2 Timothy 1:7 ESV
“But God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, of love and of self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:7 NLT
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity but of power, love and self-discipline.”
There are many things that give us fear, fear of the government, fear of what they’ll do to us, we fear if we do good enough, we fear that we’re providing for our children but we see that in Christ Jesus, God gives us a spirit of power to withstand that fear. We know that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, is always near so we do not fear, which is the power of the Lord to withstand that fear.
He did not give us a spirit of fear but of love so that we can love others without fearing them. For it is in our fear of others that we reject them, ridicule them and we kill them, but if we can get to know them for their inner being and find out what makes their mind work, what makes their soul and spirit work, then we are getting closer to being in tune to loving our neighbor. We love our neighbor best when we share the love of Christ with them. We let them know all things that He has done within the Bible and also in our lives. By transforming ourselves, we can transform the world around us and as we go about transforming the world around us, it changes the whole environment. When we realize God loves us, it gives us a feeling of joy that we wish to share with others so they may have this joy as well and it gives them the peace and joy and love of Christ Jesus.
Of self-control, we have no fear that we know our bodies, we know our minds and we do what we know what we are able to do for our own selves and not go beyond our limit or that we know ourselves in our learning capabilities, for self-control sums up love and power which both cast out fear.
Romans 12:2 ESV
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing we discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2 NLT
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think then you will learn to know God’s will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Now we see here that we must change or transform to let God transform our mind, that is, and we will become a new person and by becoming a new person, we will know God’s will for ourselves. This is the first step in having the mind of Christ. Jesus rebuked Peter when He said, “get thee behind me satan”. Peter did not have the mind of Christ at that point because the Holy Spirit had not come yet to help him understand. We see that in one verse it says ‘by the renewal of your mind’ and the other verse this is ‘by changing the way you think’, both are basically the same because we have to renew our mind but we also have to change the way we think. Having the Holy Spirit inside of us and renewing our mind and changing the way we think about things are essential in having the mind of Christ and in this fashion we can think about what is the will of God in our life. In this way we transform ourselves, I should say that Christ transforms us. This way we become perfect, more perfect every day, we don’t reach perfection until we reach our destination with the Father after this body is done with, and even that is at His discretion.
Characters in Transformation
When we come to the Lord, we have begun a transformation as we are going from the world-set to the Spirit-led life. There are many great examples of the transformative power of God.
A key figure is Moses.
He was born to Israelite parents when Egypt had called for the killing of Hebrew babies. His mother hid him in a basket and his sister brought it to the river and let it go. Then Pharaoh’s daughter found him and brought him into the courts of Pharaoh which is where Moses learned Egyptian wisdom. One day as he was out strolling he noticed an Egyptian harassing a Hebrew man and Moses slew the Egyptian and when another Hebrew told him that he knew, Moses ran away from Egypt. Moses had fled to Midia and he got married to a Midianite woman and worked for her father with the flocks. One day as he was tending the flock, something caught his eye, he thought he saw a burning bush, but it wasn’t consumed by the flames. Soon a loud voice called and told him to remove his sandals because the ground was holy.
This was Moses’ first encounter with God, or YHWH, as He came to be known; I AM WHO I AM.
The LORD gave Moses a grand task, if there ever was, freeing the Hebrews from Egyptian hands. Like anyone, even in this age, Moses asked questions for the validity of which the LORD was speaking. So God obliged him. First it was his rod, he threw it on the ground and it became a snake but when Moses grabbed it by the tail, it turned back into a rod. Then the LORD had Moses put his hand in his bosom (chest) and pull it out, it was white like leprosy and when he put his hand back, it returned to normal. The third sign was that of water turning to blood when poured out on the ground, all this in case the Hebrews didn’t believe Moses. Then the task of setting up laws and regulations for the Hebrews had to be enacted and God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and other laws and regulations to govern themselves and to obey the LORD. All that happened in Moses’ life before was a major transformation from where he started out.
Paul, or Saul of Tarsus, had a great transformation in his life as well. Paul, before his transformation, was Saul of Tarsus, a fierce force against the early Church. He even held the clothes of Stephen, the first martyr of the Church, as others stoned Stephen to death. Saul had done other such atrocities to the early Church. One day as he was on the road to Damascus, he was suddenly hit by a bright blinding light and a loud voice. It was Jesus, the Lord, in His exalted state, asking Saul why he was persecuting Him, that is, Jesus. Saul was perplexed as he did not understand that the people he hurt or killed had Jesus inside them as the Holy Spirit. Saul was an educated man and he also was a Pharisee. He called himself a Pharisee of Pharisees. When that light hit him and he heard the voice of the Lord, he was greatly moved and turned to the Lord, he repented. So great was his transformation that what we have of the New Testament, much of it are letters of Paul to the early Church. The Lord said Paul would suffer much for the atrocities he committed, yet the Lord would use him as an instrument to spread the Gospel to the Gentile world, with all his suffering, he never backed down, but he was put to death for his preaching.
I, too, have been transformed by Christ.
These years that I have come to know Christ have been years of transformation.
The first of my transformative stages was while I was living with a woman and her 2 children. I had only known about Jesus, I hadn’t placed my life or faith in Him. After 6 long, hard years I had had enough, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the children with an unstable mother. Two co-workers were Catholic, they helped me see the light that this woman was not right for me and was just making a mess of my life. I had crashed a car one time, I took the bus to work and as I was walking to work I would cry to ‘God’ to know if He’s real and who He is, if He were real, that is. I told Him if He showed me He’s real then I would do anything for Him. Having these 2 co-workers in my life was a blessing. I soon got brave enough to leave the woman and her 2 children. These co-workers would instill in me the words of Jesus as if they were teaching me about Him with feeling, more so than just words in a book. I could tell something was happening. I was being transformed into the faith and the image of Jesus. Finally sometime in January of 2000 I came to believe in Jesus while laying on the floor of a friend’s place I was staying while listening to music. As the music played I just simply cried aloud, “I believe,I believe!” Then a strange feeling came over my back, almost outside of my back, it felt like someone tugging my shirt, but I was alone. Soon I came to find out that it was the Holy Spirit coming upon me as the prophets of old. This was my greatest transformation, to come to believe in Jesus Christ, that He is the Lord, the Savior and my Father. From that point on my life would never be the same.
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