THRIVE

Introduction

God created every function of our natural bodies, and each component is necessary for optimal health. However, from the moment we are born, there are certain requirements that are essential to our survival.      

1    Air    

2    Food    

3    Water    

4    Exercise    

5    Rest              

These basic essentials serve as a picture to help us better understand our spiritual needs in Christ. If we are missing one of these elements in proper proportions, we cannot survive. A newborn baby isn’t conscious of the phenomenon surrounding its own birth. A baby born the first time is completely dependent on another human being to make sure their essential needs are met. The baby’s caretakers oversee its care and make sure it has what they need to thrive. However, when we are born again, it is our second time being born. Therefore, we have some advantages. We aren’t dependent upon others for our spirits to prosper. There is a parallel between our natural birth and our spiritual birth. Each physiological need we have in the natural realm has a corresponding need in the spiritual realm. By using this metaphor, we are able to make educated choices, troubleshoot and diagnose dysfunction in our spiritual journey to ensure our success.              

I have met Christians who have been in church for many years but still live unfulfilled and defeated lives. Some are disappointed with where their Christianity has brought them. Others are bound by vices, bitterness and oppression. As Christians, our lives have lacked the freedom and victory that we are meant to possess. My perception of Christianity was this: if I kept all the rules and did all the right things, I would be on the right path and be pleasing to God. Many others think this way as well. I didn’t understand that living by faith alone is what would produce the beautiful life God longs for us to have. I didn't understand that resting in what Jesus accomplished on the cross would release his ability in me to live the life the Bible talks about. I had not internalized the idea that because of the blood, I was already perfect in God's sight. It was this revelation that would later empower my life to look just like his.              

God wants to deprogram us from the legalistic thinking of this world and teach us to operate in his Kingdom. Are you willing to re-evaluate how you have been living? Are you willing to examine the scriptures and consider if your ways are truly his ways? If so, get ready to embark on a journey to thrive in your relationship with God!  

Chapter 1

From Darkness to Light  

ART’S STORY

From Darkness to Light              

Though I grew up in a Christian home, I would have been described as a rambunctious and often disobedient boy. It was the early 1970s, and I was the tail end of 20 children raised by my parents. Early on, I had developed a subconscious need to be seen and heard. By the time I was twelve years old, my hunger for attention had only escalated. School became a place for me to create my own identity. I was willing to do anything to get my peers to think I was someone worthy of their interest. I lived for the right moments to crack a joke or cause a stir, oblivious to every teacher's agenda. I was always on my own mission to become my classmates’ favorite distraction.               

Once a disgruntled teacher tried spanking me with a ruler in front of the whole class. When the ruler broke, I snickered as the entire class roared with laughter. Trips to the principal's office became common, and soon I was doing many things to contribute to my new image, including using foul language on the playground, trying to make homemade cigarettes out of a tree in my backyard, lying and stealing. I was creating my own path, and it was quickly becoming a dark one.              

My parents grew concerned with my behavior and attitude. I was their fourth from the last child and their youngest son. They had been through enough by this time and didn't need another child causing them grief! I'll never forget the conversation I had with them one evening while driving to watch my older brothers play football. My parents had received a phone call from my teacher who filled them in on my devious actions at school. As our discussion progressed, I realized they knew all about what I had been doing, including using the “F” word and trying to smoke cigarettes at school. The more they talked, the clearer the distress I was causing them became. As I sat there listening with my head hung low, waves of embarrassment swept over me, and my heart was filled with a heavy conviction. I felt sick to my stomach as I began to realize what my neediness had turned me into. My heart was breaking to see how I was hurting my gentle parents. In the end, what I truly wanted was for them to be proud of me. That night, with my heart broken, I made up my mind that things would be different. Though it was not instantaneous, this marked the beginning of real change in my life.              

Soon after this time, my oldest brother, Paul, who had spent 20 years as a missionary in Brazil, was home not only for a much-needed rest but also to assist my mom and dad with their struggling, twelve-year-old boy. It was the example of his life that would soon draw me to the Word of God and an experience that changed my life forever.               

