Are we paupers or princes in the castle?

Posted 14 Dec 2015

Why we have to renew our minds.

Romans 12:2 – New International Version (NIV)
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Why do we need to renew our minds & get a more accurate revelation of our identity as sons & daughters of God?

A metaphor I heard from Fini de Gersigny (Pastor of Jubilee church, Sydney, Australia) on iTunes helped me understand this…

Pauper or prince, castle metaphor.
If you’re a pauper & you move into a castle, you could still have a pauper’s mentality. You could start cooking on a fire in your bedroom because you were once homeless. But now you have a home, in fact you have a castle, but if your mind isn’t changed [renewed] then you will adopt that same persona, no matter where you live.

On the other hand, if you’re a prince, & you move into a prison, you’ll turn the prison into a castle!
That’s what happened to Joseph [Exodus 39-40]

As Christians, Jesus has given us unlimited access to every spiritual blessing we could ever want in heaven. All we have to do is ask our Father in heaven & he will provide for us. He will be very pleased & glad to do so.

The problem comes if we still have the mind of a pauper, even though, in fact, we are princes now. A pauper mentality will keep us impoverished, in that bedroom, thinking we aren’t worthy, & that we shouldn’t go & explore the castle God has given us! We probably think we are only there by chance; we’d better keep still & quiet, in case God realises we are there & throws us out!
But that is totally wrong. We have been invited BY GOD, to live in that castle. He wants us there! He’s delighted we are there! We can stay as long as we like. We can go & explore; we can ate at the King’s table. No room or resource is “off limits” to us. In fact, I think God wants us to explore AND to ask Him to come explore with us! I think He will be delighted if we WANT Him to always be with us, exploring His castle & enjoying all He has for us.

We need an identity check, or else we’ll remain self-imprisoned in that room, all alone. We need an identity change, to help us to re-align our self-perception, to bring it into line with what God says (as revealed in the Bible) we are now: princes, kings, princesses, queens, etc.

Personally…
I realise that I have been living under a pauper’s identity for most of my Christian life. It’s time to change that, but I’ll need a lot of help from God the Holy Spirit, & from the prayers of his saints, fellow Christians.

How about you?

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