Starting Your Own Transformation: How to Cooperate with Jesus.

Jesus’ first words of His public ministry were: “ This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the gospel!” (MK 1:15). And He says these same words to us today.

The time to come to fulfillment in our lives is right now! The reign of God is at hand in the person of Jesus, God incarnate, Who is with us right now and wants to bring about this fulfillment within us. But we must cooperate with the necessary re—forming of our lives; the form and content of our thinking and willfulness must change to con—form to the thinking and willfulness of Jesus. And we must believe (that is, have total trust, and confidence) in the gospel contained in the person and message (of love and service) of Jesus.

The process involved can be likened to finding a beautiful old house that has fallen into great disrepair. The lovely old architecture shines through its dilapidated conditions, and you know that if you completely gut and renovate the house, it will be a perfect home for you. We are that house and Jesus is the architect who wants to gut and renovate our hearts and minds.

In the paradigm we have been using in this book, the process involves moving out of weed and into the flower. We can think of Jesus as the Divine Gardner, uprooting the weeds and replacing them with His flowers, representing His Kingdom of God.

So let us begin the process by changing our thinking.

Jesus’ Truth: God Provides All That We Need.

True Riches *19

“Do not lay up for yourselves an early treasure. Moths and rust corrode: thieves break in and steal.’ 20 Make it your practice instead to store up heavenly treasure, which neither moths nor rust corrode, nor thieves break in and steal.” 21 Remember, where your treasure is, there is your heart also. 22 * The eye is the body’s lamp. If your eyes are good your body will be filled with light; 23 if your eyes are bad your body will be in darkness. And if your light is darkness, how deep will the darkness be! 24 No man can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other; or be attentive to one and despise the other. You cannot give yourself to God and money. 25 I warn you then: do not worry about your livelihood, what you are to eat or drink or use for clothing. Is not life more than food? Is not the body more valuable than clothes? 26 “Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add a moment to his life-span? 28 As for clothes, why be concerned? Learn a lesson from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work; they do not spin. 29 Yet I assure you not even Solomon in all his splendor was arrayed like one of these. 30 If God can clothe in such splendor the grass of the field, which blooms today and is thrown on the fire tomorrow, will he not provide much more for you, O weak in faith! 31 Stop worrying, then over questions like, “What ware we to eat, or what are we to drink, or what are we to wear?” 32 The unbelievers are always running after these things. Your heavenly Father knows all that you need. 33 Seek first his kingship over you, his way of holiness and all these things will be given you besides. 34 Enough then, of worrying about tomorrow. Let tomorrow take care of itself. Today has troubles enough of its own.  MT. 6:19-34

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