God is infinite in love and he has poured out his mercy on each one of us…undeserved grace through which he has taken our sins on himself and offered us eternal life in return.

In addition to salvation He offers to each of us transforming grace in our daily lives that will transform us…. Morph us…. Into the likeness of Jesus

Galatians 4:19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed (morphed) in you.

In order for that to happen it just makes sense that there is going to have to be a great deal

of interaction between you and the one who’s character you are being morphed into… In order for him carve away the sinfulness in our character and mold us into his character there has to be a symbiotic relationship between us and God… you know what that is…

It’s true of the parasites in your body…. It’s where one organism attaches to and draws it’s life from another organism.

Here’s a question for you to answer:

We don’t live our lives apart from him and then every once in a while he dumps three gallons of his character into our lives…. It just doesn’t happen that way. If you are a “Chreaster” and attend church only on Christmas and Easter you can’t expect God to give you an extra three gallons of his character as a Christmas gift… it just doesn’t work that way. Nothing in life works that way… the only abilities and skills and knowledge you have developed in this life have come from you giving attention to them and learning and re-learning until they became a natural part of your life.

The only opportunity you have for having Christ formed in you is as you attach yourself to him and allow him to regularly feed you from his infinite spiritual storehouse.

It’s a process that the Bible calls:

86% of Americans say they pray every day. There are supposedly 13% of people in the United States that claim to not believe in God at all. That leaves a healthy 1% of the nation who say they believe in God but never pray. That’s not totally accurate because 1 out of 5 atheists and agnostics say they occasionally pray as well.

According to statistics this post-Christian nation is a praying bunch of people. Mind you, some of those who say they pray are part of the Mafia, some are prostitutes, some are murders and child molesters. The short of it is, a lot of the people who say they pray have lives that are no different than the atheists who say they never pray.

In many of our praying Americans minds their end is equipped with a mouthpiece but no receiver and God’s end is equipped with a receiver but no mouthpiece.

In many parts of our society if you say you talk to God you are considered normal, if you say God talks to you are are considered schizophrenic.

Yet the Bible clearly paints a picture of the believer in relationship with God…. A relationship that includes not only the privilege of sharing our hearts with the Creator of the universe…. but also includes the unbelievable honor of having the Creator of the universe share His heart with us.

It’s this promised communion that draws us closer and closer to him and allows his grace to increasingly change our sinfulness into his righteousness.

It’s called “Walking with God” or “Keeping in step with the spirit”

II. The Wind of the Spirit (Rhuah)

Would you say you are keeping step with the Spirit in your life? To answer you really have to figure out who is really in control. Are you the controller with God put carefully into a box you have created for him attached to the side of your life…. Or is God’s Holy Spirit the one who is actually calling the shots in your life and you are simply “keeping in step with the Spirit.

Consider the difference between piloting a motorboat and a sailboat.

The motorboat you can pretty well run by yourself. You can build the engine, You can fill the tank, start the engine. You can pilot the boat wherever you want it to go. You are in control!

A sailboat is different… your can hoist the sail, you can steer the rudder until your arm falls off but you are utterly dependant on the blowing of the wind.

You can help make preparations, you can work to arrange what needs arranged, but the wind does the actual work. Without the wind you can stick your arms over the side and paddle frantically but you’ll only tire yourself out.

Your task, as a sailor, is to do whatever you need to do, to catch the wind.

Another analogy that concerns the fact that the wise sailor knows that their main task is to read the wind. The experienced sailor can look at the lake and tell where the wind is blowing the strongest or can look at the sky and tell what blow is on the way. A wise sailor knows when to raise or lower the sail to catch the wind most effectively.

Throughout time different people have described God’s specific leadership in their lives in different ways. The spoke of God “opening a truth” to them or of the “inner testimony” of the Holy Spirit, or St. Ignatius called it the “movement of the soul” Whatever you call God’s leading in your life here is the reality.

Why would any of us have started a relationship with God, yet not allow him to be the wind in our sails. Maybe God doesn’t treat everyone the same… maybe he doesn’t speak to all his children equally. Maybe he’s willing to talk to some and not so willing to talk to others.

Great Christians throughout time all tell us more or less the same thing. The issue is not God’s willingness to lead us… all of us. God is speaking in our direction all the time. The wind of the Spirit is blowing in the direction of our sails. But if we don’t have something inside of us that sees the wind blowing, that adjusts the sail to receive the wind, that allows the wind to have the full impact that it was designed to have the wind blow week after week, year after year, and have no real effect in moving us in the right direction.

I’ve often said about our relationship with God that it’s not a matter of God not being available in our lives, we are often unavailable…. Oh were there, we’re just not there.

Psychologists define mindlessness as “a tendency toward mental drift”, “ failure to be fully present” your screen door is swinging in the wind, you are a French fry short of a happy meal, a lack of attending to the present moment.

You know when you are reading something, like your Bible, and you get to the bottom of the page and you discover that though you continued to read every word, somewhere you slipped into mindlessness. You don’t have the foggiest idea what you read.

Conclusion: Part of my challenge in preaching is to guide your minds. I realize that you can be thinking about thousands of things other than what I am saying to you. So use all kinds of techniques to try to keep your attention. I have succeeded if I can get ¾ or more of your attention for a 35-40 minute period without seeing your eyes glaze over.

God needs no gimmicks, He does use all kinds of unusual approaches to get our attention but only because he is trying to get past our mindlessness.

God is fully capable and willing to speak directly into your mind, and guide you daily on a whole myriad of issues, He’s fully willing to mold your thinking until you begin to think like him.

What he needs is your willingness to listen, to set your sails to pick up the wind.