First of all, scripture is the living word, meaning there will be parts that stands out to me more than to you. It’s all relevant to the season you are in now and what God is trying to tell you. Therefore the following will be me sharing from my side.

The first paragraph is potent.

Simply stating; we were zombies first but then given a new heart. This statement reminds me of the movie “Warm Bodies” where the cure [spoilers] was literally the heart being renewed turning you from a zombie into a warm body.

And so we read in verse 1 2 to 3 the clarification that when we live in Christ we are alive, but only if we do not live according to the world a.k.a the desires of the flesh.
An easy way… well, more of an uncomfortable question that I ask myself is “am I acting from the flesh or the Spirit?” by testing my actions with scripture. [learn the basic truths; Galatians 5:16-26 is a good starting point].

Sin means to miss the mark which is disobedience, and what I came to learn lately is that the consuming culture subtly pushes us into that mindset of consuming things of the world instead of God’s word.

The world calls to consume into a void. God calls us to be filled with Him to be inspired to create to inspire others to do the same.

We covered that sin is disobedience which makes us sinners… right?
When we live in Christ and is renewed, reborn in Christ, we become new creatures that are in the world but not of the world.

Therefore we need to take out the lie of “I’m a sinner” and replace it with the truth “I am a child of God” to break out of that false identity cycle.

We still sin, but that does not define you as a sinner but rather a Child of God that sinned (missed His mark).

This part is crucial! It demonstrates that God’s grace comes with having faith in Him, and you cannot save yourself.

You just can’t. Because being saved is a gift from God to you. Only He can save you.

And faith is believing in something you cannot see yet. Faith is to believe and trust in the unseen.

We don’t deserve to be saved but God loves you so much that He did the ultimate sacrifice of coming down to earth to serve us so we can be raised up to be with Him in His kingdom. He demonstrated what true love is.
Despite what humanity was doing God still decided to gift us salvation. And it is still running today and will never change.

Only God can provide salvation which is gifted by His grace to you.

When you work with faith, and let your faith work through your works, your heart posture changes of how things are perceived. God knows your heart, where it lies, and how it operates.

It’s not about doing work that is good.
It’s about the work of building a relationship with God and bringing Him into the work you do in this world we live in. (James 2:14-26)

Your purpose has been laid out for you before you even entered the world. How?
Psalm 139:13 - For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

We are created in Christ Jesus for good works!

To tie it all together, in order to do the good works He has prepared for us, we need to be obedient and walk in His Spirit. Because we are children of God, we have the authority to walk in His will and bring Heaven down to earth.

The graph below is a how i see how the world operates: Distracting us by saying what we need to do to be successful in life vs the true North which is God’s purpose for you in life that He has prepared you for.

After going through what stood out [to me] how will I implement it? What will you do to make what you read part of your daily life so that it’s not just another piece of content for consumption?

Creating reminders are great a way of implementing what we read to help memorize the truth so that we don’t fall for lies as easily but also test if we’re working from the Spirit or from our flesh.

E.g. Set an alarm to a specific time of the day with the label of what you want to remember. It can be as simple as 11:02AM - Let His will be done.

Sticky notes are another great one. Or one that my pastor and his wife did was to write it on their window. So every time they open the curtains in the morning, that’s the first thing they see.

For what we covered today, I’m being pecked on a bit more on having faith part. For me is to live on the daily reminding myself who God is. I need to put the elbow grease into the work and ministry He has called me to, and have faith of what I’m doing He will take further. This newsletter and videos are exactly that. To show my faith I need to carry on being consistent making them. Bonus, by making these posts, I get to spend more time in God’s word.

Who are you going to share this with? Friend, family member, or total stranger? Easy way is sharing this post/the video. But I want to challenge you by taking the scripture you read, what stood out to you and lead.

It is about having a conversation with the person you’re sharing with about God. You never know what will arise out of that conversation until you do it. It might be uncomfortable but I just see benefits: sharing God’s word, improving social skills, overcoming awkward encounters, learning how to approach people, how to hold a conversation, help remember what you read and what you felt while reading it, and of all, becoming more and more Spirit led/sensitive.

Thank you for reading up till here.
Take care - Blessings - See you in Heaven

- the Running Messenger -