The ultimate purpose for living with a Biblical worldview is to live in the presence of Jesus 24/7. It gives us the ability to screen out the lie-based messages so we can hear the voice of our Savior drawing us closer to Him. Enjoy this song, “Here in Your Presence.”
Did you know that God loves fat? It’s true. In the animal sacrifices of Leviticus, God wanted all the fat surrounding the organs. When it came to a burnt and sin offering, He also wanted the animal’s head. Leviticus 3:16,17, “The priest shall burn them on the altar as food, an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the Lord’s. …You must not eat any fat or any blood.”
Did you also know that our brains are 60% fat? Romans 12:2 states that changing lives start with a change between the ears (“be transformed by the renewing of our mind”). If you want to be closer to Jesus, you’ll need a biblically-based truth to filter to expose the lies in your thinking so you can exchange them with truths found in God’s Word.
Do you see the connection between Tenach (OT) sacrifices and NT changed lives? When it came to sin sacrifices, God wanted the head and the fat completely burned. They were His. If you want to stop sinning, thereby not needing a sin sacrifice, you need to give Him the fat between your ears – your brain. As you do this, you will be a “living sacrifice pleasing to God.”
Healthy believers will trust and listen to the living Word of God every day. Every word is put there for a reason. One of those reasons is to show us that God wrote the entire Book. As such, we can trust it with our daily decisions.
If you are to have a daily healthy faith, not just one on Sunday, you will filter all the information your brain receives through Him using the truths found in God’s Word (a Biblical worldview). As you do, you’ll get closer to Jesus and experience greater peace.
And the blood? As you learn to live with a biblically-based truth filter (giving Him the fat), you’ll need the blood (so don’t eat it!), as the blood provides forgiveness (Heb. 9:11) for the mistakes you’ll make in being a “living sacrifice.”
Isn’t that cool?
The other day I overhead a conversation about whether someone should get a divorce. One person, who I can only assume was a Christian, said, “Well, you know Jesus says in Matthew 19 that you shouldn’t do that.” They went onto give more Bible verses about not divorcing.
I could only cringe. As I was not part of the conversation, I had to hold my tongue. I wanted to say, “Are you serious? Is that all you could say to this hurting individual is that the Bible says don’t do it?”
It’s very easy to focus on outward behavior and words. It’s much harder to listen to the Spirit of God to show us where the real problem is and to give us the scriptural truth we need to hear. I call this “the truth at the point of the lie.” Is it true the Bible says don’t get divorced? Yes. But is that the truth this person needed to hear right then? Probably not. If the second person in the conversation was a believer, they probably all ready knew they shouldn’t get divorced. If they were not a believer, this is definitely not the place to start!
Behavioral change starts with a change of thinking. If we want to see a particular behavior changed, we need to expose the lies in our thinking and exchange them with the truth (Rom. 12:2). Most of the time, however, this lie is buried a few layers under the surface conversation. If we really want to be used of God to see authentic change, we must be willing to slow down and ask the Spirit to show us what’s really going on – the set free truths we need to hear – and then respond how He would have us respond.
Are you only dealing with surface issues? Or will you allow the Spirit to get at the heart of the matter – your faulty thinking? Real change is also a matter of the head.
This past week I put in a patio made of concrete pavers. Where did I go to learn how to accomplish this task? YouTube. The information worked great until I ran into challenges they didn’t talk about in the videos – drainage away from the house, the actual size of each stone, cement mixture, etc.
I had the “what” or facts, but I didn’t have the “how” when it came to actually putting in the patio. With the advent of the Internet and then smart phones, we literally have large amounts of data at our fingertips. But do we know how to use that information in real time situations?
I believe the Western Church has become like YouTube – great at disseminating knowledge, but she’s not done as good a job at helping people process that knowledge in daily life. This is the difference between biblical knowledge and wisdom. One is the what, the other is how to use the what. The what is only the first step in making healthy believers in Jesus. The next step is how to use those truths in every day situations that enables Christians to grow in their faith to become more like Jesus and to fulfill His purpose in and for their lives.
This is what a Biblical worldview is all about – it’s the how to think and then act biblically. It teaches and lets believers practice how to apply the Word to the situations they face each day. Only then will believers in Jesus truly be satisfied. This is the purpose of the book and blog, More Than a Sunday Faith.
Are you an information gather or user? Disseminator or processor?
Thanks for being patient with me. I’m new at blogging. I’ve been in the process of writing a book entitled, More Than a Sunday Faith: A Real Faith that Works in Real Life Situations. I wasn’t expecting to start blogging until after it was finished, but the Lord provided a friend who wanted to see it up and running sooner. He posted articles I had previously written for other websites until I was ready to begin my own blog. I’m now ready.
This More Than a Sunday Only Faith blog will be dedicated to showing you how to live each day the way God designed for you to live, fulfilling God’s design for you life in Jesus’ presence. Jesus created the world to work in a certain way. By choosing to live outside those parameters, your life will only end in hopelessness and lack of fulfillment.
At one time, I used to own a VW bug. I could put a few surf boards on top and a couple of people inside, but not much else. The car was made for transporting people, not hauling cargo. It was only a recipe for disaster to ask my Bug to do more than it was designed to do.
The Christian life was not designed to be experienced for only a few hours on a Sunday (Saturday, you pick the day you attend church/congregation). Jesus wants us to “taste and see” that He is good throughout our day, everyday. This is done through daily living with a Biblical worldview. The believer in Christ lives in enemy territory where our adversary controls the messages we hear each day, if we let him. It is up to the believer to filter out those messages to hear from and live each day with the One we say we love – Jesus.
I define a Biblical Worldview as follows:
It is a biblically-based truth filter (Jn. 14:6; 8:32) used to screen all information that comes to a believer through their senses, which results in the mindset (Is. 26:3; 40:12-14; Phil. 4:4-8), “What does Jesus say in the Bible about this?” (Jn. 5:19) before making decisions, and then through the Spirit’s power living out those truths (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16-25) in any and all areas of one’s life (Gal. 5:1; Phil. 4:9; Col. 3:17) on a daily basis.
I’ve discussed what this means in detail in my book. Thus, it’s my desire in this blog to discuss what a Biblical worldview is in greater detail, to answer questions that arise as you read the book and try to live each day using your biblically-based truth filter, and to continue to give you practical how-to’s in daily tasting the goodness of the Lord. He wants us to eat the refreshing grapes!
Jesus wants us to know Him and to let Him change our lives so that our lives will not only be sweet for us, but also for those watching. Living the life He has for us will not always be easy. Our lives, like grapevines, must be pruned (Heb. 12:1-13). Therefore, I’d like to end by asking a question. Is how you’re currently living working for you? If so, keep doing it! If not, let’s take a journey to get closer to Jesus more than just on Sunday.