Seven Steps to Change

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, I turned to a scripture in Hebrews 8, and I'd like to take you back there as a beginning. It's a little trick of mine. If you don't have a sermon idea fully together, just go back to what you talked about last week. Hebrews 8, and beginning in verse 8. This was kind of a foundation scripture that I went through to talk about, if you remember, the foundation of change, whatever change we make in our life, and change is what these days of Unleavened Bread is all about. If any change we make, it's got to be done on this basis as described here in Hebrews, which is a quote from the prophet Jeremiah, and is the essence of the New Covenant and our relationship with God. In Hebrews 8, in verse 8, it says, because finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. And then in verse 10, he says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That's another advantage of having a wireless mic. When you forget something, you can go and get it and keep the service going right along there. This was the foundation, as I brought out last week, a foundation of change. And it's scriptural. It's really, as I said, the essence of our relationship with God, the law being written in our mind and on our hearts. And whatever change we anticipate making, whatever we think we need to do, it has to be on the heart and it has to be on the mind by the Spirit of God, or it won't be done right and it likely won't last. And most importantly, it will not last and bring us to the Kingdom and to the type of change and repentance that is necessary for us to enter into the Kingdom of God. The Days of Unleavened Bread is about sin, putting out sin.

It's about change, recognizing areas of our life that we need to change. I don't know what you've discovered about yourself during this season leading up to the Holy Days and what has been in your heart and in your mind and what you have learned. I hope that it has been something meaningful. I hope that as God's Spirit has worked with us all, we have examined ourselves and come to see certain things and had them identified to us by God's Spirit, by whatever method, and that we acknowledge it and recognize it.

Now, the question is, what will we do about it? Will these days come to a close at sundown tonight and nothing has really taken place in our hearts and our minds to move us a little closer to the Kingdom? Or will it be there? If this Scripture, as I take the liberty of terming it, is the foundation of change, then what are the steps to change? What are the steps to repentance? Again, I mentioned last week that there are all kinds of books and methods and theories and formulas that have been published and written for a long, long period of time to develop our lives, to bring us to the changes that we need.

What I had to pick up from my front seat here was a bag full of books that I brought here for the sermon this morning. I know it's always a challenge, a little bit of a fear, when a minister brings a bunch of books up. Years past, when I was a kid growing up in the church, if I saw a minister get up on the pulpit with a bunch of books, I knew it was going to be a long day.

I didn't have the comfortable seats that most of you are sitting on today. They were hard back then. But I promise I'm not going to read from these books. I just brought them up as props because I pulled them this morning off of my bookshelf.

There are a number of books that I've collected over the years, and not all of them. Some of them will be familiar to you, but there are books that talk about change. This is a very familiar one that a number of you probably have on your bookshelf by Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

This is a very good book. This almost, for a period of time, like so many other books, becomes kind of the second Bible within the Church of God. You hear a lot of sermons and articles written off of various things. Stephen Covey has made his way through our culture and has made a very good contribution.

I, quite frankly, continue to go back to this book and use certain of his principles. Certainly all of them are valuable. And I still use some of his principles in a just daily planner that I keep, and trying to keep my life organized and get things done. I found it to be very helpful. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He wrote a book here about a year or so ago. He moved on to the eighth habit. I don't recommend this one so much. This would seem to be a rehash of everything else, but he added an eighth habit.

And it was not quite as big a bestseller as the seven habits here. I've got other books on development, personal change. You know, all through the years, people will get someone from history, and they'll write a book about the leadership habits of Genghis Khan. I've even seen that out there on the marketplace. This was a book I bought several years ago, Lincoln on Leadership. Going Through the Life of Abraham Lincoln. And Executive Strategies for Tough Times. And How to Deal with People, and Manage and Organize Your Life. They've even gone even further back in American history. While at Mount Vernon years ago, the home of George Washington, I picked up a book called, Maxims of George Washington, which is a compilation of George Washington's sayings that he had collected and given out to others through his life, and were collected from his writings.

