Time For a Change Part II

1Peter 1:13-16
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.


There were many ways that I could go with this and I am not so sure that God will not direct me that way later. Even now as I write this these other directions are being laid upon my heart. The one thing that pushed me in this direction is because of what Peter say’s later in his book that judgment must start in the house of God first. And if we start there we must get past our own righteousness and judge ourselves by His righteousness because if we fail to do anything less than that then we will miss the blessings of His promises and fall miserably short. It is time for a change.

For the most part we have sat back judging ourselves as good because we believe. It is not even that we believe in Christ because maybe we don’t and if we do then we don’t really believe that He requires us to be holy as He is holy. You see; we are still standing. No one has dropped dead for lying to the Holy Spirit recently so God must approve of our style of worship and obedience but is that really the case, or is it possible that you are not one of His children? The time for a change is now and it must begin in you. It calls for you to be sober in our mind. That means that our thoughts should be towards Christ and not towards the things of this world. He calls us to be as obedient children, not fashioning ourselves to the former lusts in our ignorance. The problem is that many of us can’t get past our ignorance. We still live in our sins. We stand there straddling the fence with one foot in the world and one foot in His word. No one knows that we are His children because we don’t want them to know. We remain unmoved by the words being spoken to us by His men because they don’t fit our plans. Most of us have never left our former lusts, we just changed their locations. Those which were out and the opened are now hidden behind locked doors. We hide them because we want to give the appearance of righteousness but like the Pharisees our hearts are still dirty. We are like Simeon who when he saw the disciples cast out demons he offered to pay them for the gift. Like him we saw the miracles and believed and were baptized but we did it because we thought it would benefit us. Maybe it pleased our wives or maybe it was good for business, whatever the reason was it wasn’t real because we continued in the same old manner.

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

The time has come for a change because we have lost our love. Paul told us this would happen in the book of 2nd Timothy.

2Tim. 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2Tim. 3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

2Tim. 3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

2Tim 3:4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

2Tim. 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

While this has been going on for a while it is sad to see the extent it has gone in the church. Self love, covetous, boasters, proud, and the list goes on. We must wonder when it really began. When did the church become more of a social club than a meeting place for the saints? We closed the doors to the unsaved and the weak in faith because it benefited us. We changed the message in order to please men rather than God. We changed the message in order to grow the church claiming that we were reaching more people for Him but the changes pushed more away from Him because they weren’t making decisions for Him, they were doing it to improve their lives. They made decisions to improve their financial status. They made decisions to save their marriages, their families, or just to provide some sort of hope. The one thing that they did not make a decision for was to surrender their will for His because we didn’t preach that message. We said He will give us strength to endure; and He does. We said He heals the broken hearted and He does. He is a provider of everlasting life. We give them everything that He is but we forgot to tell them that He wants everything from us. He wants surrender. He wants true repentance for the tremendous sacrifice. He wants us to recognize Him as our creator and be grateful for it. He wants us to glorify Him as the loving Father that He is.

So what is the change? The change is a change of heart. It begins by surrendering your will to Him and seeking to do His will. It is adjusting your priorities to His priorities. It is loving others as your self and sacrificing on their behalf. It is doing it not so you can be recognized but so that others may see Him through you. It is not just telling them that Jesus loves them but showing them that He does through your actions and allowing God to continue the work in them through the Holy Spirit. It is developing a relationship with Christ so that you can hear the leading of the Holy Spirit and it is pleasing God rather than men. It is being holy because He is Holy.