Classic Christianity – Bob George Thanksgiving p1 (11-21-18)
Welcome to Bob George Classic Christianity radio with Bob George, the clear and timeless teaching on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ as you learn about God’s amazing love. Bob shares from God’s word reminding us of the attitudes of love and thankfulness. He contrasts the world’ peace with God’s peace, lust or attraction with agape love, anxiety with faith, fear with love, self-centered thinking with God-centered thinking, worry with thankfulness, man’s will versus God’s will, weakness with God’s strength, negative thinking with thinking with a proper self image, a dead life replaced with a new life, following Jesus with being led of the indwelling Holy Spirit, fear with love, evil versus good, and worldly thinking with scriptural thinking based on truth. With such teaching, one has a solid foundation on which to be truly thankful. With the Holy Spirit in you, the love of God is shown through you; a sincere love, out of the heart, and not just with words.
Bob shares from Philippians 4:6-7, where one reads about a peace that surpasses understanding.
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Bob contrasts that peace that only God can give with the peace one feels when observing God’s nature at an ocean-side beach. The peace of the world or the peace that depends on circumstances around you is only a temporary peace, but the peace spoken of in scripture is a peace that is only internally produced by God as you bring requests before him and simply trust him.
The source of peace is the love in Jesus Christ. The world’s way of love is really not love at all, as in the temporary satisfaction with the sin of lust. An attraction to someone is also not love that is in Jesus Christ. The love in Jesus Christ is an agape love, not a brotherly kindness type of love (philio) or even a natural sexual love (eros).
Anxiety also steals away attitudes of love and thankfulness in the present. With anxiety, one worries about the future. The future is God’s business, stuff that never happened or never takes place. Anxiety is a contradiction to faith for when one is anxious then he is not trusting God. One cannot have worry and faith at the same time. How can you live with love in your heart if focused on self with all your worry? You cannot! Therefore, be anxious for nothing and talk to God in prayer with thanksgiving while making your requests to God in all confidence for his provision of what you really need, his peace that surpasses understanding. Look to God in faith.
Romans 14:23b
and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
In contrast to faith is worry. The basic cause of anxiety is wanting to be in control, that sinful nature inherited in Adam, when sin entered the world when Adam chose to decide for himself right and wrong by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when God clearly warned him that they day you you shall surely die. The attitude in Adam is the attitude of independence and rebellion against God. God is your creator and is the only one who completely loves you and is able to supply all your needs according to His riches. Place your trust in the God who always has the best in mind for you. So exercise faith in the one who loves you.
Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Worry brings depression for your focus is on how bad things are. Rather, focus on what you do have and remember it is not my will, but his will be done. There is nothing glorious about worrying. So how can one break out of this pattern of worry? Who are you trusting for salvation? Now that is a big thing! If He can give you eternal life, do you think you can trust Him for today?
So negative thinking is not truth thinking, but thinking in error. It includes doubting God’s provision to meet your need and even living independently of God, as if you can do something about your circumstances and bemoaning that you cannot, and all sorts of faulty thinking about yourself, such as lying to yourself, saying that you hate yourself because you are ugly, or a multitude of other things you say to yourself. God wants you to have a proper self image based on truth, truth thinking. The basic lie you are believing is that you love yourself too much. So instead of thinking of self, let’s consider how to think with truth, God’s kind of thinking.
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
So, consider the Lord, who in the garden of Gethsemane, with tears dropping like blood, for the purpose of providing for us what we could never do for ourselves. He called upon His Father and said to Him, “Not my will, but your will be done.” Consider the Lord, who faced all kinds of trials and tribulations. Did that stop Him from loving you and me? What is the proper attitude one should have when facing trials and tribulations?
2 Thessalonians 3:5
May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
James 1:2-4
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
So the Holy Spirit in us produces this new kind of life, of joy and peace that surpasses understanding, truly a supernatural life we cannot manufacture. But we turn our eyes toward Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. We rejoice in our weakness because if we had no weakness would we place our trust in God? The Apostle Paul expressed the same things when he wrote:
2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Those trials and tribulations are what I am most thankful for, because those things taught me. Who in your life are you thankful for, who brought to you truth concerning Christ or truth to help you think properly so you can live properly, participating in God’s divine nature? Bob expressed great gratitude for Major Ian Thomas, whose own struggle as a youth pastor had taught him a life lesson of letting Christ live in you and through you. Bob recalls hearing how Ian had thought about quitting, being a young minister of evangelism, but instead of pleading for help, he thanked God. In his despair, Jesus gave himself for him. His mind was renewed and that was the beginning of Christ being formed in Ian towards a supernatural way of living. Bob is so grateful because he too had an experience in his early years in Dallas, evangelizing in the power of the flesh but miserable inside. Ian was a major influence for Bob for him to become a man of God he had become. The life lesson that Bob learned is that God lives in you and through you. This supernatural life is what brings truth to hurting people in the world today. So, I am so grateful for Bob George, whom I have never met, yet his labor of love in producing materials to equip the body of Christ has been a tremendous blessing to me.
Now, what about you, are you at the lowest point in your life, having heard truth of the gospel, been raised by a godly pastor, yet you ran from the Lord, got into partying, mob, drugs, or alcohol, and all manner of sinful lifestyle? Is there hope for you? Yes, of course there is! Bob shared about a gifted singer, singing with the talented artists such as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis but found himself at death’s door, wanting to end his life by lying on a railroad track, just waiting to die. Yet the Spirit of God spoke to him there, and he called his brother, for he came from a Christian family, whose father is a pastor. His brother picked him up and he sat to hear truth from God in a church that day and his life was not only spared but changed. He gave up all his former life to serve the Lord.
There is no difference where you are or what you have done, He will restore you when you are ready!
Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Have you received God’s mercy? Do you have His love poured in your heart? Has your mind been renewed? What then is our reasonable act of service, in view of God’s mercy?
Romans 12:9
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
The Holy Spirit produces this love in you. The Holy Spirit takes residence in you with the privilege of partaking in the divine nature. This act of service is not about following Jesus for that is what the early disciples did before Jesus went to the cross, as he walked with them. In their day, they followed where he went, to the death, burial and resurrection. Today, that work has been done. Now we no longer follow Jesus, but are led by the Spirit of Christ internally. The Holy Spirit lives in me not imitate someone’s individual steps. Rather the mind is being renewed with truth that sets you free as an individual with a special work God has uniquely prepared for you. What really matters is faith expressing itself through love, the love of God that has been poured in your heart by His Spirit He has given you.
Now this love is a genuine and sincere love, not just with words, but from the heart. Fear is the opposite of love and hinders this love being shown through you. Have you ever been hurt? Has someone robbed you? Has someone rejected you? Again, consider Jesus Christ. Did he build up walls so as to never be hurt again? Did he stop loving others when reviled or persecuted? You are never free to love as long as you have fear of what someone might do to you. The Pharisees were set out to have Jesus put to death, yet in God’s plan, Jesus, totally trusting His Father, Jesus lay down his life for us. At times, Jesus simply walked away from the crowds when they were trying to stone him for his time to die was in God’s plan.
First, one needs to know what is good and what is evil. Yes, the importance of renewing your mind with truth from God’s word, having the Spirit of God reveal truth to you. In the world, truth is relative. Yet, that is not in accordance with scriptural truth,truth from God. According to scripture, are we not to hate what is evil and cling to what is good? So being tolerant of things that are contrary to truth is not in accordance with the scriptural instruction to contend for the faith, that which you have received in Christ Jesus, upon which you take your stand. For it is truth that sets one free and the love of God that moves hearts and changes lives.
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