That are very interesting, very helpful in some ways, but George Washington is another one like that. They even go back further in time. I found another book a few years ago called, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. This is a fun book. It's an interesting book. And Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. Needless to say, I haven't read all of this book yet. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. The title catches you and you're like, if I were to have the creativity and the abilities of that renaissance, I wouldn't be able to accomplish all kinds of things.

Again, interesting stories and principles that you can glean a number of things from in your life. There are all kinds of other books. It is a major, major business. I saw in yesterday's paper that, again, I think this month, later on at the RCA Convention Center, you could go, if you want, to an all-day seminar and hear everybody from Zig Ziglar to Colin Powell to Peyton Manning pump you up with all kinds of motivational speeches. I went to one of those 25 years ago, another elder, and I went to one of those in Nashville, Tennessee. Zig Ziglar was there at that time, Paul Harderby and a lot of the others were there. They were interesting, and I came away thinking, it's kind of a one-day feast of tabernacles for salesmen, is what it kind of boils down to.

You really get motivated all day long from everybody, and they want you to buy their tapes and books and everything else. But there are so many of them. This is just a small representative sampling of habits, steps to take, to change, to develop. They can all be very profitable and very helpful. But brethren, as good as these are, and as helpful as they might be to you and I, will they get us into the Kingdom? Are they the seven steps that we need to get to the Kingdom of God and salvation? I submit, we ought to take a second look at that, that there is something in Scripture that we should look at here this morning for a few minutes that will be a little bit better for us to examine and understand in regard to that particular step.

It's found in the book of 2 Corinthians. Paul, going even further back in history and time, Paul gave seven steps. He gave seven steps to change. We tend to call them seven steps to repentance. In 2 Corinthians 7. Let's begin in verse 8. Now, again, I'm assuming that we all remember the story of the Corinthian church. She had to write a very strong corrective letter in the first book of Corinthians because of a number of problems and issues they had there, immorality that they tolerated, doctrinal problems and heresies. Some of them didn't even believe in the resurrection. They were not taking the Passover properly. They were divided among themselves in the various factions, just divided right along personalities.

The Corinthian church had a number of issues that he had to address. If that was all we knew about Corinth from the first book, it would be a rather dire picture. Fortunately, we had the second book of Corinthians. We see through the stories we read in 2 Corinthians that what Paul had to say to them in correcting them in the first book was effective and made some changes. They began to deal with their issues and they cleaned it up.

In other words, they changed and they repented. We see that as we move here into chapter 7 and beginning in verse 8. Let's look at verse 2. He says, Open your hearts to us. We've wronged no one. We've corrupted no one. We've cheated no one. He's appealing to them. Look, if you have a problem, the problem is yours.

I've not hurt you. I've not cheated you. I've not taken from you. Open your heart to me. Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Verse 4, I'm filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all of your tribulation. For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled in every side. Outside were conflicts and inside were fears. Nevertheless, God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. Paul was concerned as to how his letter had been taken. Would it cause them to just all completely disappear and he would no longer have a church in Corinth?

Would they take it the wrong spirit and distrust and reject him? So he was torn up inside in regard to that. But Titus came and he said, by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted in you, when he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more. Even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it.

He had no repentance on addressing the issues that he had in the letter. For I perceive that the same epistle or letter made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoiced not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were not made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. Your godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation. Not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. And so he talks of two different types of sorrow. The sorrow of the world, which leads to death because it's only temporary, or perhaps it's only incomplete. The changes that might be made by coercion, by fear.

If I could say, brethren, the changes that are not written on our heart and on our mind by the Spirit of God, and are not going to therefore be lasting and enduring, are the ones that could lead ultimately to the description of being a worldly sorrow.

But he says here in verse 10, he says, you were made sorrow in a godly manner. You came to a godly change. And then in verse 11, he says, or verse 10, he says, godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. The changes that they made that were godly, that were written by the Spirit of God on their hearts and minds, will lead to salvation.

And that, brethren, is what we need to have. Those are the changes. Those are the habits. Those are the steps. Those are the maxims upon which we build with the foundation of God's Spirit writing in our mind and on our heart. And he goes on to show what they are in verse 11.

