March 29th, 2023

Hey Church Family!

Character is the will to do what God says is right, regardless of the cost.  Character is what we want everyone around us to have—the people we live with, the folks we do business with, the individuals we do life with.  We're all for character.  But we struggle with our own character flaws.

Character is an inside-out work that God wants to produce in our lives.  In fact, many of us have tried really hard to produce character, only to fail over and over again.  That's why God tells us in Romans 12:2 that transformation only takes place by renewing our minds. Renewing our minds results in character transformation.

We've also said that renewal is a two step process:  Taking off the old, and putting on the new.  God wants us to take off the old ways of thinking, old thoughts, old attitudes, and old patterns.  And he wants to replace them with His truth, His promises, and His thoughts.  God knows that if we can see this world as He sees it, we wouldn't resist His rule and reign in our lives.  If we could see ourselves, relationships, sex, marriage, finances, our jobs, and all of life the way He sees it, we would understand that He has our best in mind.

We need to saturate our minds with His truth.  We need to memorize His truth so that at the moment of temptation, we can declare—as Jesus did—"It is written."  It's replacing the lie with the truth.

So let me ask you:  have you been filling your mind with God's truth?  Or have you been filling it with social media?  Are you memorizing God's Word?  What makes memorizing God's Word difficult? What specific truth from God’s Word do you need to lean on and memorize this week?

We memorize what's important to us.  Make it a priority to memorize God's truth this week.

Here's a prayer for this week:
 
Lord, give me the wisdom to know what's right
and the courage to do what's right, no matter what.

Have a blessed week!
​Pastor Michael