YOU
ARE WHAT YOU EAT Part 2
“Rhythm
of Life” Series
CONNECT
One
summer Alba and were working to make some extra money. I worked on a potato
digger. Now this piece of machinery would be dragged behind a tractor through
the field where the upturned potato plants would be harvested, the tops cut off
and the bulb dropped on a conveyor that ran between two rows of workers. The
workers would pull out rocks, weeds, rotten potatoes and other sundry trash.
Things would really get exciting when a rattlesnake that had been napping in
the shade of a potato plant would come slithering and mad over the conveyor!
I’ve never moved that fast in my life!
TENSION Everything in our
life has a source. We may be looking for a harvest but instead we get rocks and
weeds and rattlesnakes!
SOLUTION
We
need to do life from the right sources. You are what you eat. Jesus said that “out
of our innermost man would flow rivers of living water.”
TEXT
2 Peter 1:5-8
(NKJV)
But
also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge
self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to
godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these
things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
INSTRUCTION
You
are what you eat. This 8 course meal starts with faith. The next course is virtue.
Just what is virtue?
Virtue. Some other translations
have moral excellence, goodness, energy, good character, worthiness, praise. All
of these are good synonyms. But I believe it is something more.
I
believe virtue is the inward witness of the conscience. It is what we are on
the inside.
Romans
7:22
(NKJV) For I delight in
the law of God according to the inward man.
Psalms
40:8
(NKJV)
I
delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.
Something
inside me… a little voice inside me…
It
really is all about the heart. Not the blood pump, but that part of us that
determines who we are from the inside out. This old song says it very well…
I
guess it all comes down to where your heart is. It's there your thoughts and
feelings all begin; but if you never give your heart to Jesus, you’ll never
really have a part in Him.
Luke
6:45
(NKJV) A good man out of
the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the
evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart
his mouth speaks.
Whatever
is in the well is gonna come up in the bucket!
Mark
7:21-23
(NKJV)
For
from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye,
blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and
defile a man.
The
problem is we have wicked hearts.
Jeremiah
17:9
(NKJV)
The
heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
Matthew
15:8
(NKJV) These people draw near to Me with their
mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
Titus
1:15-16
(NKJV) To the pure all
things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but
even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in
works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every
good work.
God
tells that we can come near to Him with a pure heart. We can see Him with a
pure heart.
Psalms
24:3-4
(NKJV) Who may ascend
into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean
hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up
his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully.
Matthew
5:8
(NKJV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
What
is a pure heart? How do we know if our heart is pure? How do we get a pure
heart?
First, it is a heart
that has no mixture, no contamination, no impurity.
Pure
gold… pure white…
So
many things compete for our affections today… What competes with God in your
life?
Deuteronomy
6:5
(NKJV)
You
shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Second, a pure heart
only sees one vision, one focus.
Single-minded…
I only have eyes for Jesus…
Matthew
6:22
(KJV)
The
light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
The
root of all trouble in the Christian life is being double-minded.
Luke
16:13
(NKJV)
No
servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve God and mammon.
James
1:6-8
(NKJV) But let him ask
in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven
and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive
anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man,
unstable in all his ways.
In
his book, Pigs in the Parlor, Pastor Frank Hammond teaches that all
demonic oppression stems from a root of schizophrenia, which literally means “a
split mind”. The Greek word literally means "two souls". I am not referring to the clinical mental
illness, but a spiritual root. Paul recognized it. He describes it in Romans
7.
Deliverance
comes from a pure heart.
James
4:7-8
(NKJV)
Therefore
submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and
He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
The
good news is that God says that He will give us a new heart. This is how the OT
prophets describes it.
Jeremiah
31:33-34
(NKJV)
But
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those
days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and
they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the
least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their
iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
Ezekiel
11:19-20
(NKJV) Then I will give
them one heart, and I will put a new spirit
within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and
keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their
God.
APPLICATION
Learning
to listen to the virtue that is inside of us, in our hearts, our spirits is so
important to walking in victory.
1
Corinthians 10:12-13 NKJV Therefore let him
who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you
except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to
be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the
way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Spiral of
Defeat/Victory
Without - Within
Body - Soul -
Spirit
External -
Internal Trigger
Thought -
Revelation
Temptation -
Escape
Sin - Victory
Habit - Habit
Stronghold -
Deliverance
Demon - Freedom
Isaiah
30:21 (NKJV) Your ears shall
hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you
turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.