For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. Seven steps. Seven things Paul mentions in verse 11. Seven habits of highly repentant people, if you will, that lead not to just a change to be a better manager, to be a better salesperson, to be a better person, but to salvation. And brethren, those are the steps, the habits, the points of change that all of us should want to learn and develop in our life because they lead to the kingdom of God.

These others are fine, too, and can quite frankly augment many things in our life. As Mark said about Mr. Covey's seven habits, I still read this from time to time. I'm not criticizing any of them, this one or any others. Whatever we find that's valuable and helpful to us in our life, use it. But let's look at chapter 7 and verse 11, and let's look at these steps as the steps of change that we build on a heart that has God's spirit working with it, on a mind where God is beginning to move and to change because these steps lead to repentance and salvation.

Those are the only ones ultimately in that really we need to be concerned with and make sure that they are recognized in our life. Let's look at them. Let's just break them down a little bit and take a few other scriptures to examine them. In the next few minutes that I have here in my sermon this morning, see what we can learn as a formula for change.

Seven aspects of change that give us a picture of the approach that we must have to produce a life change in ourselves that lead to salvation. The first one that he mentions here in verse 11 is diligence. Diligence. Being very serious about life and our calling. The Corinthians had been very, very casual about their sins. They were negligent of their spiritual duties and their responsibilities. And publicly, at least, we know from 1 Corinthians 5, they were indifferent to the sins of the world around them.

I don't need to go into all the background of Corinth. It was a very licentious city. It was the Las Vegas of its time, times three, times five probably, in terms of morality and its reputation. In history, to Corinthianize meant to be immoral, to prostitute oneself, to practice an immoral lifestyle. In the Greek Hellenistic world, if you Corinthianize, you were partying pretty hard. You were living a pretty hard life. And the Corinthians who came into the church had to come out of that.

In many ways, Corinth is, like I say, Las Vegas, but it's many aspects of our society and our life brought to the present. And Paul says there is a diligence that is required to guard oneself from the influences of our society and of our culture. In Matthew 25 and verse 41, and we'll turn there, I read it at least in leading up to the Passover period, where Christ left His disciples as He went to pray in the garden before He was arrested.

He came back and found them asleep, and He said, Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. To strengthen the flesh requires diligence. It requires that we take very careful heed of what we put into our minds and into our heart.

This is so often our song, isn't it? Same song, different verse when it comes to our life. But to overcome the world takes a very watchful attitude. To overcome things that we might be susceptible to takes a very watchful approach. We have to be aware of what we are doing in order to overcome and to recognize that.

If it's any aspect of immorality that can come into our life and tempt us, we have to be extremely vigilant about that. And that becomes ever more challenging with the avenues open to people to get into our minds. It takes no more sometimes than walking through the grocery checkout counter or accidentally clicking on a wrong spot on the computer terminal and finding yourself looking at something that pops up all of a sudden that could lead you into a deeper, deeper vortex of problems if you choose to go there.

And it can be very, very enticing. It can be very deceptive and entrap us. But we have to be diligent. We have to say no. Sometimes turning our eyes, not clicking, or whatever else it might be. But living our lives in preparation for the Kingdom of God. 2 Peter 1.

Beginning in verse 4.

