“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
(1 Corinthians 6:20)
There are a few things that we cannot control in our lives. One of those things is the fact that we live and we die; we cannot control this truth. Everyone who is alive and breathing will eventually pass from this state. This type of reality is something that no man has control over. We must all journey into the afterlife. For some, this is a fearful thought. For others it is joyful, and something they look forward to.
WHAT SHAPES THESE MENTALITIES?
The freedom that God gives man to enact free will allows people to ingest knowledge, be enlightened, and be empowered, but this freedom also allows people to believe what they want to. Allow me to explain. People are going to put their trust in something. Some people put their trust in atheism, some people put their trust in science, some people put their trust in humanism, some people put their trust in ignorance or the absence of knowing, but all people put their trust in various forms of knowledge. If we think critically and honestly, we can see clearly that individuals are shaped by the content of the information they take in. People are shaped by their surroundings, teachers, parents, friends, and what they surround themselves with. It is like the adage, “you are what you eat”, but in this case, you are what you study.
WHAT CAN WE CONTROL?
We can control what we ingest. Just like we can control what we ingest for sustenance and health, we can control what we ingest for spiritual health and understanding. If we ingest God’s Word, let it into our hearts, and let it change our lives, we will become spiritual in understanding. What we allow our minds to be filled with can bring forth doubt and anxieties amongst other things. We could choose to be filled with hope and joy with the knowledge of God’s truth. It truly is a personal decision that everyone must make with free will.
PERSUADED BY MAN OR LED BY GOD?
“A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.” (Proverbs 18:2). It is quite common today to hear and see people expressing their own truths and living by their own standards. The minds of Americans are being told that we must express what is in our hearts and be true to ourselves. They say, “live your truth and be proud of who you are”. This type of teaching and persuading will only ever lead to the lust of the flesh. That is to say, people will fall to their desires and wants as humans and turn to humanism and atheism, all the while trying to find right and wrong or the standard thereof. They will search for happiness and not find it because their search is drawn from vanity and pride.
Individuals who are shaped by this mentality and live by these standards do not bring glory to God. Why do something that doesn’t bring glory and honor to God? We need to be thinking about our lives to come in eternity. We need to be asking ourselves the question, “Am I bringing glory to God by doing this?”. God is our Rock, our Creator, and the standard of all righteousness. We should allow the Word to mold us in His image, and not fall to man’s devices, finding ourselves to look more like the humans who have persuaded us instead of looking like the God who created us!
It is important to remember that God is our strong tower. God is our creator. God is our teacher. God is our guide. When you realize that God has been there from the beginning and loves us enough to leave us His truth written down for all to see from generation to generation, then you know who you should lean on. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous run to it and are safe.” (Proverbs 18:10).
WE ALL HAVE FREE WILL
One of the most beautiful things God has given us is free will. With free will, we can choose whether we will serve Him or not. Friends, we choose to study what we want to study and believe what we want to believe. Such is evident from the people around us. If we can spend years reading about atheism, reading about deism, reading about various sciences, and/or any other ideology you throw yourself into, then we can and should give God’s Word the same opportunity. “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16).
FINAL THOUGHTS
We all have a start date, and we all have a finish date on this earth. What we do in between those dates shapes us and molds us. Spend your time wisely between the dates, learning about God and His love for us. Spend your time shaping yourself to be a strong soldier of Christ standing firm in the faith. Spend your time attending to your armor that God has given you to defeat the wiles of the Devil. Remember this: we are not supposed to look like the world. We are supposed to be different. We are His peculiar people. Let us give glory to God in our bodies in all things we do. “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Peter 2:9).
“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.” (Romans 12:2)