Growing In God with Gary Hargrave

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #285
Title: Renewing Your Mind
 
Web Description: Imagine a recording continually playing in your mind, telling you how unworthy you are and how incapable you are of doing the will of God. This in effect is what takes place in our subconscious minds and works against what we are consciously trying to achieve. This podcast delves into the subconscious issues that we all face and offers some scriptural and practical solutions.
 
Show Notes: We know that Christ's sacrifice on the cross brought salvation to the world. We also understand that our salvation is not only spiritual but also includes our physical bodies. We have salvation for the purpose of growing, maturing, and being transformed into His image. We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice and experience transformation by the renewing of our minds. That means we must break out of the limitations in our thinking that still hold us in bondage to this world.
 
Scriptural directives like, "Do not be conformed to this world" and "be transformed" are meant to be acted on. We are the ones who do them. And yet so much in religious thinking makes us content to just be hearers of the Word rather than doers of the Word. We are called to "prove what the will of God is." But religion is not known for proving things. That is what science does. And there is a concept that religion and science are at odds with each other.
 
When it comes to changing the conditionings and responses of our subconscious mind, which continue to hinder our growth, religious thinking has not been effective. On the other hand, recent scientific approaches to meditation have been very effective, even resulting in physical healing. It is not a matter of belief versus science. There are many limiting beliefs in our subconscious that are not the truth about what God says we are. So we reach into God to effectively remove these limitations.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Romans 12:1–2. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
   Mark 12:30. "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH … ALL YOUR MIND."
•       Ephesian 4:13. "Attain to … the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ."
•       Romans 8:19–21. "The creation itself also will be set free … into the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
•       Matthew 12:1–4. "He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun."
•       Philippians 2:12–13. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
•       2 Corinthians 3:16–18. "We all … are being transformed into the same image."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "When we're giving our bodies as a living sacrifice, when we're seeking Him, when we're walking with Him, we are looking for this transformation into His presence, into His image."
•       "What we find is a lot of times our subconscious mind is not supporting what our conscious mind wants to do. It's not supporting where we want to go in life, and it's not supporting what we want to accomplish in life. And therefore, we find ourselves struggling."
•       "We must break out of limited thinking that is holding us in bondage."
•       "Put it on a scientific footing where you're literally reaching to do something and prove how it works and why it works and what it does."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    Paul tells us that our physical bodies should be presented to the Lord once we experience salvation. Salvation is the beginning of our journey, not the end.
2.    Salvation begins the process of transformation in our lives for the purpose of proving the will of God in the physical world through our physical bodies. This transformation begins with the renewing of our minds.
3.    This is a scientific process, not a religious process. And we do not want our religious concepts getting in the way of our growth and maturity in God.
4.    Meditation has been a part of our teaching for years, and it has demonstrated its effectiveness in releasing people from the unconscious patterns that work against the will of God in their lives.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #284
Web Description: Do you ever struggle to believe that God truly loves you? Are you ever discouraged by the lack of unity among Christians? According to John 17, the glory we have received from Christ is the answer to those problems. His glory means that the Father loves us with the same love He has for Christ, and together we have the same oneness that Christ and the Father have. This is our reality. Let us live in it today.
 
Show Notes: Religion tends to put everything in the past or in the future. And when we are conditioned by that in our minds, it limits what we can believe. It makes our faith head knowledge, as if it is only something we are supposed to be educated about. But we are not supposed to merely understand the Scriptures. And we are not supposed to lock them up in the past or the future. We are supposed to walk in them in our daily lives.
 
According to John 17, Yeshua (Jesus) said, "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them." That means His glory has already been given to us. That is not head knowledge. Nor is it off in the future. It is ours to possess now because we have this glory from the Father for a purpose, which needs to be a reality. Yeshua prayed that we would be one, and that does not happen because we try to work it up. Our oneness in the Body of Christ happens because of His glory.
 
His glory brings our oneness, and by that the world will know that the Father has sent Christ. But there is another aspect that the world will see in us, which we often overlook. Because of the glory that we possess in Christ, the world will know that the Father loves us just as He has loved His Son. Is it real to us as Christians that God loves us with the exact same love He has for Christ? It should be. Let us absorb this Scripture until it is more than something we accept mentally. Let us learn how to live in the glory of Christ.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       John 17:20–26. "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them."
•       John 14:6. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
•       2 Corinthians 5:19. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."
•       Philippians 2:13. "It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
•       Ephesians 3:18–19. "Be able to … know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "We have the glory of Christ given to us now to live in now."
•       "Living daily in the glory that the Father gave to Christ would change many things. But one of the things that would change is the fact that it would bring oneness to me and those that are walking with God surrounding myself and really with all who believe."
•       "The Father's good pleasure is that you know how much He loves you, and that you come to the revelation that as He loves His Son, so He loves you. And that's really why the Son was sent."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    It needs to be real to us that the glory the Father gave Christ is the glory Christ has given to us.
2.    It needs to be real to us that we already possess His glory, and we can live in it today.
3.    It needs to be real to us that our oneness with others in Christ is because of His glory.
4.    It needs to be real to us that the Father loves us with the very same love that He has for His Son.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #283
Title: You Are the Temple
 