Speaking of God's divine power that is working in us in the glory and the virtue that we're called to by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason giving all diligence. Add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge. Diligence is in this stepping stone of growth that Peter gives here. Diligence is the first step being very diligent in our life. And add to it all the others of self-control and perseverance and godliness. Verse 8, To make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you'll never stumble. So he begins and ends these stepping stones to growth with diligence here in our life. To have a true effective repentance and change, we have to be diligent. It takes a very serious approach toward our life and towards sin. God takes a very serious approach towards sin. It required the death of his son for our sins to be forgiven and to have that blood available to us. That is very, very serious. Well, back in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 11, Paul gives the second step. He says, This is really speaking about a good reputation the commentators will bring out. He's talking about your desire a good reputation or a good name. You don't want your name to be thought of, synonymous with, and found right next to the dictionary definition for sin, you don't want to see your picture there. You don't want to become a poster child for bad behavior. He says, You came to the point where you were ready that you wanted to clean up your act and you wanted to have a good reputation. The Corinthian name, as I said, was very bad. Their character in the city was renowned throughout the Hellenistic world, the Greek world. The character of this congregation, it seems, had a reputation as well. They were already behind the eight ball because of the city and its culture. It seems that some of the church members wanted to begin taking steps away from this image. This is what Paul is hearing as Titus gives him this report. The only way to do that is to stop doing what we've been doing and to start doing what we should. The only way to remove a reputation, a bad reputation, is to begin taking steps toward a good reputation by good behavior. I think I've mentioned this a few times over the past years. You stay around long enough and you repeat yourself. That's one of the pitfalls, I guess. A minister deals with people and the issues of life and their sins. Sometimes they can be pretty deep. If everybody's working together, there can be change, there can be repentance, there can be restoration. As a minister, you become privy to a lot of things about people's lives. People have asked me over the years, how do you forget that or how do you handle that? Some people worry that they remember you having knowledge about their life at a certain point. That's true. You remember certain issues. The only way that I have ever seen over the years as a minister is that I forget what happened five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago in a person's life. The only way that I found is truly effective. Praying about it, asking God's help, but it's when there is change. When that problem no longer surfaces in a person's life, call it a gift from God, at least in my mind, I don't remember it anymore because a person has put together a good reputation and a pattern of behavior.

Whatever the issue was a few years ago, by God's grace, I get to forget it. I don't always think about it. But if it keeps coming up every year, every few years or whatever, then obviously you're going to remember those things and again deal with it in the appropriate way. But when there's change, when there's a clearing, those things tend to just evaporate from everybody's mind.

And I think God gives us that ability. I think the Corinthians had come to a point where they wanted their reputation cleared from what was in their city. I wonder if they had wanted to be like the reputation of another congregation of the church, even within their own region, that of Greece, and it's the Thessalonian Church. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, we can turn in and just see what the reputation of another congregation just in another region of Greece was all about. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. This was another Greek-speaking, Greek-cultured group of people, but they didn't have the same reputation as the Corinthians.

And here we know that from what Paul says in chapter 1. Verse 3, he says, as he introduces this letter, "...remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father." Verse 7, "...so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe." The Thessalonian Church was a good example of a labor of love and of patience.

And Paul could open his letter to them with a completely different tone than what he had written to the other church. Verse 8, "...for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia, that region of Greece and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything." Congregations have reputations. They did then, they do now. Individuals have reputations. We all carry an aura about ourselves that is spread far and wide by what we do, by who we are, by what we have done.

And Paul says that if you're going to make a change, you make a change that is deep, lasting, and far-reaching, so that it clears that reputation, so that when people think of you, me, a congregation, they think of good works. They think of a person who's turned around, a person who's different, and the works are there to demonstrate that. And it leads to a change, once again, toward salvation. Back in 2 Corinthians 7, 11, he says, What indignation is the third step?

What indignation you had? They were indignant. They were upset. They kind of raised up in a literal, physical way, in an indignation that this was done among their members, this was tolerated, these spirits, these attitudes, these heretical ideas were gaining traction, and enough of a core group of people, we're not told necessarily who in every case, but it would seem logical that there were a core group of people that may have had a meeting, and said, these things need to stop.

We need to take action. One action that led to the adulterer being put out for a period of time. Another action that would have addressed, in an appropriate way, through teaching, through sermons, the doctrinal problems about the resurrection, or how to observe the Passover. You can imagine midweek meetings, after church meetings, of a core group of people, and then some sermons and teaching that would have been given to educate and to correct, and to make sure that it didn't happen again, according to the instruction from Paul.

But it had to start somewhere, so that there was an anger directed in a positive direction. When we look at our life, how can you and I eradicate something that we don't hate? That we don't have an indignation against in our own life. If something is not too bad, then we really won't be concerned.

