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PRINCIPLE 3
Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.
Happy are the meek.
MATTHEW 5:5
Absolute power under perfect control

STEP 3
We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
ROMANS 12:1

Principle 3 states that we choose to commit our lives and wills to Christ’s care
How do you do that?
How do you turn your life and will over to your Higher Power, Jesus Christ?
Well that takes diligent repetition over time, training ourselves, it’s a PROCESS

That being said let’s get on to the acrostic terms:
Trust
Understand
Repent
New life

This step ends with new life, but you must first take three actions before that life can be yours. You must trust, understand, and repent.

T IS FOR TRUST
First let’s talk about TRUST.
Every single day we subconsciously trust in something – When I get in a parking garage and there is no spots on the first level, I then must go to the next level and sometimes I end up on the 6th level or higher and all the while all I can think about it “I really hope the engineer that designed this parking garage paid attention to detail, and the contractor that was hired to build it kept a good eye on all the subs he used… one mistake and BOOM it will come crashing down.

Or when I drive over a bridge and realized traffic is backed up and then I realized I am at the very top of the skyway bridge with a load of other traffic – sweet Lord,,, I have to trust that those who built it did it right and those who are maintaining it have been meticulous in their work.

Why then is it so hard for us to trust our lives to the care of God, whose eye is always upon us, who loves us more than we could ever imagine, the one who created us?

In Principle 3, you make the one-time decision to turn your life over to the care of God. It’s your choice, not chance, that determines your destiny. And that decision only requires trust, putting your faith into action!
But what is faith? Faith is not a sense, sight, or reason. Faith is simply taking God at His word! And God’s Word tells us in Romans 10:9 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For some people that’s just way too simple. They want to make salvation much more difficult. But it isn’t! Our salvation, thank God, depends on God’s love for us, not our love for Him. When I finally turned to God all I had was a little tiny bit of faith (which is all he asks) Read the story here and you will see that all I had was a little mustard seed – and now look at where he has brought me… I am going inside jails and prisons all over Florida telling my story so the others can find freedom also… no man (or woman) left behind on my watch that’s for sure!!

U IS FOR UNDERSTAND
After you have decided to trust, the next step is to UNDERSTAND. Relying solely on our own understanding got most of us into recovery in the first place! After you make the decision to ask Jesus into your life, you need to begin to seek His will for your life in all your decisions.

We need to get to know and understand Him and what He wants for your life.
Proverbs 3:5–6 says:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths

You see, our understanding is earthbound. It’s human to the core. Limited. Finite. We operate in a dimension totally unlike that of our Lord. He knows no such limitations.
We see now; God sees forever!
You know something really strange? It has taken me way longer than it should have to understand that it is not necessary for me to understand everything.
Someday we will see Jesus face-to-face. The fog of interpretation will be lifted, and our understanding will be perfected.

Praise God that we do not need a perfect understanding of Him to ask Jesus into our lives as our Lord and Savior. Why? Because God does not lead you year by year. Not even day by day. God directs your way step by step.

Mark Walburg didn’t know everything, he stepped out, DAILY on faith, walked through the valley of death (basically) and decided to trust God and keep going with the process…

I would be willing to bet he had some really discouraging days. But he TURNED to DIFFERENT people than the same ol ones –They watched him every day, go to and from, not looking to the right or the left, but kept his eye on GOD the whole time.

R IS FOR REPENT
Some people repent of their sins by thanking the Lord that they aren’t half as bad as their neighbors. That’s not true repentance! Repentance is how you begin to enjoy the freedom of your loving relationship with God. True repentance affects our whole person and changes our entire
view of life.

Repentance is to take God’s point of view on our lives instead of our own.
To truly repent you need to do two things: First, turn away from your sins; second, turn toward God. The Bible has much to say about repentance:
Turn from your sins and act on this glorious news!
MARK 1:15

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed.
ROMANS 12:2

It seems that most people repent of their sins more from a fear of punishment than from a real change of heart. But repentance is not self-loathing; it is God-loving. God IS NOT looking forward to punishing you! He is eagerly anticipating with open arms your turning toward Him. Then when you have chosen to turn from your sin toward Him, He will joyously give to you what the last letter in tonight’s acrostic stands for:

N IS FOR NEW life.
Five misconceptions about repentance:

1) “I don’t need to repent; repentance is only for hardcore sinners.”

