Day 7

The Gospel Transforms

Our Thinking

Roger and Eileen Himes

www.ThePracticalGospel.com

Today, let’s take a deeper look into the practical difference of living life on The Gospel Road as opposed to The Dirt Road. We are all drawn to The Dirt Road to some degree, because this road is about two things:

(1) self

(2) our love affair with our earthly life.

The Gospel Road is different. Jesus says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you”

(Matt 6:33). This road is also focused on two things:

(1) God

(2) our love affair with his eternal Kingdom (stated as righteousness).

The first is natural or worldly. The second is spiritual. Paul speaks to this in I Corinthians 2. Visually, I view the first as being horizontal, the second as being vertical. The vertical does intersect with earthly life — with the horizontal. They are distinct, but they are also integrated. Our problem is that we begin in earthly life, and bring try to bring God’s kingdom into it. This is ‘basackwards.’ What we should do is begin with Kingdom life, and allow it to transform our earthly life.

Paul says not to be conformed to the ways of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to things of God. John talks about not allowing our eyes, our flesh, and our pride to get the best of us by thinking that everything is for us, and for our benefit. This is allowing our eyes, our flesh, and our pride to rule us. Living on The Gospel Road means an ever increasing transformation of thought from SELF to GOD!

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” We seek THINGS — the things of the world — more than we do God. Seeking the Kingdom of God and his righteousness is seeking to know who we are in Christ— what the finished work of the cross has made us to be. It is seeking all the things in God’s Kingdom that we have been given (Luke 12:32), and applying them to ’The Kingdom of Self’ — our 3-dimensional paradigm here on earth.

The more we live on The Dirt Road, in The Kingdom of Self, the more we purpose, plan and pursue our desires. This causes distance from God — even if we pray, asking his help along our way. We Americans are especially keen on believing we have certain ‘unalienable rights,’ as mentioned in our Constitution. Among these are life and liberty (doing what we want), and the pursuit of happiness (achieving what we want).

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GOSPEL TRUTH #14

We think that Christianity should work FOR our benefit, otherwise, why should we bother living it? This was the way of the Old Covenant, as Deuteronomy 29:9 says. The OLD Covenant was more principle focused and results oriented than the New. The New Covenant is RELATIONSHIP focused, not as much RESULTS focused. The Old was lived in an outside-in manner. The New is lived in more of an inside-out manner.

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If we live life on The Dirt Road, in The Kingdom of Self, we become weary and heavy laden (Matt 11:28). The Gospel Road is meant to give us rest in God, — so we don’t live life like a prophecy of attainment, prosperity and success. It’s about a Person, not about achieving a plan. One is building on the Rock of the finished work of Christ. The second is built on the sand of human philosophy, worldly pursuits and demonic influence: ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil.’

In God’s Kingdom we are meant to be surrendered to God, and God seeking— not self servicing, and trying to get God to surrender to our will. Even if we are pursuing what we define as ‘good,’ we may not be seeking after God. We may be living life eating from The Tree of Knowledge. We are told Jesus came for SIN, not to make us SUCCESSFUL in the kingdom of self (Rom 8:3, Heb 9:26, II Cor 5:21).

In Revelation, Jesus chastised the church in Laodicea for leaving their ‘first love.’ We fell in love with GOD at the time of salvation. But like the Laodiceans did, we get focused on SELF. We get immersed in living on The Dirt Road. Our attitude becomes one of, “Why go to God except to get what I need and want?” We just talked about God’s love vs. human love. This is living in human, conditional love, not God’s agape love.

On The Dirt Road, we are told, “God’s delays are not God’s denials.” If things don’t go our way, we either get (1) discouraged, or (2) desperate to make things work out to our satisfaction. Both are all about SELF. We want to believe that we will live ‘happily ever after,’ but this isn’t always the way life turns out. On this road we try to carve out the model life. We create our agendas and goals to accomplish our ends.

To us, life is about our PROGRESS, not God’s PROCESS in us. It’s about BENEFITS we want, not experiencing the BENEVOLENCE of God. Modern Churchianity most often assists us in walking The Dirt Road, and helps us create everything in our life to way we want. The gospel is more about God molding us, and us trusting him.

On The Dirt Road, TRUTH AND TRUST are often misplaced. We feel that the only requirement for our SUCCESS is some regular attempt to live by some of God’s Bible principles.

God didn’t hold a board meeting, and invite us, to define his ways and means on earth. He didn’t ask for our opinion or input. This would have been the ‘democratic’ way to do it. We forget that on The Gospel Road, we live in The Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of self. God sets his PROCESS in motion, and invites us to enter in. Our present situation may quickly pass, or it may endure. But our present situation is NOT the issue.

The issue is God’s PROCESS in us. God says: ‘Come to me and abide in me, — whether things turn out as you desire and plan or not.”

Lucifer was booted out of heaven because of his desire for a greater life in SELF. Adam and Eve were booted out of the Garden due to their desire for a greater life in SELF. We walk The Dirt Road today because of our desire for a greater life in SELF. Things have not changed.