If we feel that even the smallest sin is unacceptable to God, then we might have a greater impetus to change, if we can come to that way of thinking. But the church in Corinth was without indignation, because if you read 1 Corinthians 5, verses 1 and 2, it says, it is commonly reported among you. He was talking about the problem of morality. It was commonly reported, that the church was putting up with intolerant of sin and others who were not repentance. They were not willing to change, and those were among the members, and it was openly flaunted.

What's our tolerance level? What is your tolerance level? For anything that is against the laws of God. In Romans 12, verse 9, Paul says, Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, and cling to what is good. An indignation against sin requires an abhorrence of evil. Not a tolerance of evil, not a fascination with evil or sin, but an abhorrence of it, where we recognize it for what it is. We see plenty of examples, whether vicariously or even right in our face. We can watch all the sin that we want on the tube. We can read about all that we want in books or magazines.

We find ourselves surrounded with it at times within our families, your families, in your workplace, among people that you know, it's so much a part of life around us. There's no question about that, brethren. How do we measure it? How do we view it in our own mind and in our own heart? These days are to remind us that we have to abhor what's evil, because sin caused the need for a Passover land.

When we take the symbols, we have to admit that that's what we are being forgiven of, and we need to have an indignation against that. That's a key part of repentance. That's a key part of change. Again, change that will lead to salvation when we see it and as it comes back into our life. Back in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 11, he goes on to the next step. What indignation? Then he says, what fear? What fear this wrought in you? Fear is an interesting concept in word and emotion, isn't it? We've all been fearful.

We have our fears, our phobias about various things. We learn fear at an early age. We may learn fear of another adult. We may learn fear of putting our finger into an electrical outlet. We have jolted and bounced back and finally tipped our finger to be a little bit black. That's all, fortunately. We learn we don't do that anymore. We learn fear to respect electricity and the power that is there sometimes at an early age.

Fear is a positive thing. It's really the guiding principle of our life. Hope and faith are positive matters. We optimistically look forward to the kingdom of God. We desire God's kingdom. We love God's truth.

We have the hope of eternal life. We have a joy of salvation, as David said. David said, don't please restore to me the joy of your salvation.

God's way of life is positive. But on the other hand, in the back of our minds, there should be the right kind of fear. Fear should never be the driving motivator in our life. Fear is not going to write the way of God on our mind and on our heart.

We can practice fear religion, fear tactics, fear sermons, fear controlling fear with people. That will not write God's law in our heart and mind. It's the other fruits. It's the other steps that will do that. But in the back of our mind, what Paul is saying here and all the other scriptures that speak of a godly fear in the Bible and point to a proper fear of God, there should be many fears, or this is the one fear that is good in that sense in our life. It's the right type of fear that Paul urged upon the brethren as he wrote in the book of Hebrews, chapter 4. She speaks of the entry into the rest that the Israelites had failed to accomplish.

Their failure in the wilderness that he goes through in chapter 3. They rebelled against Moses. They sinned, verse 17 of chapter 3. And they could not enter into his rest because of unbelief in verse 19. But in verse 1 of chapter 4, he says, Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, that's the positive matter of salvation, the promise of entering the spiritual rest of the kingdom of God, it remains.

But Paul says, let us fear. As we look at their example, as we learn from their mistakes, let us fear lest any of you seem to come short of it. Let us fear. Let us fear to come short. Let us have enough fear of God, the certainty of God's plan and purpose, that if he did not let that generation pass in, it's a warning and an example that he will not let everyone necessarily pass into his kingdom who are not of the right spirit, but of the right heart, who have not come to a point where they have this clearing of their life and a clearing of sin and made possible because of a proper fear of God.

Fear is, and when understood in that way, is a positive motivator. It doesn't and should never result in us having a fear of God, a fear of his way of life, or a fear of the church, fear of the ministry. Too often we still linger at times with fears of the church and the ministry that may hold us back from really understanding the love of God, where a lot of things have changed and a lot of things have grown and developed over the years.

