FEBRUARY 2023

"TO DO" …..WE FIRST HAVE….. "TO BE"

When we give our lives to Jesus, or recognise that we want Him as our Lord and Saviour, we begin a journey with Him. This journey with the Lord is ultimately to help us become more and more like Jesus. In other words, just like every journey has a destination, the destination here is the image of Jesus Christ.

To grow spiritually, we have to yield ourselves gradually over time to the Lord, so He enters our hearts and takes out what is not of Him and puts in what will make us become more like Him. The Holy Spirit is the enabling power of God. He enables the transformation of our hearts so that we are more Christ-centred. However, this is dependent on how yielded our hearts are to our Heavenly Father (John 16 v 8). Our righteousness is to be in right standing with God, and can also be referred to as uprightness of heart. Jesus's ministry to me is through the Holy Spirit. He comes to convict me of sin and unrighteousness. He then expects me to yield to His ministering by repenting and changing my direction or ways. This is how we mature spiritually. Some circumstances happen in our lives and God can use these trials as He moulds us more into the likeness of Jesus. So when trials come your way, challenging as they sometimes are, try asking Father God, what we can learn through them. This really is what helps to transform our hearts so we respond in a way that pleases our Heavenly Father, rather than always desiring that He changes the situation. Jesus taught us this when He told Peter that He was about to go through a trial (Luke 22v 31-34), and said that He prayed that Peter's faith would not fail, and when He was through, Peter should turn and strengthen his brethren. So overtime, we learn to become like Jesus and thus respond how Jesus would. So this conviction of our hearts is working out a purpose in our lives.

I will digress a little here to say that there is a difference between conviction by the Holy Spirit and feeling condemned by the enemy. The Holy Spirit convicts us with a slight check in our spirit, and depending on how sensitive we are to the Holy Spirit, we respond, by repenting. However, the enemy brings condemnation and that comes with a heaviness, guilt and sometimes depression, so we feel pulled down into hopelessness or a pit. Satan's ploy is always to destroy us, so once you recognise what is happening, you need to ask for help with praying and not to partner with the lies that the enemy is trying to make you believe. This was the big difference between Peter being convicted of his sin of disowning Jesus three times, and Judas Iscariot's sin of betraying Jesus for which the enemy condemned him, resulting in him becoming suicidal and dying.

So time spent in the Presence helps us have our hearts made more tender for the Holy Spirit. Acts 1 v 8 says that the people received power to be witnesses not power to…"do" witnessing. As we become more like Jesus, we take on a naturally supernatural lifestyle, because Jesus's life is supernatural. Our hearts are locked in love with His heart so we do life from a place of overflow from His heart. This is the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in your life and in mine. Our response and cooperation with Him to do this, depends completely on our ability to trust and yield to His process. This is what we mean when we say the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart (Jeremiah 31 v 31 – 34 ; Ezekiel 36 v 26-27). We are being taught by the Holy Spirit to conform us into the image of Jesus.

Yes, we can attend lots of Bible studies and prayer meetings, but until we give the Holy Spirit access to our hearts to convict and change us, our ability to be like Jesus, to mature in our Christian journey, produce fruit that will last, and do the works of Jesus, will be hampered. Father God desires that we become like Jesus in our thoughts, attitudes, words and deeds.

He desires that as we first spend time in His Presence to " be" like Jesus, then we will "do" the things, in the power of the Spirit that Jesus did.

Prayer…. Father God, could you search me and show me whatever way that I have slowed this journey to being in Your image down.

I repent, and ask for forgiveness.

I recieve Your forgiveness.

I hand my heart over to You, and I trust You as You please change it into Your likeness, in Jesus's mighty Name.

Amen.