“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 [KJV]

You (we) are a spirit, who has a soul, who lives in a body. You are a spiritual being, having a human (or earthly) experience. The first directive in Romans 12:2 is for us “Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs]…” To NOT be like the world (See my Blog entitled “Part 3 – Choosing Jesus as Lord) or to see, understand and to do things differently from the world.

Let’s keep in mind that the question that we are chasing is, “How do we get God’s promises out of the book and into our daily living.” The physical, materialistic things that we want have a spiritual foundation.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” Ephesians 1:3 [KJV]

What the world does (and the Christian, who doesn’t have a transformed mind) is to seek the physical, material things without an understanding of the truth that all things come from the spiritual realm, in other words the things that we want are a “by-product”, or a result of how well we embrace and are obedient to spiritual principles.

This means: 1) not doing those things that don’t line up with God’s word and 2) that we put our focus on spiritual things FIRST (Matthew 6:33).

We know that we are made in the image and likeness of God, but in John chapter 4 Jesus gives us a very meaningful insight as to how we need to communicate or relate to him,

“A time will come, however, indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people at these as His worshipers. God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth (reality).” John 4:23, 24

Notice and Jesus says that we “…MUST worship Him in spirit AND truth (reality).”, that our relationship with Him exists on more than one level, spiritually (or an unseen aspect of life) and in truth or reality (meaning the day-to-day aspects of living). We must create an environment that invites, that draws God’s promises into our lives by putting Him FIRST in all that we do.

We do have an active enemy; this is a spiritual battle, so we need to use spiritual weapons and tools in order to fight a spiritual enemy. Spiritual tools are expressed through Spiritual principles and Spiritual principles are an expression of God’s Word.

Now, here’s the thing, Spiritual principles or God’s Word have a two-fold expression: 1) Knowledge and 2) Revelation. Knowledge comes from reading God’s Word, but its revelation that gives you the understanding of “How-To” use it. How to apply His word to your life and revelation is an extension or a by-product of relationship, spending time in prayer and fellowship with God Himself.

Your relationship with God becomes the channel that His principles use to flow through and the quality of that relationship is a factor in determining the quality and quantity of His promises that you have in your life.

The most important thing that you can do so that you will not be like the world is by making the time to spend with God. From this relationship comes the revelation of how to apply His word to your daily living, which opens the floodgates to His blessings and starts His promises flowing into your life.

In part 2 of “How to Transform Your Mind” we will deal with changing HOW YOU THINK. See you then.

Pastor Michael Larkins is the Author of “Victorious Nuggets – Transforming Self-Esteem into Christ-Esteem.

For more of his blogs go to his web site www.thewealthresponse.com