True Spirituality - How to Get God's Best for Your Life, Part 2

Do you want to change? I mean, do you want to do life differently but you just can't seem to make it stick?

Well, here's what you need to know. There's a way to experience real and lasting life change, and it isn't about trying harder. It's about a completely new way of thinking, and today we're going to talk about how this process can begin in your life.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this daily discipleship program. I'm Dave Drouy, and we're in the middle of Chip's series, True Spirituality, by explaining how to get God's best for your life.

And you know, it may not be as complicated as you thought. Just before we get started, let me encourage you to try using Chip's message notes while you listen. These notes contain his outline, scripture references, and much more.

They're a quick download at livingontheedge.org under the broadcasts tab. App listeners just tap fill in notes. Well, here's Chip with part two of his message, How to Get God's Best for Your Life, from Romans chapter 12. You know, it's interesting.

You think, this isn't new. If you take the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and if we could take a video camera back to Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, and you study the passage very carefully, Adam and Eve are, how are they tempted? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Take the video camera out of time, go over to Jesus with Satan, Matthew chapter 4, and he's being tempted. And you, three temptations, how's he tempted?

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. How did he win? They lost, he won.

Why? It is written, it is written, it is written. Each time, from memory, he reached back into Deuteronomy, and the lie came, BAM!

He knocked it out with the truth. And so in Matthew 4, 4, it says, he answered Satan and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You cannot experience God's Best for your life without making this truth a part of your experience on a very regular basis.

You don't have the power, I don't have the power. You must take the raw material of God's written word and get it into your mind and share it with other people so the Spirit of God can take the written word and make it the living word and change you and change your desires in ways that you can't understand. It's supernatural. In fact, the Apostle Paul would say, it's not only supernatural, but it's a process. There's not like you can just turn a switch and now I'm like Jesus, you know? What's he saying? 2 Corinthians 3, 18, I put the passage there, but we all, speaking of the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, between the law when it was given in Sinai and now with the Spirit living in us, but we all with unveiled faces, beholding us in a mirror the glory of the Lord, notice the tense of this verb, our being transformed.

How? From glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. He's saying Moses, when he was up on the mountain with God, see, you become like whoever you hang out with. And after 40 days hanging out with God, he just glowed. He just radiated with the glory of God. And so when he came down, people couldn't take it, so he put a veil over his face so he could talk to him. And then in his hypocrisy, when it started to fade, he kept the veil on because he wanted people to think he still had it. None of us ever do that, of course.

We don't do any image management or any of those sort of things, but Moses did. And Paul says, you know, we, with an unveiled face, beholding us in a mirror, it's not direct, but we get these reflections and snapshots and moments where Jesus reveals himself and a passage comes out of the Word and you're in a Bible study and someone speaks a word or accepts you in a way that you've never been accepted and you are vulnerable or you're supported, where someone in love actually rebukes you and calls you on the carpet for something that in your heart you've known and you realize that open rebuke is better than love concealed and you find a safe place and God changes you. But it's from glory to glory.

That's like four steps forward, two steps backward. We're all in process. And notice who brings about the change, from the Lord, the Spirit. And so here's the key, what I want you to get, review. Review, stop allowing the world to conform you. Start being transformed.

Here's what I want to camp on, how. What's your part? We said we can't change ourselves. Allow yourself to be transformed how? Here's our part, the renewing of our mind. Mind renewal, I think, has three key components. The first component of mind renewal is renewing your mind as a continual refocus of the Romans 12.1 perspective. Colossians 3 says, set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.

It's a worldview, it's a mindset that has eternity in mind, that has Christ in mind, about what matters in mind. See, when you come to that moment where you say, God, I'm all in, I will do whatever, it's authentic, it's real, it's sincere, you make great decisions in that moment. But then there's Monday morning, right? And that was two football games and an argument with your roommate or your wife or with your husband and a kid who treated you dirty and a boss who wasn't very nice ago.

And a different person shows up after that, right? And so you renew your mind to keep that focus and all of us have different issues that we face that keep us conformed to the world. Let me give you an example.

As I grew up in my home, my family of origin, I have one, you have one, the enemy uses the world in some ways in my life different than yours. I mean, there's people that can walk into a bar, love friends, have no problem, never think about this, this, that. I mean, my dad was an alcoholic.

Alcohol shaped our home. There's some people that you're not performance oriented at all. Man, you are just balanced and laid back and you go to work, you shut it off, no problem.

You're not a people pleaser. You know, you're just so healthy, relationally and emotionally, and I envy you. And so I realized that I was a workaholic, that I was insecure, that I was always trying to please people and then after I got married that I was very insensitive to my wife. Other than that, as a Christian, I was really doing well.