Paul and I shared the same room. I remember going to sleep watching him burning the midnight oil, digging for treasures in the Bible. I would often wake up at 2 a.m. or later to see him still glued to his Bible and concordances. Why did he love the Bible? What was so great about it that would keep him up into the wee hours of the night, searching?               

Because I respected Paul and he never asked, I decided I would open up the book and try reading it for myself. As I read, I became overwhelmed with a sense of my eternity without God. One night, on August 7, 1974, after a month or two of reading the Bible every night, I somehow knew for sure that if I were to die that night, I would spend eternity without the God of love and grace I had been reading about. I turned over in my bed and quietly asked God to save me, to come into my life, and to make me his own.              

At that moment, a vivid vision burst into my mind. In the vision, the sun had gone down, and I, wearing a huge, black backpack, battled for every weary step up the rocky hill toward the cross before me. As I was reaching the foot of the cross, I instantly saw and felt the backpack coming off of my shoulders and rising into the air until it was entirely out of sight. I immediately felt a freedom and change that rocked my world and altered the next eight years of my life.              

Being born again is the most wonderful and beautiful experience a person can have this side of heaven. It causes a person to be translated from the kingdom of darkness and confusion into the kingdom of light and revelation! Apostle Paul wrote, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Col 1:13-14 When you give your life to Christ, you become born again. That term can be confusing, but in this book, I will endeavor to help you understand the beautiful act of creation that happens when someone is born into the family of God!

BORN AGAIN              

Though I heard about Christ and being born again every day of my life, it didn't mean much until I realized I needed real change. As a young boy striving for approval and affirmation from others, I realized I had little connection with God. While my conversion was impactful throughout my high school years, later on, it didn’t keep me from illicit sex, drugs, and the accompanying lifestyle. Though I was truly saved at twelve years of age, my continued search for approval outside of Christ took me far away from him. Is it possible to grow up in a Christian home, give your life to Christ and become a believer but still miss out on understanding the wonderful Christian life? Yes, it is! I found this out firsthand.              

I continued to serve God the best I knew how. I memorized many large sections of Scripture and read the Bible through every year. I spent those eight years witnessing to everybody who would listen and following all the rules I thought pleased God. In my efforts to do it all right, I had no idea how far I was drifting from God’s amazing plan of grace and abundance. There was so much I didn’t understand.

Being born again is more than turning over a new leaf. It’s more than trying hard to be a good boy or girl. It is a supernatural phenomenon whereby the Spirit of God enters into you via his Word and becomes one with your spirit. Jesus explained this process of being born again to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who was part of the Jewish ruling council. Even though many of the Pharisees didn’t recognize Jesus as anything other than a dissident and a danger to their religious control, Nicodemus’ curiosity caused him to sneak into the night to inquire of Jesus.               

“‘Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ In reply, Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’   ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth; no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’” John 3:2-8              

Nicodemus knew Jesus was from God because Jesus was healing the sick and raising the dead. Jesus, however, changed the subject to speak of the real miracle of being born a second time. Jesus knew that his coming death on the cross was soon to release the Kingdom of God (the rule and reign of the Holy Spirit) on the earth and that men everywhere would be able to receive this kingdom inside of them. He explained that to enter that Kingdom of God or even perceive it, you would have to be born again. This is the miracle that took place inside of me that summer in 1974. I became one with the Spirit of God through the seed of God’s Word.              

This scripture about Nicodemus also implies that there are two types of births, one of the flesh and one of the spirit. The birth of the flesh came about because your biological father’s seed was planted in your biological mother’s womb. However, the second birth comes about because of God’s seed (His words, the Bible). 1 Peter 1:23 says, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, (the seed from your father) but of imperishable, (the seed from your Eternal Father) through the living and enduring Word of God.” In the second birth, the seed planted in the garden of your heart was the Word of God, God himself. 1 John 1:1 Therefore, the womb or incubator of God’s seed is your heart.  