I grew up with a fear of the ministry, I guess, in one sense. I remember coming home one time from school and turning the corner to my house and seeing a big Chrysler with a California license plate sitting in front of the house. In those days, ministers drove Chrysler's with a California license plate, and I thought he was there because he had found me out. So I made a bout face and went to my friend's house and stayed there for a couple of hours until that Chrysler left.

Came home and found out the minister hadn't even been there. It was a relative across the street directly from us, who had a relative that drove a Chrysler and was from California. But I had a guilty conscience, and I feared the ministry at that point. I shouldn't have because he was a pretty nice guy, the one we had at that point in our life.

But fear of not entering into his rest is what Paul here is talking about in Hebrews 4, and it leads to a step of repentance that is permanent in our life. The next step in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 11, he says, is what vehement desire. What vehement desire. Desire. Strong, passionate desire. How can you change, brethren, unless you really deeply want to? We can't. The point is, we can't. Whatever we are going to accomplish will be because of our desire, our passion in life.

We have a passion to earn a degree in accounting, engineering, computer science. If that's our passion and our desire, we'll put in the work to get it done. If we want to have a relationship with God and to be like Christ, our elder brother, it will take a desire. The Sermon on the Mount Christ said, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. In order to be filled, we have to hunger and thirst. Christ is speaking about hungering and thirsting after true life, and life that is lived on the edge, on the spiritual edge of eternity, where we are moving toward the kingdom of God.

This is the type of life that he's really talking about. This is the type of passion and desire and the frame of mind that we need to have that Paul is describing. We have a desire for life, spiritual life, and the fruits of it in our life right now. That takes motivation. Does it take seven habits? Does it take seven steps to genius? Does it take learning to be a one-minute manager?

Learning the principles that Abraham Lincoln had? What does it take? Maybe it takes just learning about the value of life. I thought about how do I illustrate this? I was reading about Tiger Woods.

Tiger 2.0, they call him now. 2.0. Because he's reinvented, he's sharpened and honed himself. He's come back even better than he was when he started out, and he was good then. I thought about how about Peyton Manning? Some story from Peyton Manning. Motivational, inspirational, all-around clean-cut, good guy so far. And let's hope that he continues that way. But you know what? They're both sports analogies, and they're fun to watch, and they're good. But is that really the best illustration? I was reading in the Wall Street Journal last week, and there was an article that really caught my attention.

Sometimes I read a lot of articles and newspapers, magazines, and I'll read something, and it really interests me, speaks to me at that moment, and I'm thinking, I'm not sure exactly where I'll find the use for that, or I don't throw it away. I throw a lot of stuff away very quickly because there's just so much material out there. Delete it, or you put it in the wastebasket.

This article, I put it on my desk. I said, that just moved me when I read it, and it spoke to me at one level. It was about a cancer thriver. Cancer is big in the news right now. Elizabeth Edwards fighting cancer with her husband, John. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. Both of them, cancer coming back. Good people. Positive people. It's caught a lot of attention. The last time of Newsweek had cover stories about cancer. So did the Wall Street Journal had an article. This is an interesting one. It was about a man who has cancer.

Cancer Thriver is the title. Let me just read a few excerpts. Paul Shea doesn't like the expression cancer survivor. He says, it sounds like someone who washed up on shore. The 54-year-old Manhattan investment banker has incurable gastrointestinal cancer. Statistics suggest he may have two years to live. But he's living as hard as ever, making deals at work, taking trips with his wife, indulging his passion for extreme sports. He says, I'm a cancer thriver. He says, it goes on to talk about how people in the past may have just gone off and rested and prayed and got their affairs in order and died.

But it goes on to show that we're now having a national discussion about how cancer patients should conduct themselves. Elizabeth Edwards vows to stay on the campaign trail. Tony Snow hopes to return to work after treatment for colon cancer.

Paul Shea, this article, sees these high-profile cases as proof that the parameters of cancer have changed. It talks about the life that he is living and what is going on. There is no cure for what he has. He knows that the doctors are not holding out any hope. But his doctor says Paul is not depressed. He feels like he is controlling his life and destiny. He was the founder of a merger and acquisitions firm. When he got the notice that he had cancer last October, he sent friends a mass email that began, quote, I have cancer and for the record, it sucks.