Now, I'm dead serious. I mean, I didn't have a porn addiction. I wasn't putting cocaine up my nose.

I wasn't okay, but I'm saying those were real and when I started reading the Bible some and I wanted to follow Jesus and I kept trying hard. I tried hard not to be a workaholic. I tried not to be insecure.

I tried to be more sensitive to my wife. On my best days, and I'm pretty disciplined, willpower, I could only keep that up for about two weeks because I didn't understand. Transformation isn't about just trying hard, it's renewing your mind. And so I wrote down on some cards the truth and now I prayed, I asked God, does it mean there's not self, of course I had to make effort, but for example, I thought, am I gonna be insecure my whole life or am I gonna get my mind renewed? And so I wrote down this on a card.

I read it in the morning, in the night, put it in my pocket, read it multiple times a day. I'd like to be more authentic in every aspect of my life. You know, I was trying to please everyone and I am what I am by the grace of God and His grace didn't prove vain toward me, but I labored more than all of them, yet not me, but Christ in me.

You know, when you keep reading over, I'd like to be more authentic in every relationship. You know what happens? That gets in your mind. You catch yourself when you're posing. You catch yourself image managing and God begins to birth where you say, you know, I think I'm just gonna like who God made me.

Got a long way to go. Transformation. My people pleasing. I mean, anybody here ever struggle with like, everyone asks you to do this and you either feel guilty if you don't or you're trying to do everything, you're multitasking and you're up early and you're back late and you know, I wrote this on a card. I wanna stop caring what others think and apply myself and my schedule to what will make me the best I can be to honor God the most. I want to grow free of the invisible expectations that I allow to hinder my joy, my freedom, my schedule from pursuing the best.

These invisible, like I had this gun to my head. Still struggle some, but if you live your life to please people, it'll kill you, but it's the world. So you refocus. My next one was on my workaholism. I just thought working a lot, performing, getting stuff done, I got approval. And so that was how I did everything. I even did the ministry like that. And so I wrote on this card, I read it over.

I want to learn, this is almost sick to have to learn this. I'm gonna learn to take time and schedule in enjoyable, fun, refreshing activities without feeling guilty about them or caring what other people think. Anybody here feel like you should have more margin, that you're not enjoying life enough, that it's work, work, work, and yeah, you're gonna do that later, but you're just so focused and so geared and you pick up your kids and you're on your phone and everybody's kind of in an interruption.

My final one, what I'm telling you, I just, I kept reading this over. What happened was I just found putting it in my schedule. Pretty soon I didn't feel guilty about having fun. Pretty soon I found out I had fun and enriching relationships and when I came to work it didn't take as much time and it was like, wow, this must be a part of God's plan.

Finally, as with my wife, I realized I was insensitive and so I wrote on this card, my desire is to love Teresa sacrificially and in a way that makes sense to her each and every day. And so I just kept reading that over and a weird thing happened. I started seeing little times on this day and on Sunday night and on this day where I could be more sacrificial. Now believe me, from glory to glory and with plenty of relapses. But are you seeing how it works? Are you seeing how you refocus, your mind gets renewed? Second thing is I want to tell you it's a battle. Renewing your mind always involves a battle. The spiritual life, the battle for your soul primarily is happening between your ears. The apostle Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 10, 4, and 5, the weapons of our warfare, listen to that language. He's in a battle for his soul. The weapons of our warfare are divinely powerful for the pulling down of strongholds and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. People pleasing, workaholism, having, possessing, working like crazy, accumulating, impressing, image management, addictions. The weapons of our warfare. He's talking about the power of the word of God, community, fasting, prayer. I mean, the world's powerful.

There's a battle and it's for your soul. There's a reason why the second most optimal time for couples or divorce is about between 20 and 25 years because she buys the lie that it's me and the kids and all that I do for them and he buys the lie that someday, someway, if I can work, work, work, do, do, do, do, and then they wake up 20, 25 years, they don't know each other. They've not shared anything. He feels middle-aged and like he doesn't have it anymore and what makes him feel like he might have it is if some young, good-looking chick is interested and he's got some money, can pay his way, try and make it happen.

And he does stuff either online or actual in the office and she starts realizing, you know, I don't look the way I used to look and I don't feel very attractive and she signs up and gets a personal trainer and now she's going to go at it again and they don't have anything. And they both bought a lie. And they used to teach a Sunday school class and they've been married 30 years and their kids now are young adults who grew up in that home and mom and dad divorced and they're going, what in the world? I guess this Jesus stuff isn't true. That's reality, people.

