Change Our Way of Thinking

If an ass goes traveling he won’t come home a horse.  Thomas Fuller

When I first read this quote it made me laugh.  Then I started thinking about how this applies to my life.  One day we decide we want to be more like Christ so we get baptized and then reality sets in.  We figure out that being like Christ is hard work, maybe because our human nature is so opposite of what being Christ like means. 

Too many times I go traveling and expect to come back different with little effort on my part.  When I go traveling as a sinner in search of salvation, I can be guaranteed hardship.  There will be people who don’t agree with my beliefs and don’t hesitate to tell me so.  Temptations are strewn along the road of life and it is so easy to step off the side of the road right into a ditch. Then there is the whole sin thing.  I mean this gets me in trouble more than anything else and it comes from every direction. 

I heard somewhere recently the saying that youth is wasted on the young.  Isn’t that so true?  I mean, if I knew then what I know now I might be a horse.  If we can ever get it in our head that we are saved by grace, not by anything we do, this is the first step to understanding what Christ did for us.  We aren’t going to come back different if we don’t change our way of thinking. 

  

We can be baptized and never be different for the rest of our lives.  If we don’t feel changed after baptism how can we expect to be more like the One who saved us?  Did you rise up out of the water changed? It took two times for me to fully understand what it means to be saved by our Father’s grace.  I am forever changed. 

Prayer for the Day: Jesus, you suffered and died for my sin.  I had to change my way of thinking when I was baptized.  It didn’t happen overnight and I am still working on me.  I can be more like You, but it will mean giving up things of this world and following You without question.  Thank You Jesus for saving me.  Grateful doesn’t even begin to cover it.  

   

Scripture:  Remember Take Up the Cross and Follow Him

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.  For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.”  Luke 9:23-27