7 Basics. Beth Jones P.

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      If you think about it, yesterday, you may have been a low-down, rotten, no-good sinner; you may have been agnostic, atheist, anti-Christ or apathetic towards God. You may have been the biggest partier on campus, the most promiscuous girl in your workplace or the bad-to-the-bone guy in your circle of friends. Maybe your sins were a mile high and you thought you were unworthy of God’s love––but now you know, you weren’t too far away to receive Jesus and His mercy.

      At the other extreme, you may have been the nicest person in your world and the most pure-as-the-driven-snow, goody-two-shoes ever known. You may have given money to charity, housed the homeless and marched for every cause you believed in. You might have been a religious, churchgoer that didn’t miss a single Sunday service. Maybe your good deeds and religious pedigree were a thousand acres deep and you figured you were doing a pretty good job trusting in your own good efforts––but now you know, you weren’t good enough to live without Jesus and His mercy.

      The truth be told; we all need Jesus. He came from heaven to earth, to die on a cross to give us a complete do-over––the worst among us and the best among us.

      THE BIGGEST PIVOT POINT

      When you turned from your own ways to the Lord, He came running with His love and mercy. This was the biggest pivot point of your life. When you believed in Jesus and received Him into your life by faith, He pardoned and removed all of your sins, exchanged your attempts to be self-righteous with His perfect righteousness and welcomed you into His family as His very own child.

      Listen to this, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west,” Psalm 103:12, NLT. He said He would not remember them any longer. He didn’t just forgive and remove your sins. He actually changed your status. God has acquitted you of every sin, pronounced you not guilty and made you righteous in His eyes. “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe,” Romans 3:22, NIV. Your sins are gone. You’ve been made righteous. What a gift!

      In God’s eyes, because of Jesus and His work on the cross, you have been reconciled to God. You can stand before God just as if you have never sinned.

      What does this mean? According to God’s view, it means: you’re a true Christian. You’re a believer. You’ve been born again. You’re saved. You’ve been redeemed. You’re a follower of Jesus. You’re a friend of God. What do all of these things really mean? They mean you have become a new person and your eternal destination has been rerouted. Before you accepted or confessed Jesus as your Lord, you were separated from God because of your sin. You were lost and taking a one-way trip to an eternal separation from God in a terrible place called hell. Because of God’s love and mercy––when you received Jesus, He saved you and reset your eternal destination to heaven! God wrote your name in the Book of Life––His reservation book in Heaven.

      Does this sound familiar? “It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You

      filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah,” Ephesians 2:1-6, MSG.

      Not only is your eternal destination secure, the rest of your life on earth has the potential to be very different because of Jesus and His gift of salvation. You are in for an exciting adventure as you get to know the Lord and walk with Him. So, what now?

      THE LEARNING CURVE

      Whenever you start anything new, there is a learning curve. Whether you’re an athlete or a new employee, there is a learning curve to master. If you’re visiting a foreign country, trying to understand a new computer program or figuring out how to use an app on your phone, there’s going to be a time period of learning. There are new words to memorize; new people to meet; new things to discover and new processes and systems to understand.

      The same thing is true in your new relationship with the Lord. From the time you are born again until you become a fully functional mature believer, there is a learning curve. Getting to know God is just like getting to know a new Person! This takes time. There’s a whole new glossary of Bible words to learn. There are many new spiritual things to discover. Fortunately, you have the best teacher in all of Creation––God Himself, Who will take you by the hand and help you to learn.

      PUT DOWN ROOTS

      Think about this spiritual learning curve like you would think about caring for a very precious plant. You are that plant! Through being attentive, patient and focused on the right things you can grow a healthy, fruitful plant with deep roots. In the same way, as you give your attention to the 7 Basics, focusing on the content and Scriptures in each chapter, you will grow into a very beautiful, healthy, fruitful Christian with strong roots firmly planted in God.

      Remember, getting rooted in the Lord takes time. You will have questions about God and you may feel like you should know more than you do; be patient. You won’t have all the answers overnight. It will take time for you to grow in your knowledge of God, but as you get started, you will sense your spiritual roots growing and getting stronger in the Lord.

      Always keep this in mind; if you want a big life with God, you will need deep roots! It takes a lot of time––up to several decades––to grow a large, stately oak tree with a strong root system as its foundation. It takes less than a month to grow a full-sized mushroom; however, a mushroom’s root system is very shallow. In order to have a root system like a majestic oak tree, rather than the shallow roots of a mushroom fungus, you will need to carve out time to get to know the Lord.

      A friend of mine, and her husband, own a large greenhouse operation and she told me some very interesting things about the art of growing plants. She said that they can “force grow” a plant by using certain techniques, but they have to be very careful otherwise the plant will grow too quickly and have a few fatal flaws.

      First, if the growth is forced too quickly, the plant will never produce fruit. Isn’t that sad, a plant that is supposed to produce fruit will never develop any! Second, if they accelerate the growth too much, the root system will not have a chance to develop properly. If this plant were to be transplanted to a natural outdoor environment, it would likely not survive because it did not have time to develop hearty roots that could withstand winds, storms and a harsh environment.

      What a great analogy for the growth and development of your life as a Christian. God won’t “force grow” your life. He wants you to produce fruit and He wants you to have hearty roots so that you can survive and thrive in the harsh elements of this world. Give yourself an advantage and take time to allow for healthy, balanced spiritual growth.

      Psalm 1 is a great description of what God has in store for you as you get rooted in the basics. “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do,” Psalm 1:1-3, NLT.

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