Remember that a little leavens the whole loaf (Galatians 5:9); just a drop of snake’s venom in your blood can still be fatal. It’s the little things that do count. God is willing to give the most unsuspecting person a makeover, but who takes a makeover, loves it for a little while then throws it out the window? It’s something you keep and build on.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Colossians 3:1 (NASB, emphasis added)
Now the Word says when we are born again we become a new creation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Cor. 5:17 (NKJV)
The Greek word for creation is “ktisis,” which means: the act of founding, establishing, building, etc; the act of creating.
The Greek word for new is “kainos,” which means: new, recently made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn, of a new kind, unprecedented, uncommon, unheard of, etc.
Looking at it this way: when we start out in this world (in our flesh) it’s as though we’re building this “house” up. We’re establishing this building which defines us; everything from our personality quirks to sinful habits go into this building. But it’s still just this ratty old building that will never amount to anything.
Then when we give our lives to Jesus we give over to Him everything we’ve established and ask Him to do with it His will (Galatians 2:20). You know the first thing He does? BULLDOZER. He knocks our old house down, burns every last bit of it to the dust. He doesn’t even keep the scrap pieces! Jesus takes us out of our old life and builds us up in a new place (in HIM! Hallelujah!).
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. … We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.
1 John 3:9, 5:18 (NASB)
Nonetheless, I’ve noticed something that we as people do. We like to take His plan for this new building [us] and, well, tweak it… See, as we’re growing in our relationship with Him, we’re pressing and just loving up on God so intensely in those first few weeks of being saved; we are just unrecognizable. Everyone we used to hang out with and our closest family members, they’re all saying how something about us is just so different. It’s awesome.
Then we start missing something… we take Jesus aside and pull out this ratty old, slightly burned rug and lay it in the middle of this glorious marble floor. “Jesus! Look! Doesn’t this look great? Makes this new place feel a little more like home: familiar and cozy. Oh it’s stained and maybe needs scrubbed a little, but to me it’s such a treasure!” I can see His eyebrow rising now…
For a personal example, this new me says that God is bigger than my mood swings (my beat up scrap of rug!); but my old habits prompt the excuse “I’m always moody” to come up. Or, I’m to have patience and be slow to anger; whereas the old me says “this person doesn’t UNDERSTAND me and they are tap dancing on my LAST nerve (so I have a right)!”
New self is about: God is always bigger.
Old self is about: me... Me. Me. ME.
Where I should be obedient (obedience = flesh dying!) my flesh pushes to give me excuses; when I give into those excuses without following in sincere repentance (Romans 6- to clear up that it’s not OK to give into the excuses “just because” we’re forgiven) then I am being double-minded in my actions.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. … Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 1:7-8, 4:8 (NKJV)
The Greek word for double-minded is “dipsuchos,” which means: double minded, wavering, uncertain, doubting, and divided in interest. That last one should be convicting. It is exactly why the “little” things count. When we do anything that is contrary to the word of God (even a little!) we are showing a division in interest; we’re not 110% completely sold out for God and we do not trust Him as we should. These are things that everyone who’s watching our walk is going to jump all over. We’re supposed to be screaming difference with our whole life (Matt. 5:16, Phil. 2:15, 2 Peter 1:19)! I repeat: BULLDOZER.
We keep things hanging around in our life that we shouldn’t. Let’s look at Facebook, the perfect thing to have statuses, “likes” (hundreds of them!), posts, pictures, and so on from back to the first day you joined! Stuff from back then that doesn’t line up with your walk with God now. A little confused? Let’s say that God showed you a revelation about the word “gosh” or “holy.” You didn’t understand before why using these words in saying something like “gosh!” or “holy crap” was offensive until Abba showed you how it was using His name in vain. Of course this makes you very careful now, but what about all that stuff backed up behind you?
I’m going to pick on a friend of mine for a moment here in relation to this; since they used to be one of those people who never clear old “about me” sections or anything. (I got permission so it’s all good- they just doesn’t know what they’re being picked on about yet, hehe).
I’ve noticed this friend had had something along these lines posted in a few places:
“I don’t spend my time wisely often... waste it on things that don’t really matter in life, like video games”
Now if you had an infestation of bees in your wall and had no idea until someone showed you (it’s happened!) then what would you do? 1) Get every last one of them out and then ensure they can never make it back in again or 2) set some poison in there and clog up where they got in. They are dead, so now there’s no reason to get them out, right? … My bet is you’d go with option one. No one wants dead bees sitting in their wall; they want them out dead or alive! Why is it not the same with our spiritual lives? We must ask Abba to expose what needs to be cleaned out of our lives because so often we don’t even know.
Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.
1 Peter 2:12 (NASB)
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