Chapter 20: Your Transformation Continues... A New Love, New Heart and New Mind

My beloved brothers and sisters in Yeshua, this is just the beginning of the transformations from what we were to what we have become.  We now can experience God’s ultimate love gift for the first time.  Listen!  Be still and experience the arrival of God’s priceless love gift to man.

The heavens announced His arrival.  The brightness of the star led the way. The angels followed, praising and glorifying God; announcing peace on earth to those people of good will.  The grand entrance was made, but there was no room in the hearts of men.  Sorry, I have no room for you in the living-quarters, but there is a stable you can use.  The King had arrived!!

He was not dressed in royalty, but in swaddling clothes.  He had no castle, only a stable with a feeding trough as a bed.  He came, as King but became the Savior.  His name was Yeshua and what He had was life-saving love that was freely given to those like you who have chosen to follow Him.

Then came the New Love.  The purest love comes from the very heart of God; a part of Himself, wrapped in the swaddling cloths of forgiveness, mercy and grace.  Yeshua came to love, forgive, heal and set the people free!

Freedom!  A word the people only talked about, but very few had ever experienced until a babe, innocent and perfect in every way, stepped down from the throne in Heaven to become the Savior and Servant to a lost people. He came to show each one, first hand, a love so amazing, so divine, so sincere, but only through knowing Him as Savior, can it ever be experienced!

Amazing love!  There is no greater love than that of our Father God and His only begotten Son, Yeshua.  God defined love when He gave His Son to die for you that you may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only and unique Son, so that everyone who trusts in him may have eternal life, instead of being utterly destroyed. John 3:16         

You demonstrate love for God when you live for Him, for to know God is to love Him and to love Him is to serve Him.

The following chapter speaks of this new love.

 1 I may speak in the tongues of men, even angels; but if I lack love, I have become merely blaring brass or a cymbal clanging. 2 I may have the gift of prophecy, I may fathom all mysteries, know all things, have all faith - enough to move mountains; but if I lack love, I am nothing. 3 I may give away everything that I own, I may even hand over my body to be burned; but if I lack love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful, 5 not proud, rude or selfish, not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not gloat over other people's sins but takes its delight in the truth. 7 Love always bears up, always trusts, always hopes, and always endures. 8 Love never ends; but prophecies will pass, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass. 9 For our knowledge is partial, and our prophecy partial; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man; I have finished with childish ways. 12 For now we see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me. 13 But for now, three things last; trust, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13

Listen as George Beverly Shea sings 

“The Love of God” by Frederick M. Lehman (1917)  

1. The love of God is greater far
   Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
   It goes beyond the highest star,
   And reaches to the lowest hell;
   The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
   God gave His Son to win;
   His erring child He reconciled,
   And pardoned from his sin.
   • Refrain:
     Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
     How measureless and strong!
     It shall forevermore endure—
     The saints’ and angels’ song.
2. When hoary time shall pass away,
   And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
   When men who here refuse to pray,
   On rocks and hills and mountains call,
   God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
   All measureless and strong;
   Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
   The saints’ and angels’ song.
3. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
   And were the skies of parchment made,
   Were every stalk on earth a quill,
   And every man a scribe by trade;
   To write the love of God above
   Would drain the ocean dry;
   Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
   Though stretched from sky to sky.

Along with experiencing this new love you have been given a new heart!  “Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”

24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you from all the countries, and return you to your own soil. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you; I will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put my Spirit inside you and cause you to live by my laws, respect my rulings and obey them. 28 You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors. You will be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36

Yeshua accepted you, just as you were and created within you a new heart, filled with His love and direction for your life.  Becoming a believer changes your lifestyle, transforms your thinking and behavior with a new set of desires.  Your deep desire is to please God by knowing His Holy Word, the Bible.  You also have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit directing your life each and every moment.

Spiritually, Yeshua transformed your stony, hard, blackened heart filled with sin into a cleansed receptive heart that is as white as snow. He fills it with His love and Spirit to become more like Him. This is the miracle of being born again!! 

