Getting into a rut (doing things mechanically, just going through the motions) is a very dangerous thing. It may be comfortable, but the worst thing of all—the potential of growth and change-disappears when you’re in a rut. We need to stir ourselves out of our ruts and get ready for change.
I’d like to talk to you about how we change. How many would like to change? Circumstances—a sudden prosperity or a sudden devastation—can bring change because you are forced to reach into God for your response.
Otherwise, withdrawal or bitterness may slip in. Sometimes you think that by changing circumstances you will be happy. Young people think, “I’d be free if only I could get away from my parents and get a job, get married and raise a big family.” Older people think I would change if I got a better job, more money. If I had a wife or husband, or those married think that their life would be different if they had a different mate. People think that they would change, if their circumstances were better.
I don’t think we necessarily change by changing our circumstances or through some kind of self-discipline.
I don’t want to suppress one thing in my old nature only to see that nature spring up and express itself in another way. If the old nature is suppressed in one way, it will express itself in another. You can take the old tree that produces carnality, and you can trim off all the fruit, but it will still grow a fresh batch next season because the changes were only superficial.
What I mean by the old nature is the human part of us, we are a divine human, so we have two natures, one human and one divine. I also call the old nature the flesh, differentiating from the old man which was crucified with Christ. Our old man is everything that we inherited from the first Adam through the fall of man.
Would you like to have a deep, basic change in your spirit so that you could come into spiritual things, so that you could walk with God and know the things you should know?
You can change! But how do you really change? Should you go to night school, join a self-improvement program or start exercising and eating healthy food? That may help you, but it doesn’t change the inside of you. Change comes from exposure to God, not discipline of the self.
Was Moses was on that mountain for forty days just to get ten commandments (which was God’s part of a marriage covenant with the children of Israel), I don’t think so.
Why was he up there so long? (Because Moses did not only get the commandments; he also prayed, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.” Moses was in a little cleft of the rock and the glory of God passed by and he saw the back of God- which included the things He did in the past which enabled him to write the book of Genesis-Exodus 33:18–23).
He came down from the mountain changed. In fact, he was so completely changed that his face had a glow on it. The people couldn’t bear to look at the glory, so Moses had to put a veil over his face.
Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him in the tent of meeting, he would take off the veil until he came out, the Lord would tune down his glory, and he would see the Similitude (form) of the Lord which was reflecting enough glory to change him.
Whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel, they would see that the skin of Moses’ face shone. Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him (Exodus 34:29–35). The removal of the veil in a face-to-face relationship is a type of the New Covenant.
We change by being exposed to the glory of God.
THE OLD COVENANT
The Old Covenant never changed the basis nature of man.
I don’t even think Moses ever went into the tabernacle (Moses’ tabernacle) he built after the pattern God gave him-which he delegated and imparted to others the skill to build.
Moses would meet with the Lord outside of the camp of Israel in his tent and the people would see the glory of God overshadowing it, which was called the tent of meeting, sort of like the tabernacle David built, except the ark was in the tabernacle of Moses, not the tent of meeting.
In time, that glory was to disappear, and you could see the same wrinkle lines, the same human limitations and traits of that old man, that Moses had faced before.
But Paul made the statement: “If the ministration of death that came when God gave the commandments was so glorious that Moses’ face shown, how much more glorious and permanent is it when God begins to reveal Himself to us by the Spirit?
Whatever Moses experienced was not to be compared with what God says He has prepared for us, because that glory faded away” (II Corinthians 3:12–17).
What is the key? Do you want to change? You will change through a revelation, an exposure to the Lord.
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. II Corinthians 3:18.
If you really are exposed to a truth, a living truth, the Lord Himself, if someone ministers a portion of the Lord to you, change can come to you.
This is the reason we believe in impartation so much. More than words are conveyed to you through impartation; something of God Himself comes through.
The great changes will not take place through human discipline or progressive stages of development. The changes will come because we press into a greater revelation of the Lord.
What should we do? Be very much concerned about blessing one another. Bring one another into every bit of blessing you can. Avoid the negativity.
I don’t think we should emphasize sin so much! I think we should emphasize the righteousness of God! Why can’t we preach for something instead of against something? Why can’t we believe for positive change in God? I hate the religious spirit because it refuses to give people a chance to change through faith. If you want to see filthiness, get behind the scenes of the pharisaic religions and see what 14-karat nothings they are.