Web Description: Hanukkah celebrates the reality that we are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us. We take this time to dedicate ourselves on a deeper level to be those in whom God is living and moving. Therefore, as those who are His dwelling place, we wash away any unbelief and separate ourselves from the pollution of this world.
 
Show Notes: Hanukkah celebrates a time of miracles when the people of Israel defeated the powerful kingdom that was oppressing them and took back the Temple in Jerusalem. But after these miracles, the Temple had to be cleansed and rededicated. Likewise, the miracles in our lives are because of the miracle Christ accomplished on the cross, which happened for our cleansing and dedication to be His temple, the holy dwelling place of God in the earth.
 
When Yeshua (Jesus) walked in the Temple during Hanukkah, He did so as the One who would cleanse the Temple, the One sent by the Father to be His true temple, and the One who has sent us with the same purpose of being the temple that God will indwell. By the miracle of His cross, Christ took us out of the hands of satan and cleansed us from sin. And when we receive Him, He gives us the power to dedicate ourselves to Him as the physical bodies in which He dwells.
 
Therefore, we cannot minimize this aspect of our Christian life. We must apply the true cleansing of our hearts and minds that Christ has provided. We must walk in the power that we have received from Him to separate ourselves from the world and to not be touched by any of its corruption. It is time to cleanse ourselves from any unbelief about what God has called us to be as His people. We give ourselves to His working in us to build us together into the temple that He will live in on this earth.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       John 17:21–23. "The world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me."
•       John 10:22–25. "The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem … and Jesus was walking in the temple."
•       1 Corinthians 3:16–17. "You are a temple of God."
•       1 Corinthians 6:19–20. "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit."
•       2 Corinthians 6:16–17. "We are the temple of the living God."
•       Ephesians 2:18–22. "You also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."
•       Philippians 2:12. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
•       2 Corinthians 13:5. "Jesus Christ is in you."
•       Ephesians 3:16–19. "Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "We should have a very aggressive attitude during this time of Hanukkah as we look at the things in the world that need to conform to what God has already said, what He's already spoken, what He's already prophesied. And we just stand up and say, 'It is finished. It is already done. And enough is enough!'"
•       "Christ comes and reconciles us to the Father as the temple of worship. But then we become those who dedicate ourselves and make sure there's the cleansing, the reviving of the temple to a state of purity through which the worship can come."
•       "They had to go cleanse everything in the Temple during Hanukkah that had been polluted by the world. And there's a pollution in us that blinds our hearts and minds from really accepting and seeing and believing and understanding that God is in us."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    Hanukkah means standing firm in the miracle of Christ's victory that establishes His Kingdom in the earth and delivers us from the wickedness, sin, and corruption of this world.
2.    Just as the Temple was taken from the evil ruler, cleansed, and dedicated back to the Lord, so Christ delivers us from satan, cleanses us from sin, and makes us the temple of God, His dwelling place.
3.    We must not diminish the indwelling of God within us; rather, we apply the power that Christ gives us to dedicate ourselves to be wholly His temple.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #282
Air Date: 12/31/2025
My Resolution for the New Year
Web Description: The period from the ascension of Christ to the present has been labeled the Church Age. In reality it should be called the Age of the Holy Spirit. Yeshua (Jesus) did not tell His disciples, "The Father will teach you how to have good churches." He promised that they would be endued with power by the Holy Spirit and be His witnesses in the earth. My New Year's resolution is to change my emphasis from church to being filled with the Holy Spirit first and endued with power to be His witness today.
 
Show Notes: The Church Age is the term most widely used to identify the years since the ascension of Christ until now. This label, I think, misdirects the focus of our faith in this generation. When Yeshua (Jesus) prepared His disciples for His departure, He did not give them instructions about church. He taught them about the Holy Spirit directing them and guiding them and about their being witnesses in all the world to make disciples of the nations.
 
