Radio Antioch

This teaching is an excerpt from our Radio Antioch Podcast, Episode 2.

In our last post, we were talking about worldviews, and how sometimes this ‘framework” colors how we look at life.  So now let’s get really radical: Let’s contrast what our society thinks about being a Christian and about church, with what the scripture says. I challenge you: How much of the Christianity that you live and the church you attend today is a product of the viewpoint of our society, and how much is really scripture based?
Sometimes the world portrays that Christian life is dry and dull. Perhaps they say that because we choose to avoid certain behaviors that others indulge in. But most of them have no idea the joy and peace that is ours in Christ.
As Christians, we should get our worldview from the scripture. Jesus said in John 10:10 that he came so that we could have life more abundantly! I say to you that it is time for the Christians to start to live the overcoming life in Christ and to quit playing church! How do we do this? By changing our thinking!

In most of the places where the word Repent is used in the New Testament, it is the Greek word  metanoeo, met-an-ah-eh’-o; which means to think differently or reconsider. Dictionary.com defines Repent to mean to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action or attitude. So the English word used here is about sorrow and self-reproach, but the scripture is talking about changing our stinking thinking! In Eden when Eve was tempted, all she had to do was change her thinking, saying: “I am not going to believe what the serpent said, but rather what God says!” and all of this sin mess would never have been.
Now, I am not saying that occasion grief over our actions is not appropriate. We are all sinners and need the blood of Jesus to save us. But having accepted Jesus and the sacrifice He made for me at the cross, I know that I am forgiven. When I realize some place that I have blown it, I pray and ask forgiveness. But I don’t live in sorrow or guilt. I prefer to live in the love, Joy and peace that is my inheritance of abundant life in Christ.

I say to you that if the believers in Christ will truly repent- meaning change their thinking about what it means to be IN CHRIST to line up with what God says, then their Life AND their church experience will move from typical to the Abundant experience that Jesus came to give us!

Photo Courtesy  Matt Ohara Used with Permission.