Roger Himes, The Gospel Coach

GOSPEL LIFE CHANGE DYNAMICS

 

Experience total life transformation! 

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2^ND  Gospel Life Change Dynamic:

What You Sow Is Exactly

What You Reap

“What you plant is what you will harvest”

(Apple seeds don’t produce pumpkins)

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Most of us are concerned with spiritual life today because we know we live in a spiritual world, and we want to know how it works. We even want spiritual healing and spiritual growth and life transformation. We know we’re on a spiritual journey.

But we are also very focused on our physical world, and we want to know how it jives with the spiritual world. We want to know how to have physical health and we somehow know that physical health is at least someone dependent on spiritual health and spiritual growth.

The word of God says that the physical and spiritual are intimately intertwined.

WE ABUSE OUR BODIES

So many people suffer from drug abuse and substance abuse. Drug treatment and drug rehabilitation are very big business today. We know that what we put in our bodies has great impact on us. In fact, most of us know that what we eat controls us.

We are told that the most important drug we take every day is the food we eat. The search for good health food is staggering. There is an outcry today about junk food, and the obesity it causes, especially in the U.S. Obesity in America is a prime talk show topic. There is even talk of making it a CRIMINAL offense if parents don’t control their children’s eating habits and if they allow them to become obese.

We also read the reports about ‘placebo drugs’ which are really just nothing, but people are told that they are actually a drug, and how people react to it as though it were the drug they think it is. This shows that
so many ways we live and respond begin in our heads with the way we think and believe.

 

SOWING AND REAPING

Mostly, in Christianity, sowing and reaping is taught as what WE do that produces what we reap in life. And there is truth in this. Paul says, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Peter says we should bless others so that we will inherit a blessing. I view anything beginning with US as beginning in LAW. So, ‘instructors in Christ,’ who are law based, consistently teach these things about planting and harvesting things in life. They are principle and precept based. Again, there is scriptural foundation for it.

But the most important thing about ‘sowing and reaping’ is what is sown INTO US. The Parable of the Sower discusses this – the sowing of the truth of gospel seed into us, and then Paul says it is this gospel seed that produces good fruit (good things) from us (Col 1:5-6). Yes, we Christians should have good behavior, and we should strive to reduce sin. But what we often fail to see is that it is the GOSPEL of God’s grace, and peace with him, that produces good behavior from us, and less sin.

The gospel begins in God, not in us. The gospel is God’s power in us (Rom 1:16). So, when we receive God’s power, we receive his plenty – his abundance – his glory – his presence – his favor – his blessings.

If we live by principles, this makes us see everything in light of US, and our living by principles (another term for laws). This includes sowing and reaping. But when we live by the person of God, then we see everything in the light of God. The gospel causes us to see everything in the light of GOD, not SELF. Law tends to make us ‘worship the creature, or self, rather than the Creator, or God (Rom 1:25). This of course all began in the Garden of Eden with Eve: “You shall be like God” (Gen 3:5).

 

HOW THE GOSPEL PRODUCES HEALTH

In Galatians 6:7-8 Paul says, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he who sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to his spirit shall of the Spirit reap life.”

Do you see the focus these verses? They are not on what we sow OUT from us. Instead, the focus is on what we sow INTO us – whether into our flesh or into our spirit.

If we feed junk food into us we may become obese. If we feed law into us we will become legalistic,
judgmental, critical, and unloving. This will produce anger, unforgiveness, resentment and bitterness. If we feed health food into us we will enjoy physical health. What we eat controls us. It’s a no-brainer.

God’s word shows us that the same thing applies spiritually. The word of God is powerful, and the gospel is the power of God in us. If we receive gospel seed, good things happen (Col 1:5-6 revisited).

When we receive gospel truth into us, spiritual health becomes ours, and thus spiritual growth. In this sequence, our spiritual journey through this physical world becomes right, and physical health is the result. Can you see the spiritual truth of this?

Gospel living is eating healthy, spiritually. Living by law is unhealthy, resulting condemnation, guilt, fear, judgment, apprehension, stress, discontent, strife, and many other bad things. The gospel is the best health food available to us. The gospel is the greatest gift this world has ever received, and this is why Satan works night and day to blind us and keep us from seeing it (II Cor 4:4). Too often, he’s assisted by legalistic ‘instructors in Christ’ that greatly out-number ‘fathers of the gospel’ (I Cor 4:15).

In our human way of thinking, we best relate to precepts and principles. This is where cause and effect is born: “If I plant, then I will reap.” It’s the way our human thought processes work. This is why Paul says to allow the gospel to TRANSFORM our minds. Living in the gospel is seeing life through God’s eyes.

In the gospel, good seeds and good roots, caused by good gospel seed, result in good fruit.

