The Sunday News
Sunday Sermon, with Apostle Chisale
Greetings beloved nation in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Romans 12: 2 KJV says “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” The NLT says, “Do not copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think, then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect”.
Last week we spoke about how as believers we should have the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ and how Jesus was having the mind of his father God, the mind of the kingdom. We also spoke about how the mind is a spiritual gateway that both God and the devil can use. Paul tells us in the book of Romans 12:2 that as Christians we are not to conform to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of our minds. Meaning that in order for us not to be conformed to the world, (not to copy the behaviour and customs of this world), we must be transformed. And how are we supposed to be transformed?
Our minds must be renewed. But what is transformation of the mind? KJV Dictionary says; to transform is “to change the natural disposition and temper of man from a state of enmity to God and his law, into the image of God, or into a disposition and temper conformed to the will of God”. So as believers we are supposed to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. But we may ask again why do our minds need to be renewed? What do our minds need renewal from? We said the mind is a spiritual gateway for God and the devil, so meaning that God can influence our minds just as the devil can influence our minds.
When we allow the devil to influence our minds as human beings we become capable of great evil and this is why the world is in the state it is. The way we ill-treat people, brutally murder others, rape of women and young children, deliberate acts of violence and crime and other evil acts that are taking place in the world, it is as a result of the devil influencing the mind of men.
The Bible tells us in Genesis 6:5 that, “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil”. When God saw the wickedness of men He decided to destroy mankind through the flood. Men’s mind was being used for evil deeds. So if our minds are not renewed we conform to the world, meaning we copy the behaviour and customs of the world.
We desire the things of the world and the consequences are disastrous. In the book of Genesis 19:17, 26-28 the Bible tells us that God wanted to destroy Sodom because of the extreme sin and perversion in that city. Lot and his family had to leave and they were instructed not to look back. However, Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. The interesting thing is that at the same time Abram, who was later named Abraham, was on a mountain looking at the destruction of the city, but nothing happened to him.
They both looked at the same thing. Lot’s wife looked at the city and her imagination longed for what she was leaving behind. We are not told in the Bible how long she looked at Sodom before she turned into a pillar of salt, but she looked long enough for her imagination to long for the city and as a result she was judged together with the city.
Similarly, the children of Israel when they left Egypt, their minds kept going back to Egypt and longing for the things they had left behind. Exodus 16:3 says, “there we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted”.
They would continuously grumble and complain to Moses. They had been saved from slavery but their minds were not transformed, their minds were not renewed. It took a day to get Israel out of Egypt but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel because they still had the slave mentality and they needed a transformation through the renewal of the mind. Our minds have the potential to do great things. That is why in Genesis 11:6 when God saw the people imagining the city they wanted to build, He said that man was capable of doing whatever he was able to imagine or envision.
The mind of a believer cannot only be renewed for the purpose of not conforming to this world, but can be renewed for the sake of realising our potential as human beings created in the image of God. Meaning we can become whatever we imagine and we can accomplish whatever we imagine. Whatever we set out to do and imagine we can do it, so our minds need to be transformed so that we will learn to know God’s will for us. The mind is a spiritual gateway, if we allow the devil to influence our minds, we can do a great deal of harm in our lives and in the world.
But if we allow our minds to be influenced by the Holy Spirit, we can accomplish great things in our lives and in the world. Once again I would like to invite you to receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour, by believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and Saviour, and you shall be saved. May God bless you all and this beautiful nation Zimbabwe. Amen.
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