The following passage speaks of Holy living.

1 So if you were raised along with the Messiah, then seek the things above, where the Messiah is sitting at the right hand of God.  2 Focus your minds on the things above, not on things here on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is our life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory! 5 Therefore, put to death the earthly parts of your nature - sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed (which is a form of idolatry); 6 for it is because of these things that God's anger is coming on those who disobey him. 7 True enough, you used to practice these things in the life you once lived; 8 but now, put them all away - anger, exasperation, meanness, slander and obscene talk. 9 Never lie to one another; because you have stripped away the old self, with its ways, 10 and have put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in fuller and fuller knowledge, closer and closer to the image of its Creator. 11 The new self allows no room for discriminating between Gentile and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, foreigner, savage, slave, free man; on the contrary, in all, the Messiah is everything. 12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with feelings of compassion and with kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with one another; if anyone has a complaint against someone else, forgive him. Indeed, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive. 14 Above all these, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together perfectly; 15 and let the shalom which comes from the Messiah be your heart's decision-maker, for this is why you were called to be part of a single Body. And be thankful - 16 let the Word of the Messiah, in all its richness, live in you, as you teach and counsel each other in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude to God in your hearts. 17 That is, everything you do or say, do in the name of the Lord Yeshua, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3

With a New love comes a new heart, then comes a new mind!

5 For those who identify with their old nature set their minds on the things of the old nature, but those who identify with the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 Having one's mind controlled by the old nature is death, but having one's mind controlled by the Spirit is life and shalom.  Romans 8

You are not what you used to be, for by the mercy and grace of the only loving Almighty God, in repentance, you have turned from evil and now pursue the good and righteous things of God through faith believing in His Son, Yeshua.  The power of the Holy Spirit within you is greater than the power of evil in the world.  Now, forget the past and set your mind on pursuing God’s direction through His Holy Spirit.

Dare to be a Daniel!

But Dani'el resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or the wine he drank, so he asked the chief officer to be excused from defiling himself. Daniel1:8  

Daniel made up his mind and did not compromise.  Daniel’s three friends made up their minds as well when told to bow down and worship the image of gold.

1N'vukhadnetzar the king had a gold statue made, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, which he set up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Bavel. 4 and a herald proclaimed, "Peoples! Nations! Languages! You are ordered 5 that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, zither, lute, bagpipe and the rest of the musical instruments, you fall down and worship the gold statue that N'vukhadnetzar the king has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship is to be thrown immediately into a blazing hot furnace." 13 In a raging fury N'vukhadnetzar ordered that Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go be brought. When the men had been brought before the king, 14 N'vukhadnetzar said to them, "Shadrakh! Meishakh! 'Aved-N'go! Is it true that you neither serve my gods nor worship the gold statue I set up? 16 Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go answered the king, "Your question doesn't require an answer from us. 17 Your majesty, if our God, whom we serve, is able to save us, he will save us from the blazing hot furnace and from your power. 18 But even if he doesn't, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will neither serve your gods nor worship the gold statue which you have set up." 19 N'vukhadnetzar became so utterly enraged that his face was distorted with anger against Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go. He ordered the furnace made seven times hotter than usual. 20 Then he ordered some of the strongest men in his army to tie up Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go and throw them into the blazing hot furnace. 21 So these men were tied up in their cloaks, tunics, robes and other clothes, and thrown into the blazing hot furnace. 22 The king's order was so urgent and the furnace so overheated that the men carrying Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go were burned to death by the flames. 23 These three men, Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go, fell, bound, into the blazing hot   furnace. 24 Suddenly N'vukhadnetzar sprang to his feet. Alarmed, he asked his advisers, "Didn't we throw three men, bound, into the flames?"They answered the king, "Yes, of course, your majesty." 25 But he exclaimed, "Look! I see four men, not tied up, walking around there in the flames, unhurt; and the fourth looks like one of the gods!" 26N'vukhadnetzar approached the opening of the blazing hot furnace and said, "Shadrakh! Meishakh! 'Aved-N'go! You servants of El 'Elyon! Come out, and come here!" Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go emerged from the flames. 27 The viceroys, prefects, governors and royal advisers who were there saw that the fire had had no power on the bodies of these men - not even their hair was singed, their clothes looked the same, and they didn't smell of fire. 28N'vukhadnetzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go! He sent his angel to deliver his servants who trusted in him. They defied the royal order to the point of being willing to give up their bodies, in order not to serve or worship any god but their own God. 29 Therefore I herewith decree that anyone, no matter from which people, nation or language, who says anything to insult the God of Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go is to be torn limb from limb, and his house is to be reduced to rubble; because there is no other god who can save like this." 30 Then the king gave Shadrakh, Meishakh and 'Aved-N'go higher rank in the province of Bavel.
Daniel 3

