Most of us eat every day, some of us too much, because yesterday's
food is not enough to supply energy for today's needs. Why then, do
some of us expect yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to keep
us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going to change all
of that. Let's experience God's words today and receive the power we need to
live healthy, vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker L. David Harris. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning.
It is Monday, August fourteen, twenty twenty three. Hello, my
name is L. David Harris. I am your host, and this is
your Daily Portion where we give you God's Word every single day, and today
is no exception. We are continuing in our lesson study through the Book of
Ephesians, and our caption for today is a dramatic change of clothing. A
dramatic change of clothing. We'll get into that in just a moment, but
first I'd like to say welcome to you and ask you to go over to
your Daily Portion dot com, pick up your Daily Portion book, and also
join our online community where we grow and build faith and fellowship, and of
course I'd like to know where you are in the world, so just type
it into that website, your Daily Portion dot com, and I get text
messages all day long. When you do that, that lets me know where
you are, and it encourages me because now I know that you're brightening the
corner where you are, as the songwriter would have penned, and the gospel
is being spread from the vantage point of where you are. Right if you're
in a crow in Ghana, then I know from that vantage point the Gospel
is moving. And if you are in Finland or in Norway, if you
are in Nigeria or somewhere else in the world Fiji, you are sharing the
gospel and we know that Jesus Christ will come back very soon. Please let's
go ahead and pray and then we will get underway. Father in Heaven,
thank you for the privilege that we have to come together, and for my
brothers and sisters who are literally all around the world, hundreds of radio stations,
scores of websites and stuff on the Internet that are broadcasting the message of
the gospel where your Daily Portion is concerned, and Father, I pray that
we will all be holy and that we will have this new change of clothing
in Jesus name. I pray Amen and Amen again. Pardon that sound,
My mike is creaky. Yeah, So retelling the story of his conversion?
What is essential to Paul? What is essential to Paul as he shares the
story. So we're going to go to Ephesians chapter four, the Book of
Ephesians, chapter four, and I will read Versus twenty through twenty four.
We want to see what is essential in his discussion. All right, and
so it says here, but ye have not so learned. Of course,
we're talking about that unholy living, the uncleanness, and the greediness and lasciviousness,
and all of that kind of stuff, blindness and ignorance of our hearts.
What God is saying here is like, that is not how you learned
Christ. He's saying that through Paul verse twenty one. If so be that
ye have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is
in Jesus put off, put off concerning the former conversation, that is behavior
or lifestyle, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Notice that the transformation
takes place in the mind or the mind set verse twenty four. And that
ye put on the new Man, which is after God or after God,
is created in righteousness and holiness. I want to read a couple of more
verses here, wherefore putting away lying, speaking every man truth with his neighbor,
for we are neighbors of one another. Be he angry and sin not,
let not the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to
the devil. And so now we see in clear terms a contrast of lifestyles.
But really sometimes we get caught up on this concept of lifestyle, not
understanding that it is our mindsets that drive lifestyle, not behaviors. Can I
just say that for just a moment, I'm going to sit here. There
are times that people who claim to love God, and maybe we even do
when we're doing this and we just need more understanding. Right, we are
focused, hyper focused on behavior as not an indicator of our mindset, but
as a way to prove who we are. Right. So if I behave
just right, and I don't want to go down a list because you're gonna
send me messages and then it's going to be clear that you didn't get what
I was saying. Right. What I'm saying here is that we focus outwardly.
I'm gonna quote the Bible here, man looketh on the outward of parents.
But God sees the heart. God looketh upon the heart. God sees,
like Haygar said, right, God sees me. So God is saying
that I will transform you from the inside out. Don't look at the white
washed sepulcher. Where on the outside of the cup, on the outside of
the sepulker, it looks clean and nice, but on the inside it's dead
men's bones. On the inside it is dirty. So what God is saying
is I can transform you by the renewing of your minds. And so when
Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden, God had created everything to
be good, good, very good. Right. He had given them everything
that they absolutely needed in order to live a prosperous and holy life. And
they could make a decision simply and just do what God said, no problem,
easy work. Until Eve was deceived by the devil who was disguised as
a serpent. She ate of the tree, that or ate of the fruit
of the tree that God commanded that she should not have eaten, and then
she gave to her husband Adam, and he did eat. She fell into
sin through deception. He jumped into sin full volition, in the sense that
he knew exactly was it, what was at stake. He had no spell
over his eyes, like he knew exactly what went wrong, and he still
jumped into sin with Eve. So now both of them are naked, they're
ashamed, they're hiding in the bushes. And by the way, they come
to a point where they try to cover their sins, cover their guilt.
I think you know where we're going now. They try to cover up their
inadequacies with something that is artificial, something that cannot actually accomplish the goal,
and that made them be even more separated from God. Like they try to
cover their sin and shame with self righteousness fig leaves. The Bible says they
were aprons of fig leaves. Now, I don't know how aprons were in
Eden, but I can think of the way they are now. Even the
biggest aprons, right that go around your neck, go over your head,
and then you have this really big pad in front of you with pockets,
and then you tie it around your waist and you look protected from at least
the top of your chest down to the top of your knees. Right,
But just imagine turning around it now, Like imagine if this is covering your
shame and you turn around and your nakedness is still visible. As you turn
your back, you see. Self righteousness leaves us uncovered, full stop,
not partially covered, not partially naked, like completely uncovered. Because the only
righteousness that matters, Yes, the righteousness that matters in the register of Heaven
is Christ's righteousness. And you're gonna say, but Dave, but what about
our own righteousness? Well, the Bible says our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
And so what he wants us to do is to yield ourselves to God
and yield the wicked, wickedness that we have done, and yield even those
filtered, curated, tidally organized holy things, at least in air quotes,
those things that we think make us holy. Like he wants us to give
all of that to him, give it all. He wants us to give
our so called tithe paying our so called Bible study. He wants to give
wants us like say, I'm a preacher, and you know I am like
my preaching. He wants to give our Bible studies. He wants us to
give, pardon me, all of our great behavior years in front of the
crowd, like he wants us to give all of those sweet nothings that we
whisper to our spouses, and the ways that sometimes people try to hide in
front like we're doing well but we're really not. Yeah, he wants us
to give him all of the so called good and all of the evil to
him. And in our yielding he gives us a new change of clothes.
M He gives us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and the transformation is in
our mind set. And then when we begin to act out or behave,
we are behaving in the way that Jesus behaved. And we are holy,
not because we are holy by ourselves, but because we have the life of
Christ covering us and the mindset of Christ in us. Have a wonderful day,
Peace, Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God. This has been your daily portion with l David Harris. Make it
a great day.