O Lord, You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all we are the work of Your hand.” Isaiah 64:8

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—
An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!
Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’
Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?” Isaiah 45:9

Become Love

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17

“speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” Ephesians 4:15

Shine as a light in the darkness

“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5:14

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

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Supporting Resources

• Videos from a Dan Mohler Weekend series:  1- Your Identity, 2- Deny Yourself, 3 – Created to be Light