They made up their mind!  They stood firm and proved there is no God but Jehovah God.  How great is our God!!  God + 1 = majority!

Everything written concerning the New gifts given to each new believer is the result of God’s love for you.  

To be continued…

"Change My Heart Oh God"

By Eddie Espinosa

Chapter 19: Transform to New!

 In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of the 'olam hazeh. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed. Romans 12:2

The old self-nature is gone and the New Spirit nature, God’s Holy Spirit has come!  You have shed the old man and put on the new man.  You are not patched up, but you are now a new creation in Yeshua Messiah! The following scriptures illustrate what you were vs. what you have become through God’s miracle of being born again through Yeshua!

21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old coat; if he does, the new patch tears away from the old cloth and leaves a worse hole. 22 And no one puts new wine in old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is for freshly prepared wineskins."  Mark 2:21-22

9 Never lie to one another; because you have stripped away the old self, with its ways, 10 and have put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in fuller and fuller knowledge, closer and closer to the image of its Creator.  Colossians 3: 9-10

22 then, so far as your former way of life is concerned, you must strip off your old nature, because your old nature is thoroughly rotted by its deceptive desires; 23 and you must let your spirits and minds keep being renewed, 24 and clothe yourselves with the new nature created to be godly, which expresses itself in the righteousness and holiness that flow from the truth. Ephesians 4:22-24

Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation - the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new!  2 Corinthians 5:17

12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us. 13 These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Spirit, by which we explain things of the Spirit to people who have the Spirit. 14 Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Spirit of God - to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the Spirit. 16 But we have the mind of Yeshua 

1 Corinthians 2:12-16

2 Why? Because the Torah of the Spirit, which produces this life in union with Messiah Yeshua, has set me free from the "Torah" of sin and death. 3 For what the Torah could not do by itself, because it lacked the power to make the old nature cooperate, God did by sending his own Son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one, but He being without sin. God did this in order to deal with sin, and in so doing he executed the punishment against sin in human nature, 4 so that the just requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us who do not run our lives according to what our old nature wants but according to what the Holy Spirit wants. Romans 8:2-4   

3 You make it clear that you are a letter from the Messiah placed in our care, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on human hearts.

18 So all of us, with faces unveiled, see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and we are being changed into His very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by God’s Holy Spirit.   

2 Corinthians 3:3,18

     

14 All who are led by God's Holy Spirit are God's sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to bring you back again into fear; on the contrary, you received the Holy Spirit, who makes us sons and by whose power we cry out, "Abba!" (that is, "Dear Father!"). 16 The Holy Spirit Himself bears witness with our own spirits that we are children of God. 

Romans 8:14-16

Your body is now the spiritual Temple of God, with His Holy Spirit dwelling within your heart.  The old sinful nature has been replaced by the new nature of God’s Holy Spirit.

Review Chapter 17: The Power Within! 

How great is our God that He would give you and I the gifts of His love, His Son, His Holy Spirit and being made free from sin to serve Him with the fruit of the Holy Spirit unto holiness, with everlasting life in our future home: the Kingdom of Heaven! Praise, glory, honor and power be to the God of our salvation!! AMEN and AMEN!

"How Great Is Our God"

Music and Lyrics by Chris Tomlin