It seems like now a days, everyone is so caught up on defining each other that they don’t never stop to look at themselves. It’s easier to see someone else’s flaws sometimes than it is our own. However, when you are continuously trying to point out other peoples faults, telling them what they need to change, take a step back to view yourself. Especially if there is a negative connotation behind it. Today’s exercise is going to be focusing on self and I am going to start off with concentrating on what it means to be heavenly minded vs. being double minded.
Being heavenly minded means you’re not changing the station. As my pastor puts it, you’re not switching from AM to FM constantly. You can’t just go to Church on Sunday and think you did something just by going. The next thing you know, come Monday you back to doing the same earthly, carnal fulfilling things. When this happens you have just switched stations. This means you haven’t learned anything and nothing has changed about you. It is here where being double minded comes in. When you’re double minded, you are listening to the Word of God on Sunday and for the other six days of the week, you are listening to everyone else but God, also known as man. In other words, you don’t know if you want to listen to AM or FM, so you just be hopping from one station to the other.
While I won’t get too technical and say what AM and FM represent in this example I am using to make this point, I will say you need to stay tuned in to HBN. HBN stands for Heavenly Based Network! Pastor Evans, always talks about HBN! I know it may be easier said than done though, right? I mean nobody’s perfect except Jesus Christ and everyone slips up. So you might ask, how do I stay focused on one station? How do I stay tuned in to HBN? It is here where I introduce to you “The 4 F’s.” I was introduced to “The 4 F’s” and now I’m going to share it with you! This is some good stuff!
“The 4 F’s”
1) Establish the FACTS - ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS include God in every aspect of your life. Ask yourself, What does Christ say about what my next move should be? What is God’s statement about it? Always seek His approval, guidance and perspective and keep seeking it until you find it. If you can’t find it, ask someone in your Godly circle to help you find it in scripture. Don’t give up! This means picking up your bible and searching. When you do this, you are establishing the facts. We know that the Word of God is true. It is God-breathed, so whenever you pull something from scripture, that is a fact.
2) Respond in FAITH - This means to apply the facts you just learned to you personally. Focus on you. This is a good way to correct YOUR flaws and realize what you need to change. You have to count the facts to be real to you. This is your personal salvation. Your personal deliverance!
3) Time to FUNCTION - Let’s start off with stating a fact. When you gave your life to Christ and trusted in Him, you were made clean. But if you don’t respond in faith, you are still operating in the old you which means you are not functioning like you know the facts. This is what I call putting dirty clothes over clean salvation. After you take a shower, you don’t put on dirty clothes. At least I hope not! The reason being is because you didn’t get clean just to be dirty at the end of the process. That defeats the purpose and not functioning like you know the facts is the same concept. When you have done steps one and two, then start functioning like it. Get rid of your human point of view and start adapting to God’s point of view.
°4) Your FEELINGS- Feelings come and feelings go but nonetheless they are legit. If you’re happy, then you are happy and if you’re sad then you’re sad. It doesn’t get no simpler than that. But when you are in this step of “The 4 F’s,” God says, peace will come back to you. This means you will feel peace within you even when the craziest things happen in life because you know the facts, you responded in faith, you have been functioning off what God said in His Word and therefore you have peace! This type of feeling is a feeling from God that is awesome to have.
Staying heavenly minded simply means keeping your eyes and ears focused on the Lord. Know who is controlling the agenda in your life. The enemy loves for you to think you can’t overcome or it’s okay to switch channels but when you allow God to control the agenda, you will begin to see Him in a whole new way and switching channels will be the last thing on your mind!
To God be the Glory!
*Crystal M. Cherry
°For more information about the wonderful feeling of “Peace,” check out next week’s reading as we also learn another name of God!
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