2) “I’ve committed too many sins; I’ll never be able to repent.”

3) “It’s too late; I’ve already done the unforgivable.”

4) “Repentance is difficult and time consuming.”

5) “I’ve tried to do better and failed; I’ll never be able to change.”

The new life that you will receive is the result of taking the three actions that we just covered: trusting, understanding, and repenting.
I have heard some pretty gloomy definitions of life. These are just a few:

• Life is a hereditary disease.
• Life is a sentence that we have to serve for being born.
• Life is a predicament that precedes death.

Those are depressing words that you may feel are true if your life doesn’t include Jesus Christ. That was me for many many years, I didn’t want to hear about Jesus and I took all the excuses I heard in my lifetime from various people and kept them at the ready for times when people would try to bring up Jesus and then blurted them out of my mouth as if I knew what I was talking about. I like to refer to these as: GENERALTIONAL EXCUSES. (can anyone relate to that)??

After you ask Jesus into your heart, you will have a new life! You will no longer be bound to your old sinful nature. You will receive a new loving nature dwelling within you from Christ.
God has declared you “not guilty,” and you no longer have to live under the power of sin!

Romans 3:22 (TLB) says it well:
Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us ‘not guilty’—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins.
Second Corinthians 5:17 (GNB) says:
When anyone is joined in Christ he is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. I am so glad I didn’t get what I really deserved. “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Romans 12:4 If you have kids then you know how you love them, at the same time you have to teach, train, discipline them so they are not little messes running around – God is our father and he loves us way more than we love our own children, and he teaches, trains and disciplines us so we are not little messes running around.
In what ways does the “new life” demonstrate itself in us?
The “old you” said The “new you” says
Save your life! You must lose your life to keep it (Mark 8:35).

Get, get, get! Give and it will be given to you (Luke 6:38).
Lead, at all costs. Serve (John 13:12).
Lie; the truth only Speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:29). complicates things.
Hate your enemy. Love your enemy (Matthew 5:44).

Again, the “turn” in Principle 3 includes three very important actions that lead to a new life in Christ: trusting, understanding, repenting.
The good news is, turning your life over to Christ is a once-in-a-lifetime commitment. Once you accept Christ in your life, it’s a done deal. Ephesians 1:13 says your salvation is “sealed.” You can’t lose it! It’s guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.
The rest of the principle, however, turning your will over to Him, requires daily recommitment! You can begin by going to your Bible regularly, opening it prayerfully, reading it expectantly, and living it joyfully!
Let’s reflect on the Mark Walberg video again:
1.) He quit school at 13
2.) He got into drugs/alcohol and crimes
3.) He went to prison
4.) He DECIDED to trust the Lord
5.) He discovered a whole bunch of people who loved helping people – (Whether you know this or not, there are tons of people out there ready and willing to help you and encourage you) We talked about how to find them last week after we watched Jeff Stoltz testimony.
6.) He still had to walk through his old neighborhood, right past his old buddies who obviously pestered him at some point, yet, he got up every day, started his day praying and seeking Gods face and then took on the world “just for today”
7.) Now look what God has done with him…. Do you think the day he walked out of prison he ever imagined what his life would be like down the road… ?

What’s the common denominator in all these testimonies? TURN

Life is NOT easy for any of us,, But you can get past this page and start a brand new chapter in YOUR book of life… I love quotes, I just love them,,, I save them up all the time and here are a couple that I really really like,,,
If you have a place to write this down, please do it,, A daily active prayer life with JESUS permeates our words and demeanor. We are active in the world yet one step removed from it. We will not be easily shaken because HIS PRESENCE buffers the blow of problems.