Instructors in Churchianity often lead us into what I call a 1 + 1 = 2 theology: being saved in the New Testament, and then living by the Old. This is intended to give us a sense of security, but it really gives us a FALSE sense of security because it’s not built on the Rock of gospel truth. It’s built on the shifting sands of law, theology, and living by principles. We feel that under the Old Covenant, we have control: if we do good, we get blessed — if we do bad we are cursed. But Jesus took the curse, and did away with this whole Old system. “All things have become new.”

I’ve heard Instructors preach: “God’s grace is the power to keep the law.” It’s a lie of Satan. This is mixing the Old and New: 1 + 1 = 2. This preaching shows a total lack of revelation of Christ’s finished work.

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GOSPEL TRUTH #15

Our purpose is to ‘enter into the joy of our Lord’ (Matt 25:23). We are meant to fellowship with him in the gospel of the finished work of his Son. We are to know all that he has done for us, all the free gifts he gives us, and who he’s made us to be in Christ. It is just to ‘hang out’ with him, and do things together — beginning with thinking his thoughts. This is ‘sowing to the Spirit.’ This is walking The Gospel Road.

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The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit of God (Rom 14:17). This is where we are meant to live: knowing our imparted righteousness in Christ, which results in peace and joy.

Our mission is to relate to Father as both a child and as a son (a non-sexist term that also means ‘daughter’). This is the meaning of Abba Father, as used by both Jesus and Paul. It denotes awesome respect and reverence, but also agape love and intimacy. Father denotes a reasoned appreciation, honor and esteem from a son. Abba denotes unreasoned trust, dependency and confidence from a child. Life on The Dirt Road does not allow us to know and enjoy God in this way. Our agendas, desires and prayer lists get in the way. We become like The Prodigal Son: “Father, give me what is mine so I can have fun and be happy.”

If we don’t like life during any part of the journey, we often live in a type of ‘Spiritual Disneyland.’ We sow to the flesh, not to the spirit, and we imagine how we want life to be. We pray to God for him to make it come true. We don’t live in what is, but in our visualization of what could be — whether it is health or healing for ourselves or someone we love, success on the job, peace in our home, or anything else.

Christians who live on The Dirt Road often make some attempts to live on The Gospel Road. The problem is there is not a cross over from one road to the other. It’s a choice we must make to walk the road of SELF, or walk the road of GOD. I was a western U.S. tour guide for 8 summers. Many of my tours went to the south rim of The Grand Canyon. There was a view point I went to where you could see the north rim— some 20 miles away and across the canyon. There was a sign there that said, “You can’t get there from here.” This is how I view this difference.

Regardless if we’re on The Gospel Road or The Dirt Road, things do not always work out as we would plan them. We have to learn to be content in life as it is, even if we don’t like it (Phil 4:11).

The Gospel Road causes us to be more content with the presence of GOD. On The Dirt Road we are absorbed with thoughts of SELF. If I’m writing, I often practice God’s presence reading over my shoulder, and talking to me about his thoughts. I ask him to do this. This helps in experiencing his presence. I also do this in my daily walks and hikes — him by my side. I do this driving — him sitting beside me. Often there is not any conversation (what we call prayer). We just ‘hang out together.’

The Gospel Road reveals we have no worldly rights to anything. This is what is called ‘BROKENNESS.’ But it also reveals to us we have ALL spiritual BLESSINGS. We should often remind ourselves of the words of Jesus: “Into your hands I commit my spirit” — and “Not my will but thy will be done.” We are here for his good pleasure. The gospel life is us walking in his parade, not him walking in ours.

Walking The Gospel Road, I come to realize that most often my will and his will are the same. We simply have to learn to accept the things we cannot change, to change the things we can, and pray for wisdom to know the difference. I ask God to reveal to me if I’m living in a spiritual Disneyland. I also ask him to change my beliefs anytime he wants — by and means or any person. One beautiful thing about the gospel is it gives us the freedom to be wrong. It’s not a matter of WHAT we know, but WHOM we know (I Tim 1:12). This allows me to be more real with others at all time, and not be so concerned with my weaknesses.

On The Gospel Road we engage in ‘vertical thinking.’ It begins in God, and connects with earth. The Dirt Road engages in ‘horizontal thinking’ that begins on earth and connects with God. SELF thinking engages our feelings — selfishness, pride, anger, annoyance, inflexibility, intolerance, judgment, criticism, resentment, happiness, pleasure, power, authority, control, ability, knowledge, strength, prosperity and success. GOD thinking engages his thoughts and his ways (Isa 55:8-9).

On The Gospel Road, we want God’s will and ways in everything we do. Our question is always, “Lord, how would you have me respond to you in this situation?” — whether the situation we face is good or bad. It is the constant realization that this life is not all there is. God’s parade is much, much larger and longer than we can ever imagine.