That's, for some of you, that's your experience. The third thing you need to remember is that renewing your mind is supernatural. It's a work of the Spirit. You know, reviewing cards, reading the Bible, doing this, doing that, I got news for you. The Spirit of God has to take the Word of God and do something in you.

All of these things are about a heart-love relationship with Him. Romans 8 says, the mindset on the flesh is death. The mindset on the Spirit is life and peace. And so, in summary, let me just tell you, for me, for you, for every believer, you are what you eat, period. You are what you eat physically and you are what you eat spiritually and intellectually. You tell me how much time on your phone, how much time in video games, how many movies you watch and the messages in those movies, time, what are you putting into your mind, over against, how much truth, how much of God's Word, how much renewing relationships, and you know what, plug, plug, plug, plug, it's pretty easy, I can tell you your lifestyle. Because you are what you eat.

So my question is, what's your diet? Are you getting God's best? Now, let me walk through now and give you some very practical, specific ways to renew your mind, because it's one thing, those are the principles, that's the truth. Here's some practical methods for renewing your mind. To say no to the world, say yes to God. First, hearing God's Word. Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. You have to, on a regular basis, you must hear God's Word, it births faith. One way to do that is, this is a novel idea for some of you, come to church regularly. I mean, I'm not down on you, I just, first three years as a Christian, if I made it twice a month, I'm high-fiving myself, way to go, Chip, I never did that before.

Second is, use your time in the car wisely. Hear God's Word. My seminary training hasn't stopped. Second, read God's Word.

Revelation 1, 3 says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near. And in your notes, if you don't know much about the Bible and need some structure and a plan, first 15 years, at least I was a Christian, I read the daily walk Bible. And I just tell you, it was just like, okay, here's the structure, here's what it means, here's an overview, but you dig in for yourself. Or go on the internet. There's enough reading plans.

You just log on on the App Store Bible, believe me. Second is study. Second, Timothy 2, 15 says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman that need not be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. And you'll notice, I had this a little bit later, but this is a little tool to help you study. And take this really well.

God wants the best for you. Some of us have been so trained, we eat all processed food. Can you imagine if you ate just only processed food instead of the kind of organic, real good stuff? Or the picture that comes to my mind is, you know some of that processed cheese? And you take it out of that plastic and you think, hmm, I don't know where this has been.

Well, it's a good start, right? But processed spiritual food is like, there's a little book and it's a good little book and it has two or three verses and then someone who's studied a lot tells you a little inspiring story and tells you a little something about those two or three little verses and says, and now here's what you might do and you read for like, it takes almost three minutes to read these little things. And then you go, oh Jesus, Jesus, help me, help me really follow you. I have really renewed my mind. Now I spent, you know, 40 minutes in the Wall Street Journal but now I've spent my four or five minutes, what I know is what someone else thinks of that passage. The little card is how you can study God's word on your own.

I learned this from a missionary about 30 years ago, I think it was Brazil, it's called the Two Pro-App Method and that's just an acronym. And I'm not gonna go through it all other than just to say, if you would choose a New Testament book, the book of John, the book of Mark, one of the small ones, and just read a paragraph or maybe two and the P, pray, God please help me. The second P, preview it, read it quickly just to get a feel.

It's all written on here. And then the R is read it slowly, methodically. Then the O is read it one more time and underline maybe words that are alike or thoughts that you have. The A then is that what application from this paragraph is God showing me? Then realizing since I don't have the power to do it, you pray again. God, will you help me to, it says be generous in this passage so will you help me be generous in some way specifically today?

And then the T is tell someone. It's just a very simple way to study. Here's what I can tell you.

Processed food is helpful and if you're just beginning, that's fine. When you are tempted sexually, when you wanna break out of habit patterns, when there's addictions, when there's a crisis in your marriage, when you got a kid who's going through a terrible time and you're trying to cling on to God, you have to have him speak directly from his word to you because that's where convictions come from. It's great that those people who wrote those little devotionals, that's what they believe.

What do you believe? And what do you believe under pressure? It's birthed in study.

The next is memorization. Notice it says, Psalm 119, 9-11, how can a young man, a young woman, keep your way pure? By guarding it or keeping it according to your word. Your word I've treasured or hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. I don't know if there's any greater return in the Christian life than memorizing Scripture or one that's probably more neglected.