OUR ‘TRUTH BOX’ ISN’T ALWAYS FILLED WITH TRUTH

You see, the gospel is God’s means to get his divine truth into us. We all have a ‘truth box,’ but it isn’t always filled with truth. It’s often filled with non-truth, incorrect assumptions and wrong expectations. But when we ‘repent and believe the gospel,’ as Jesus says to, then our ‘truth box’ becomes filled with God’s divine truth. This is sowing to the spirit as Paul says in Galatians 6.

In Matthew 22:29, Jesus says we are in error because of two things: FIRST, we don’t know the scriptures, and SECOND, we don’t know the power of God.

FIRST, the big point of the gospel is that the scriptures have been divided between the Old and the New. Jesus says not to mix them: “Don’t pour new wine into old bottles.” The Old has been replaced by the New (Heb 9:9-19, 10:9), and we should only minister the New Testament (II Cor 3:6). All things were made new at the cross (II Cor 5:17). Thus Paul says we should ‘rightly divide’ the word of truth – between the Old and New. When we mix the testaments we are in ERROR.

SECOND, when we only feed gospel truth into us, then we know the power of God, and have his power and presence in us because the gospel is the power of God (Rom 1:16). If we live in the gospel only, we are not in error because the gospel is God’s truth. The gospel allows us all ‘to say the same thing’ (I Cor 1:10). We can’t say the same thing outside the gospel.

The truth of Galatians 6:7-8 is realized by only sowing gospel truth into us.

Jesus says our job is to believe him, and RECEIVE his words of grace and truth into us (John 12:47-48). We will not be judged for our sin, because Jesus became sin for us. For God to judge us for sin would be double-jeopardy. Jesus took the judgment for us, and we are in him, buried with him in his baptism. But we will be judged for our belief – our GOSPEL belief – and for our NON-gospel belief. We reign in life by believing and receiving God’s abundant grace, and gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17).

In this second dynamic, we must see that what we receive into us, and believe, is so very important. “Take heed what you listen to.” Instructors in Christ so often tell us it’s all about what we DO. They preach what I call ‘DO-DO religion.’ Father of the gospel know it’s all about what we RECEIVE.

In Genesis one, God says that things ‘grow after their own kind.’ We’re the same way. We grow and develop from the seed that is planted into us – whether that seed be truth or fiction. What comes out of us depends on what we’ve allowed to have planted inside of us. God knows if he plants apple
seeds into us, he won’t raise pumpkins.

These first two dynamics are very important to having a firm grasp of the gospel. It is our job to understand the gospel (Mat 13:19). Understanding it, we must understand how allowing it to be planted into us as seed produces strong roots and good fruit. Jesus says if we DON’T understand this, then we will have difficulty understanding other things (Mk 4:13). Sadly, the result is that people are always LEARNING, but never able to come into a knowledge of the TRUTH (II Tim 3:7).

If we don’t begin with a foundation of truth, then our beliefs are often wrong, as are our values, our priorities, our worldview, our agendas, and so many other things. We can’t stand on a non-truth foundation, and know truth – anymore than we can live in law and know love. Law and love cannot be joint tenants. Where law resides, love is evicted.

Our mouths are a great computer print-out of what is inside of us. So is the way we live, and the things we do. Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Paul says, “We believe, and therefore we
speak.” People wonder why they have such hard times dealing with life appropriately, positively, and powerfully. As a counselor, I see that it all comes from the seed – that produces the roots of our lives, and the fruit of our lives. It’s the gospel that’s meant to produce good fruit in us (Col 1:5-6). But we must allow it to do so. It’s our choice whether we serve it, or serve something else.

What is your ‘truth box’ filled with? You serve what you’ve allowed to be put in there.

We are meant to live in “Done by the Son declarations.” This is what the gospel truth gives to us. New Testament Christianity is ‘The religion of DONE.’ The dying declaration of Jesus was, “It is finished.” This is what Hebrews 10:23 means: “Hold fast to the profession of your faith without wavering.” When we live this way, then our truth box is filled with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Unbelief in Christians is like a spiritual cancer, and it’s also contagious. God gave us the gospel to transform our thoughts (Rom 12:1-2). It’s meant to straighten out our thinking. The gospel is what fulfills all of the word of God in us (Col 1:23-25). It furnishes us, and reframes us as God’s house (i.e., temple). The gospel is what allows us to control our internal world, so that our external world doesn’t end up like that of Elvis Presley, or John Belushi, or Michael Jackson. Externally, they had everything, but they could not control their inner world.

 

Jesus says, “My way is easy” (Matt 11:28).

When you see the reality of these first two Life Change Dynamics,
then you truly see the reality of our Lord’s statement.

The Christian life is all about what Jesus has done, and is doing in us.
All we have to to is believe and receive what he has done, and is doing.
Then the gospel process of God takes over from there.

What could be easier?