October 24, 201
From the age of accountability, people’s normal behavior expresses the bad values of this world. We are conforming to this world and its sinful nature. As a person accepts the values of the world, the world’s values dictate and control their behavior.
These secular values, so accepted early in life, are seldom if ever eradicated. When you try to eliminate a value, it will replace by another value, either by design or default. This principle is in keeping with a law of nature that says, “Nature hates a vacuum.”
Jesus underscored this “vacuum” principle when He said, “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came”; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45).
In creating you, God gives you the freedom to choose your values. Choosing a worldly value is a rejection of a godly value. The choices are exclusive. God made it clear in His Word that all of us choose the wrong values. “All of us like sheep have gone astray,” said the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah and, “each of us has turned to his way” (Isaiah 53:6). Though we most often choose the wrong values, we can replace them with new ones. As the Psalmist wrote, we need to ask God to, “create in us a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within” (Psalms 51:10).
By the power of God and the miracle of the always learning mind, we continue to gain and replace values based on the lifestyle we. Paul challenges his readers to appropriate God’s values “and not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
It is essential to know all people have values, but not all people have the same values. Because values control behavior, people whose values clash with God’s values are unable to be God’s friend. Until lost people recognize their values are in opposition to God’s values and begin to replace self-values with God-values, they remain alienated and outside the Kingdom of God. The first step to Kingdom citizenship is to acknowledge responsibility for your values and begin to acquire God’s values.
In the journey ahead, we will discuss in detail each of God’s nine values.