Christ could have said, "Go to Jerusalem and focus on gathering everyone together who believes in Me and establish an order and a structure for the Church." But He did not do that. He said, "You are to go and receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses." Eventually those who had this experience were drawn to assemble together. But their assembling together was secondary to their individual experience of having this promise of the Holy Spirit resting upon them.
 
We tend to lose this emphasis. To be honest, our emphasis is more on being led and taught by Church leaders than on being led and taught by the Holy Spirit. And what I want to do this year is focus on being filled with the Holy Spirit, not dependent on anything that is not provided by the Father through the Holy Spirit. If we can do that as individuals, I believe the Church will have the power and witness in the earth that Christ promised to His disciples.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Luke 24:49 (NKJV). "Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."
•       Deuteronomy 23:3. "No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD."
•       Matthew 16:15-18. "Upon this rock I will build My church."
•       Matthew 18:15-17. "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church."
•       Acts 1:6-8. "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses."
•       John 14:16-18. "You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you."
•       Jeremiah 31:31-34. "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me."
•       John 14:26. "He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
•       John 16:6-15. "It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you."
•       John 7:37-39. "The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "What was necessary and what He had promised them was the Holy Spirit, not church."
•       "How do we learn about Christ? How do we know Christ? How do we understand Christ? By the Holy Spirit that comes to us."
•       "It's endless what the Lord gave to us when he gave us the Holy Spirit upon His departure, and I don't want to make it secondary to anything else."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    The ecclesia, what we call the Church, was initiated by virtue of the experience the disciples had of being filled with the Holy Spirit and being endued with the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses.
2.    When Yeshua used the Greek word ekklesia, He was not speaking in terms of our understanding of the Church. He was speaking in terms of the assembly of the Lord or the assembly of Israel. And He applied it to those who would be taught and directed by the Father through the Holy Spirit.
3.    How much are we depending on the Church to provide for us what Christ has already provided through the Holy Spirit?

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #281
Title: Christmas, Celebrating the Son of Man
 
Web Description: The symbolism that most often defines Christmas is the Nativity scene. And the Nativity scene is about the reality that Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the King of kings, was born and lived as a human being. At Christmas we are not celebrating His divinity. We are celebrating His humanity. We are celebrating the fact that He came to earth as a man who went through everything we go through and is thus able to lead us and help us through everything.
 
Show Notes: At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Yeshua (Jesus). When we do that, we are celebrating the birth of a human baby. Yet in our Christian faith, we think of Christ as a divine figure who always moved in a divine way. But the Christmas story is the opposite of that. The Christmas story tells us that He was a vulnerable baby who had to be cared for and protected. He had to be raised and taught like any human child.
 
As Christians we tend to put Christ so far above us that He is unattainable in today's life. We think, "He was perfect, but I am caught in my flesh, and I can't get out of it." That viewpoint is unscriptural. The Scriptures teach us that the Messiah is a human being. Yeshua was not born perfect. He learned obedience through the things that he suffered. He was made perfect by what He went through, just as we are being made perfect because of what we go through.
 
Yeshua could not be the Messiah without living in the flesh. He had to share in flesh and blood. He had to partake in the same things we partake in. He had to feel what we feel. He had to experience what we experience because He is our help. He is the aid to those who are tempted because He faced it all. He overcame the circumstances, the stress, the oppression, the futility of living in this earth where satan surrounded all that He did, seeking to kill Him every day. Therefore, He is able to help us through all those things in our daily lives.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Read Luke 2:1–52.
•       2 Corinthians 5:16. "We have known Christ according to the flesh."
•       Matthew 6:10. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
•       Acts 1:6. "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
•       Hebrews 2:14–18. "Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same."
•       Hebrews 5:7–11. "Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered."
•       Hebrews 4:14–16. "We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses."
•       Hebrews 7:24–25. "Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him."
•       Romans 8:27–39. "Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "If we are going to truly celebrate the concept that is called Christmas, it is about Him being born. It is about Him living in a human life."
•       "I know we will live in the days of glory. I know that we will live with Him in His Kingdom. But right now in the days of our flesh, we need help."
•       "He lived in the flesh. And in the flesh, He was successful in being a human who related to God, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, who was enabled to move and enact and bring the will of God into the earth."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    Let us celebrate Christmas this year by identifying with our Messiah as a human being—a son of man.[SP1] 
2.    Let us celebrate that Yeshua did not exercise His divinity during His days on earth, but He was tempted in all things and felt our every human suffering. There is nothing we go through in our lives that He cannot relate to.
3.    Let us celebrate that Yeshua lives to intercede for us every day and ministers to us in our times of crisis and need. He is our Messiah. Our lives are meant to be lived in Him and through Him.