I plan on fighting and I am going to win. By win, he didn't mean cured, necessarily, or that he will live to old age. He hopes medical advances will be discovered that will help him before his organs shut down. But by winning, he means thriving. He recently ran a marathon. He ends all of his emails by saying, I am an Iron Man. He recently asked all his friends to join a group that he calls Paul's Posse to help raise money for cancer research.

His drug regimen has him, at this point, symptom-free. He is not cancer-free, but he is symptom-free. He says, we have no need to think about what terrible things might happen tomorrow when we can make another great memory today. He is staying upbeat. My clock, he says, is ticking a lot faster than yours. But I have had a blessed life, and that life is continuing. Cancer thriver. We read all kinds of stories about cancer. We know people who have cancer. Deal with it. Fight it.

It was an article that talked about one man who is thriving in his life. He is going on with his life. He is realistic. And by winning, he says, I am going to continue doing what I want to do and make contributions and get on with my life and live it up to the very last time that he can. It was a positive story, and it is an encouraging story, and that all of us hope that if and when that happens to us, we would have the same positive approach to dealing with whatever debilitating disease may come our way.

I don't need to belabor that particular point, but what Paul is talking about here, this is an example of a strong desire for life. The attitude that it takes to live life for us on the spiritual edge of the life that Christ says he came for us to have.

A life that is not encumbered by sin, that is not overwhelmed by sin, but where we master the sin, and we keep it at bay in our life and in our mind, in our families, in our church. We do what we can because of that strong desire. The next step that he talks about is zeal.

The sixth step is zeal, which goes right in line with this. We're never going to change anything in our life if we're not as zealous as we should be. Throughout the messages to the church in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Christ kept saying to repent, repent, repent. In chapter 3, verse 19, he said, Waya de Sia was the recipient of that message. They were lukewarm. They had a casual approach to sin, to righteousness, to spiritual life. They weren't hot. They weren't cold. Paul is talking here of a zeal being that of a fervent mind, to not be weary in well-doing, but in recognizing that if we have the zeal in due season, we will reap if we faint not. But not let us be found weary in well-doing, weary in our calling, weary in our life. It's a matter of losing ourselves in the work God has for us, to have a zeal like Christ had when He walked into the temple on at least two occasions that we have recorded in His ministry where He walked into the temple and found that it had become a house of money-changers. Literally, what it was was a bank. You have to understand that the temple had become a bank at that point. And He drove it out. He overturned over the tables because He had a zeal to clean up His Father's house. And He wanted to see it change. And He wanted it all cleared out.

It takes a zeal to live our lives righteously and to repent. We have to want to do that. It takes a zeal to lose ourselves in the work of God and to be involved in that work as well.

I sometimes wonder when the other shoe is going to drop in this world.

When you really do look and understand the signs of Christ coming, and you look at what is taking place in our world with Israel, speaking of the state of Israel and the antagonism that is mounting against Israel from all sides, especially in the Muslim side and the continual rhetoric out of the Muslim world and certain leaders to obliterate Israel, especially from Iran. And those are very strong, strident words that are on the news headlines continually and the stories that are driving so much, and the concerns that are there by people. I can go right down the list of things that are pointing to the signs of Christ coming. Melvin Rhodes has been giving a very effective presentation in our latest round of World News and Prophecy seminars, going through seven steps, seven things that could only happen right now prior to Christ's return. And those things are in the headlines every single day. And so I wonder, when will the other shoe drop? And I wonder how that will factor into our message and to our zeal to do the work of God, to preach a very strong and positive message of the Kingdom of God in this world and in this life. In Isaiah 52, the description of those who preach the gospel is an earmark of zealousness. In Isaiah 52 and verse 7, it says, It says, This is a positive message of the gospel showing people the way to salvation.