THE GARDEN OF YOUR HEART              

Many of us don’t think of words as seed, but God does. In the Parable of The Sower, we see these things to be so. Specifically, Luke says it like this, “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering, produce a crop.” Luke 8:15 According to this scripture, you could think of your heart like soil, like a garden. Your goal as a good gardener would be to allow the Word to be sown in the soil of your heart and to keep that Word in your heart by guarding and cultivating it. This means believing the Word! When you believe the Word, you do what it says.              

To explain this spiritual phenomenon of being born again further, I want you to hear my wife tell her story of coming from a non-Christian background to the life-changing revelation of Jesus Christ and his forever love through that same seed, the Word of God. Here is her story:            

CHANEY’S STORY  

With the heart man believes              

Being translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light was a tangible experience for me. I went from knowing nothing about Christ to walking and talking with Him every moment I could. I got saved at the age of 20, and before that time, I had never heard the good news of Christ.               

In my sophomore year in college at Washington State University, I began attending a Bible study. The study was held in homes, at sororities, or on campus. After attending several studies, the primary truths of the Word that began to take root in my heart were: 1. There is a God. 2. Jesus is God. 3. Jesus died on the cross for my sin. While these truths were likely being repeated through parables and other topics of discussion, they stood out as undeniable and required me to make a choice.         

What was I going to do with what I was hearing? Prior to this, my religious experience had been Buddhism from my mother, Hinduism from my step-mother, and atheism from my father. Consequently, believing that there really was a God was outside my worldview. In my mind, believing in a God was something you did when you were young, like believing in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Jesus was just a baby in a manger that some people celebrated at Christmas, but not my family. If you had asked me, I would have said I was a Christian because, to me, being a Christian meant that you were a good person.              

The Word had been penetrating my heart at the Bible study for months. I faithfully attended because I felt if I could just learn more, I would understand God better, and then I could make an educated decision. Finally, at a particular study in a conference room in the Student Union Building on campus, the man who often led the studies told me, “You trying to understand God is like trying to take all the oceans of the world and putting them into a tiny thimble.”              

The uselessness of my efforts became apparent as I compared the vastness of God to my finite brain. There was no chance that I could figure out any of this. I had two options: surrender to the truth I had been hearing or reject it as a lie. The God of the Bible was trying to reveal himself to me, but I was so uncertain about what I was hearing. What the man was saying was the opposite of everything I had ever learned. After each study, there would be a short salvation message, and people would come forward to give their lives to Christ. After rejecting their offers of salvation, I would stay and watch those who prayed to receive Christ because I wanted so badly to know if it was real. Clearly, they were experiencing something because tears would stream down their faces as they prayed to God. I felt like an outsider looking in, as if there were this invisible realm right in front of me, but I couldn't access it.               

I needed to make a response to access this eternal life that was being freely offered. Romans 10:9-10 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified (made right with God), and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”  Jesus died for the sin of the whole world. Salvation is available to every person; however, to reap the blessings and benefits of that salvation you must believe. Why? Because there is a supernatural act that occurs when you believe the Word of God. Believing births what you have conceived!               

Our hearts are the soil that the seed of the Word is sown in. We have the “response-ability” to believe what God has said. When we hear God’s Word, we are given the ability (power) to respond. The response of believing gives us right standing with God because it births God himself in us when we believe his words. Additionally, it is with our mouth and actions that we prove what we believe.         

As I listened to the Word, I made a choice to believe it. It is an act of faith and humility as we proclaim that the way we’ve been living is wrong and that God is right. Proclaiming Jesus is Lord means we are declaring and agreeing that Jesus is the supreme authority in all of the universe. He becomes the Lord, the Master, and the source of everything we need. If what God has done is really true and he is who he says he is, it is a game-changer. You cannot understand that God paid the penalty for your sin and not feel the intense gravity pulling you to make an appropriate response. I figured if God gave his life, he must want mine. I was right. At this point, I must surrender equally or reject it completely.               

