Every Sunday morning through song, testimonies, prayer, and the teaching of the Word of God, we say that God is just, that He is a God of love, that He heals our diseases, that He is our provider, and that He has a purpose for our lives. But do we believe what we say?
Pastor Mario challenged us this past Sunday when he posed the question, “Do you believe what you say?” Often our actions, our attitudes, and our thoughts speak louder than our words. What do we believe about God? What are we ready to stand-on, to hold-to, to live or die by?
What Pastor Mario was talking about this past Sunday was the importance of each of us having a Christian worldview. Statistics indicate that less than 5% of Americans today possess a biblical worldview. Even among Christians, less than 10% have a clear biblical worldview. So, what does it mean to have a Christian worldview?
Our worldview is how we look at the world. It is our overall perspective from which we understand and interpret the world around us. Our worldview includes what we believe about God, where mankind came from, the purpose for man’s existence, what we believe about life and death, etc. It is our worldview that ultimately determines how we respond to life and life’s situations. I do not think we realize how much of our understanding of life has been affected by our culture and the many philosophies of this age that we are constantly bombarded with.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 2:5, KJV)
The most simplistic definition of a biblical worldview is to have the mind of Christ. That would mean that one would think like Christ; love like Christ; act like Christ; walk like Christ: have the humility, patience, longsuffering and all of the other Galatians 5:22–26 fruits of the Spirit (Clyde F. Autio).
In other words, as we live our lives we respond to life according to the thoughts, ideas, concepts, and principles of truth that we find in the Bible. We allow God and His Word to adjust our thoughts, attitudes, perspective, and response to life. Of course that can only happen if we take time to read, study, and meditate on God’s Word. Only then can we understand how we are to interpret and respond to life from a Christian perspective.
As Pastor Mario said on Sunday, we must learn how to confront the issues of life, not with the patterns of this world, but with the patterns we find in the Bible. We must learn to live and believe that what we say on Sunday morning is true.
What do you say? How much of what you say do you truly believe?
Pastor Mario left us with more last question.
How can our nation be transformed if we are not allowing God to change our perspective and understanding of life?
Well said Pastor Gary - if our foundation is the Word of God and we are lead by the holy spirit we can walk the talk and truly live a transformed life!
ReplyDeleteBrian Walsh
often, it isnt until we see the Word move from the realm of being LOGO (written, general, true whether we actualy believe it or not) to being RHEMA (enlightened, personal) in our lives, that we get a revelation that this isnt just for the whole world, its also for me personally.
ReplyDeletein my case, He used His Word to heal me of conditions, that i hadnt even specifically asked for healing on. often, He knows the very desires of our heart, even before we specifically ask for it, and sometimes, when i did. He did this with healing me of being bipolar, which i now see He did this as an important way of drawing me back to HIm..to show He was real, and not just a faith-movement cliche. He healed me of smoking. He healed my back, and my hypothyroidism.
we must allow His Word to become RHEMA