Verse 8 speaks of watchmen who will lift up their voices and with their voices they shall sing together, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion and break forth into joy. A collective effort of watchmen, of the elect, of the people of God, if you will, the Church of God, zealous to do a work, zealous to make known the truth of God so that people's lives can be impacted by the gospel of salvation and change and be brought into the Church as God plans and wills it, and can know and understand and have hope beyond the hopelessness that seems to be in so many areas of our world today with the problems that we are facing of God's Kingdom, of people who can have the hope of the resurrection when they are dealing with cancer and debilitating life-ending diseases. The shoe at times is about ready to drop, I feel, and there needs to be and should be and will be the collective voice of the watchmen lifting up their voices together and singing together, which is an element of the last step that Paul makes, that of revenge, in verse 11 of 2 Corinthians 7. He talks about revenge, which means to vindicate what's been done, where we recognize what's been done and we recognize that recognition leads to a change. So what we did, what we were, what we are, is wrong and needs to be corrected, and doing the right thing to get it corrected. It means we look at our past, we look at what our sins may have cost us, it looks at what our sins may have, by neglect, has cost us, and we choose to correct matters and lead a different life. You and I have the obligation before God to do that in our own personal lives, before Him. Collectively, the Church of God, the body of Christ, has a responsibility to do that as a body as well. And at some point, one wonders when can that be done? You know, when 9-11 hit, they said that America, the United States, had come to the end of its holiday from history. And what they meant by that description, that statement, was that since 1990, or 1989 into 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, for about 11 years, the United States had what they called a holiday from history. It was the dominant, sole superpower in the world. We kicked Iraq and Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, and we entered a very strong period of prosperity in the 1990s, and then 9-11 hit, September 11, 2000. George Weld and others said, we've come to the end of our holiday from history. We've got to deal with and realize that there are forces gathered out there that wish us ill, America. And we've got to understand that. And everything since then, at least under the watch of this particular president, has been to go after that, for whatever measure of success. But that's been his mission and his goal.

I sometimes wonder if America, how deep that lesson has been learned by many of our politicians and many of our people. We've not been called to the sacrifice, necessarily, that it would take to win something of the magnitude that we are facing. That's another subject for another time. But you know, the Church of God has had a holiday from its own history.

Twelve years, twenty years. It's had its own holiday from its own history, from being together, proclaiming the Gospel, as Isaiah 52 talks about.

And we've had the factionalism, we've had the divisions, we all know that story, and we've lived it and can name it as much as we want.

And at some point, I wonder when the Church of God will recognize its time to clear all of that. And I know it starts with the individual, and there are some things that are beyond our control. But you and I have to recognize, even on our own level, that if we've taken a personal holiday from life, from our calling, even from repenting, how many years do we need to sit in the Church without making a commitment to God and being baptized?

How many years do we take a holiday from sincerity, commitment, and dedication to life, spiritual life, and the life we are called to?

To the point where we recognize it's now time to seek a little bit of revenge and a clearing and a zeal and a desire.

A strong indignation to the point where we realize it is now time to step up and to be dedicated and to be committed to God, to Jesus Christ, to say, yes, I do need the sacrifice of Christ applied to my life. I need God's Spirit in my mind and in my heart, writing His laws upon us, upon it.

And it's time for our holiday to end.

Whenever and wherever that is in our midst, it's a question to ask.

And whether or not we're baptized or not baptized, when do we take an end to the holidays that we've allowed ourselves to have from dedication or repentance from whatever it might be?

From a spirit, from an attitude that is a habit that won't let us into the Kingdom of God.

This is what Paul is talking about. A clearing, a forgiveness, a vehement desire.

Let's go back to 2 Corinthians 7, verse 11, and read again the latter part.

These are the seven steps, the seven habits, of highly repentant people, building on the foundation of the change of God's Spirit writing on our heart and mind His law and His way of life.

And it will result in this.

In all things with these steps, you prove yourselves to be clear in this manner. This is what we want to hear from God. This is when we will know we will have truly changed when we take these seven steps and build on the foundation of God working in our lives, minds, and in our hearts.