I can tell you a brief little story. I was in a school and I think I've shared it where there was like four girls to every guy and I started to grow, so now I've been a Christian like three years and so I'm reading the Bible like three or four mornings a week. I'm starting to go to church which is really radical for me and I'm making progress in a number of areas but not in one in particular. My roommate is gonna go to this Christian summer something where it's a parachurch organization that they go there for training and they get a job and share Christ and learn all good stuff and I didn't want any part of that but before he could go, he had to memorize these 60 verses. It was called the topical memory system put out by a group called the Navigators and I've always been very competitive along with being insecure and so he left the room one day and I just thought because he was gonna memorize one or two verses a week and he had it planned out 30 weeks and I just thought, you chump. So my goal secretly, he leaves, I literally copied all the verses down on these little cards. In fact, I still, these little cards, I still have them and I got these 60 verses down and then I had an amazing gift. I had a psychology professor that was about 99 years old who'd been tenured for like 40 years because he couldn't get a job anywhere and so he would drone on and on so I would put my psychology book up an hour every day. I memorized one verse the first day so I decided I'm gonna, 60 days I'm gonna be done and I'm just gonna have them perfect because here was the goal.

I was gonna say, okay, hey Bob, how's it going with that thing that your training program are going to? Why don't you go ahead and start and list the verses and I was just gonna go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, 60 in a row, you know. Is that sick or what? I mean, you know, memorizing God's word to impress someone out of your ego and your pride.

Well, okay. To show that God can use anybody even in our nuttiness. It's day 21 and I mean I'm like getting into this so I can still remember hearing my cleats when I was running to baseball practice like this.

You know, putting it at the back. Day 21, I walk around the corner and there's a very beautiful young co-ed involved in the ministry and what men will tell you if they're honest is that we struggle deeply with lust and I was struggling very deeply. The external things were changing but my eyes were going everywhere and my mind was going all kind of places and when you lust for a girl that's not a Christian, you feel guilty. When you lust for a very godly girl, you feel really guilty and so, oh no, this is her and so turn around the corner, we started to talk and we had a little conversation.

We got done and I remember walking away, I got about four steps. I didn't lust. I didn't know the correlation. I had no idea.

I didn't know about mind renewal. I didn't know how to change. All I knew was following Jesus is really hard and a lot of it's not working very well for me. Some things undeniably are radically changing but some other things I just feel I was stuck forever. Day 21, I'd memorized 21 verses, word perfect and what I didn't understand was the supernatural work God had taken the written word, made it the living word and changed my want tos and my attitudes and I with my eyes looked at a sister in Christ in the eye and a new relationship with men completely changed my life. When I got to 60 verses, I was like a drug.

I couldn't stop. Then I started memorizing chapters and then I put my own topics together and for the next five years, probably more than anything else, I memorized God's word and I will tell you, all I can tell you is how I looked at the world was completely different, completely different and there was a level of peace and joy. I remember I'd have a question, I'd be praying and as I was praying, God would bring a verse.

Oh, that's the answer. I'd be in a conversation and I wouldn't know what to say or what's going on and God would bring a verse and all of a sudden I realized we have the mind of Christ. The Bible says that we have the mind of Christ but most of us don't know what his mind is but it's in his word. The final thing he says is that you meditate. See, this isn't like you do all these little things and become a little religious robot that drives other people crazy.

I mean, there's some people like that. This isn't about how many verses or how... And the word meditate here, it's the idea of ruminating. It's a picture a cow has four stomachs. It's a cow chews on some truth, swallows it, regurgitates it. Swallows it, regurgitates it. This is reading and God speaks you through a verse and you write it on a card and you stick it in your pocket and then as you're driving to work, you try and see if you can remember it.

So you're at a light and you're at a doctor's office and you just bring it up and something happens. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth but you should meditate on it day and night in order that what? So you can obey it. For then you'll be prosperous and have good success.

And so on the back I put a few tools that I think would be very helpful to you. Can I just close with this? Why, why, why? Why do this? I mean, if you're listening, you're thinking to yourself, you mean I'm gonna limit my games and limit my movies and limit this and limit that and limit that and limit that and say no to some stuff that's just a part of my life and start saying yes to God's word and do some things probably some of you have never ever done.

Why would I do that? So that you could get the best from God. So that you could experience and taste what he wants normally for every person. His good. His good means winsome, beautiful, attractive, richly satisfying will. Well pleasing, well pleasing to him and well pleasing to you. Perfect. There's a will that's according to a specific design just for you that when you fulfill it you explode with joy, live with peace.

How does that happen? No, I won't be conformed to this world. Yes, I'll be transformed by the renewing of my mind. So that.

Would you like that? As I close, here's two questions because you could feel overwhelmed, I don't want that. What one thing do you sense God is saying you need to say no to? What's going into your mind or what relationship or what's one thing that woos your heart away from God? And just say first step, no. And what one thing of all the hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, meditating.

