DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT TUESDAY - LET’S RENEW OUR THINKING.

Dr. J. Elder Cumming contended that "in almost every case the beginning of new blessing is a new revelation of the character of God--more beautiful, more wonderful, more precious." - J.O. Sanders.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. - Romans 12:2.

The motor home has allowed us to put all the conveniences of home on wheels. A camper no longer needs to contend with sleeping in a sleeping bag, cooking over a fire, or hauling water from a stream. Now he can park a fully equipped home on a cement slab in the midst of a few pine trees and hook up to a water line, a sewer line and electricity.

One motor home I saw recently had a satellite dish attached on top. No more bother with dirt, no more smoke from the fire, no more drudgery of walking to the stream. Now it is possible to go camping and never have to go outside. We buy a motor home with the hope of seeing new places, of getting out into the world.

Yet we deck it out with the same furnishings as in our living room. Thus nothing really changes. We may drive to a new place, set ourselves in new surrounding, but the newness goes unnoticed, for we've only carried along our old setting.

The adventure of new life in Christ begins when the comfortable patterns of the old life are left behind. - David Roher.

Don't be fashioned by this world, don’t start to think like the devil’s children!. Wow, isn't that a tough one to obey? It's a reminder to us, that what we think is one of the places of greatest spiritual warfare. Sloppy thinking is more than sloppy, it's dangerous, because we are fed messages that constantly distort God's truth, and holy values.

By the help of the power of the Holy Spirit, we can produce a spirit that should not find pleasure in the showiness and self-importance of this World; and which will regard all futile amusements and frivolities with abhorrence. We need to renew our mind to find pleasure in the things of God, by soaking in the Godly values that His word provides for us, a Holy mind with decent friends, decent conversations, and decent relationships.

All across this country, the undermining and destruction of the values that children were taught at home is going on in public schools. One of the first things a family tries to teach its children is the difference between right and wrong. One of the first things our schools try to destroy is that distinction.

The up-to-date way to carry on the destruction of traditional values is to claim to be solving some social problem like drugs, AIDS or teen-age pregnancy. Only those few people who have the time to research what is actually being done in "drug education," "sex education" or "death education" courses know what an utter fraud these labels are. For those are courses about how right and wrong are outmoded notions, about how your parents' ideas are no guide for you, and about how each person must start from scratch to develop his or her own way of behaving. - Thomas Sowell.

But rather than being exasperated by this world acting like the world, let's be transformed, by the renewal our minds, and doing what Paul said he did, take every thought, every word, captive for Christ, keeping in mind… Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. - 2Co 5:17.

London businessman Lindsay Clegg told the story of a warehouse property he was selling. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash around the interior.

As he showed a prospective buyer the property, Clegg took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.

"Forget about the repairs," the buyer said. "When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site."

Compared with the renovation God has in mind, our efforts to improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. When we become God's, the old life is over, He makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build. - Ian L. Wilson.

We often think a tithe is giving ten percent of our money, but an even more vital tithe, is giving ten percent of our thought time totally to the things of God!

Loving Father, guard my soul from pride, my heart from callousness, and my mind from too much focus on unimportant things and not enough on your things. Teach me in my heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, what it means to be about my Father's business, especially in the world of my thoughts! I ask this in the wonderful and mighty Name of Jesus. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY