Day 1 - The Birth of Change

SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:17 -
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old has gone, the new has come!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Drenda and I are so excited to launch Celebrate Freedom with you this week. Celebrate Freedom is a three-year window that we have set aside to propel the families and ministry of Faith Life Church to a new level of excellence. A church in itself is really only as free as its families, so in essence, Celebrate Freedom is about your freedom. My goal is to mentor and encourage you throughout the entire process as we grow and change together. For freedom to take over our lives we must first recognize where we are living in bondage or if we are living below the freedom that God desires. The best place to find God's will here is His Word, and when we find our lives do not match up to what God says, we must then look intently at ourselves and ask God to show us how to change.

I have been in the ministry now for going on 20 years, and I have learned that people do not change unless they are either are forced to or they have a strong desire to. For instance, I know of a man that smoked for over 20 years. Although he wanted to quit he just couldn't seem to muster the strength to do so. During a routine physical, his doctor told him that if he kept on smoking he would die an early death. That man has not had a cigarette since that day. The doctor was the catalyst of change that he needed. However, we do not have to come to a dangerous or pressured place to make changes in our lives-sometimes that may be too late. Romans 12:2 gives us a mandate to change:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Paul is talking about renewing our minds to the thoughts of God. The word transformed here is from the Greek word from which we get our word metamorphosis. When we think of metamorphosis, we think of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. A caterpillar is very limited in its ability to go far; but a Monarch butterfly flies thousands of miles, all the way to Mexico during winter and back again, without ever having been there before. A butterfly soars over the limitations of the earth-bound caterpillar. In the same way, God has given us His Kingdom, which is in us. By applying these new Kingdom laws, we can walk in life with success and above the limitations of our past. We are truly new creatures in Christ Jesus!

ACTION: Make a list of what you want to change about your life!

Celebrating Freedom Together,
Pastor Gary Keesee