The beauty is that this Lord and Master is not an angry tyrant, but a wonderful, loving God that gave his very life so that we could receive all that he is. When we believe this, all the benefits of salvation, healing and deliverance come to our sin-laden lives, and we receive freedom and forgiveness to walk as his victorious children, literally, his offspring!              

While pointing to his Bible that lay on the table between us, I said aloud to the man who had been sharing the good news with me, “Okay, tell me everything it says.” I was thinking to myself, “‘cause if this doesn’t work it will be your fault.” It would be his fault because I had made up my mind to do everything it said. In that moment, I surrendered to the Word of God. I surrendered to the Bible we read to at every Bible study. I surrendered to the words I had already heard in the Bible and to the ones I hadn’t heard yet. I surrendered to God, the speaker of those words.              

As we prayed, the Spirit of God met me with a tangible presence, and my tears flowed. I couldn’t stop them. I was overwhelmed that someone so great wanted to meet someone as insignificant as me. That day I understood that God is a person, and he desperately wanted me to know him. I left campus that day talking to God like a long-lost friend, and I haven’t stopped since. At that moment, in that long, narrow conference room, my spirit joined with the Word of Christ, and I became born again.

A NEW CREATION              

My wife believed the Word, and subsequently, her life radically changed. She felt like “a sock that was turned inside out.” In an instant, God took his hand and reached all the way to the toe of her life and pulled it right side in. She had become a “blank slate.” She knew that everything she had ever learned was wrong, and she needed God to write on the blank tablet of her heart. This need kept her in constant communion with God.               

When you believed the Word, it birthed Christ in you. “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” 1 Peter 1:23 God’s seed is his eternal Word. Your spirit and the Spirit of Christ became one. You became a newborn babe, a child of God! Your spirit became alive to Christ. If you are a new Christian, Christ needs to continue to grow up in you. If you are an older Christian, Christ is still growing in you. “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation…” 1 Peter 2:2 (NIV)               

As the Galatian believers began to get deceived and fall away from the faith, Paul cried out for them saying, “My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” Galatians 4:19 God’s plan for sinful man was not to try and make our flesh better. His plan was to become one with us again by birthing Christ in us, thus creating a whole new creation. Is it okay for a newborn baby to make mistakes? Absolutely! If he or she stays close to the source, he/she will gradually learn the necessary elements of life, and maturity will naturally come. The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) God wants to teach you a new way to live. He wants to write on the blank tablet of your heart. He wants to share his profound essentials to abundant living.  

LIFE MORE ABUNDANT              

Once you’ve been born a second time, we can begin to examine more closely how you can thrive. Like a good father, God cares about every area of your life and wants you to grow to be like him in every way. Jesus said it like this, “I came that they may have life and that more abundantly.” John 10:10b (NAS) The apostle, John, adds to this thought by saying, “I wish above all things that you would prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.” 3 John 1:2 (KJV) Because God cares about you, he has a plan to implement his prosperity into every area of your life. His plan for you is an incredible transformation process that supernaturally causes you to achieve, through him, things you could never achieve by yourself. This magnificent plan is that, by his grace, you would think, feel, and act just like him.              

When I was younger, I didn’t know what it was to walk by faith and live in the Spirit. If I had only understood how differently my life would have progressed. That is what this book is all about. This book will bless and empower you to live in all God has created you to be. You are supposed to love being you, and your Christianity should be rewarding and fulfilling! Whether you have been saved for a few hours or a few decades, this book will inspire you in the secrets of living the abundant Christian life you have always longed for!      

Questionnaire:  

1. What must you do to be able to see the Kingdom of heaven? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. ___________________ gives birth to flesh, and ____________________ gives birth to spirit.  

3. According to the parable in Luke 8:15 about the Sower Sowing the Seed, you could think of your heart like ____________ or a _________, and God’s Word like _____________.  

4. If your heart is a garden, who is the gardener?  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Does God want you to barely exist? What kind of life does he want you to have? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. You have been born again through the ______________ of God.  

7. Are you willing to be a blank slate and to allow God to write on the tablet of your heart? What are some areas where you believe your thinking needs to change? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________