Because we're all in different places. What one thing do you sense God would want you to take a baby step and begin to renew your mind? Lord I pray that you'd show every single person right now what they need to say no to that is drawing their heart away from your deep abiding amazing love and Lord what you want them to say yes to in order to enjoy and experience your grace, your goodness. Will you please do that Lord? And then will you birth faith in people right now?

Would you even give them the idea of what one person could they share this with and ask them in a couple days, will you give me a call, will you text me and I'll tell you how I'm doing. Oh God, what would happen if hundreds and then thousands of people started to experience your good, well pleasing and perfect will. That's our prayer in Jesus name.

Amen. Chip will be right back with his application for this message How to Get God's Best for Your Life from his series True Spirituality Becoming a Romans 12 Christian. This six part series sheds light on how to move your relationship with God from a performance oriented existence to a loving grace filled life. In these messages Chip describes the profile of an authentic follower of Jesus and provides practical steps for how we can get there. Now for those who don't know, true spirituality is the core discipleship teaching here at Living on the Edge. And because of that we have a ton of great resources to help you get plugged in with this series. Whether that's the study guides, the DVDs or CDs of Chip's teaching, the book or our free MP3s. For a limited time all of these helpful resources are discounted. So order your true spirituality resources today by going to livingontheedge.org. That's livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap special offers. You know if there's one thing I hear from Christians a lot is how do you study the Bible? I mean it's so thick, it's so big, like where do you start? I mean for us regular people that are not going to go to Bible school or seminary, how do we learn to study the Bible in a systematic way where we can really understand it?

Or is that just above our pay grade? God's Word was given in a way for all of us regular ordinary people without any formal training to really hear His voice. Because the goal isn't that we get smarter about the Bible or that we get to be experts, it's that we know Him. You know it's interesting the Scripture says the common people, in other words the uneducated people, heard Him, Jesus, gladly. And we've done a lot of things, small groups, we obviously have lots of broadcasts.

And out of the COVID pandemic something got birthed. I'd never done it before but sort of almost on a lark, a spiritual experiment if you will, I said to our team, what if we set up a camera and I got a cup of coffee and I just met with people individually? And to our shock, surprise, excitement, literally tens of thousands of people over the course of a year would meet with me individually. And I literally, I'm going to take my coffee, I'm going to take an open Bible and I'll meet with you for 10 minutes. I will do what I would do if you were sitting across the table from me with a cup of coffee and an open Bible and for about two and a half weeks every day we'll meet. What the bricklayer did for me when I met with him in the mornings and he taught me how to study the Bible and meet with God, I will do for you. And what I can tell you from the feedback from those thousands of people is they don't think I'm a great teacher at the end, they think there's a great God that they can hear from and they have confidence to study the Bible. And what's exciting is we're going to study Romans chapter 12 about what it means to be a real authentic follower of Jesus.

That's my invitation, I can't wait to meet with you. Thanks Chip. Well we're so excited to share with you this new daily discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality, based in Romans chapter 12. Our heart behind this video series is to really help you dive into God's word and discover how to more intentionally live out your faith. For 17 days you and Chip will walk through what true spirituality looks like and how you can put these truths into practice. If you're looking for the next step along your faith journey, let me encourage you to be a part of Daily Discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality. You can sign up for this study right now and when you do we'll send you our friend Lance Witt's devotional based on Romans 12 called, Leave Ordinary Behind at No Cost. Sign up now while this offer lasts by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners just tap discipleship.

Now here's Chip with his application. As we wrap up today's program I have three questions for you and I think you know what they are because we've sort of addressed them already. But I want to get out of you kind of in the back of your mind thinking I was talking to someone else because I'm actually talking to you.

In fact it's not even me, it's God. And here's question number one, what do you need to say no to? What person, what relationship, what activity, what are you viewing that you just need to say today, no I can't go there anymore? Second, what do you need to say yes to? What needs to get into your mind, your heart, your life that you're not getting right now? And maybe it's not time in God's word or it's sort of a quick thing or maybe it's not time in a local church or maybe it's not time actually memorizing a couple specific passages that address the biggest struggle in your life.

Because it's when the word of God gets in your heart and life that the Spirit of God ignites it with power to give you victory over some of those things. So what do you need to say no to? What do you need to say yes to? And here's the third question, who today are you going to text or call or Facebook or email to say will you help me? I'm saying no to this and yes to something else but I can't do it alone. You ready? You answer those and God will show up. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.