04.10.04

meta-noia

A healthy child is never content to stay at the same level. Neither is a healthy child of God.

Growing Up Relay

with some very brave contestants!

Unfortunately, too many of God's kids have reached a particular level of growing up in Jesus and settled there.

They don't feed themselves much spiritually.
They depend largely on others feeding them.

They think spiritual crawling is just fine -
maybe because
most of the Christians they know
are stuck in the crawling stage.

Maybe you've been coasting at the same
spiritual speed for a while;
you've been content with mediocrity - with crawling.

But you're restless.
God has made you restless.
He has so much more for you.

The Greek word for repentance is Metanoia.
it means a change, you know,
it might mean a change of shape -
that's what metamorphosis is.

Metanoia, repentance, is changing,
it's not just feeling guilty.

A caterpillar might say, "I'm sick of feeling ugly,
I don't like being like this anymore.
I want to be different.

That's not enough.

He has to submit to a transforming process
that makes him something totally new.

God is as tired of your spiritual crawling as you are.
He wants you to fly,
and repentance is the missing difference.

Ask God right now to forgive that sin,
and then to change you.

Don't forget that meta in your morphosis,
repent and become,
in Jesus
a new person.

What this means is that
those who become Christians
become new persons.

They are not the same anymore,
for the old life is gone.
A new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17

Create in me a clean heart, O God.
        Renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture
that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God.
You'll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you,
and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you,
always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,

God brings the best out of you,
develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:2

check out previous red worships--archive

Resource List for 04.10.04

The Holy Bible (Message, NAS, NCV, NIV, NLT)
online

Ron Hutchcraft
online

Butterfly pictures
online