You change by exposure to God. You can’t change by the discipline of your old nature just as you can’t lift yourself up by your bootstraps and set yourself on the other side of the fence!
The repentance that comes from exposure to God is better than a thousand old-time hell-fire-and-damnation sermons and altar calls.
In the year of King Uzziah’s death, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Isaiah was simply exposed to God, and he said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! (This is what I mean by the word devastation I use a lot in other messages). Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” But God removed his sins and iniquities (Isaiah 6:1–7). Isaiah knew what real repentance and change meant.
The approach of all preaching should be to exalt the Lord first, not to preach against sin. The first thing that must come is a revelation of the Lord, and in the light of that you’ll see your need. Why can’t a religious man break through to something real from God? Because he never sees enough of God to see his own need. A sinner already knows his need; he just needs to be shown God.
CHANGE
If you begin to probe within, you can become rather discouraged. I don’t think you change through introspection or through discipline or through rules and regulations of religion. You change because you’re exposed to something real from God.
We don’t search our own hearts; (we allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts, and you become very aware of His Presence when He does this and then you see your own need).
Sometimes I think it is the spirit of the fear of the Lord who is assigned to mentor those who are coming into sonship, because my body always trembles when my sin is revealed, I am in no way scared of him, because I feel his love in the revelation, and I experience godly sorrow because he is overshadowing me.
John says, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him, for we see Him as He is” (I John 3:2).
Complete exposure to the King of kings is the key to total resurrection life and transformation. To be exposed to God is to see the fulfillment.
David was singing to the Lord, playing his harp, he said, “God is a fortress and a shield” Psalm 18: 2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Can you picture that: God is a fortress. God is a shield. He defines Himself in many ways and says, “I want to reveal Myself to you.”
We open our heart, and say, “Lord, reveal Yourself to me.” He changes you; you see Him. It’s not mental exercise; it’s something you open your heart to. You say, “God, if You love me that much, let me see You.”
When Jesus went to Bethany to resurrect Lazarus, Martha doubted and said, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” But Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you, if you believe, you will see the glory of God” (John 11:39–40).
How will you see the glory of God? Believe! Change is an operation of the eye of faith. It is something that you determine in your heart to do.
Will the laying on of hands help? Yes, if it is done with faith. Will getting people to pray for you help? Yes, through faith!
Jesus said, “My words are Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). If you want to read the Bible, read it to find the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (II Corinthians 3:6).
I think there are people dying from false hopes raised by hearing sermons every Sunday with the letter of the Word, but no Spirit.
Don’t read—eat! Partake, See, Feel, Experience. Open your heart to the revelation of God. Change does not work any other way.
There is no miracle worked by our trying to work it up or being worthy of it. Dead works never accomplish anything of transformation.
We’ve always had one teaching—to be focused in ou spirit upon the Lord. Get before God and say, “God, just show me Your love,” because you cannot visualize the personality of God. His ways are past finding out. Who is going to know all about Him? (Romans 11:33.) But if some part of Him becomes revealed to you, you change—really change!
Even when you don’t know Him at the time, you know part of His nature is imparted to you.
The real love that you want comes because God is revealed to you in His love. And because His love and His nature become so real to you, you change. Ask for His grace. Ask for His love. Begin to believe it. If you ask for His love to be revealed to you, it will be.
One of the things still lacking in the churches is that the people don’t wait on the Lord. They come and worship; they get the teachings, and they like them. But this thing works only if you are exposed to God and if you learn to practice His presence and constantly sense Him.
The barriers of no feeling and no awareness just disappear when you practice His presence continually. You know He’s there.
Get ministry to break through to Him. Don’t get ministry for problems.
Say, “Lord, help me because I want the walls to come down. I don’t want to be unaware of You. I want to sense Your presence. I want You to walk with me and to talk with me. I want to be aware of You all the time.”
Believe Him to meet you. Faith is not in teaching and rules. Our faith is toward God; our faith is in Him.
I don’t believe in myself, but I have more faith every day in what God has done in me and what God has done to me. I have enough sense to know what He has started; I could never finish. I’ll keep looking to Him and He’ll be the author and the finisher of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). He’ll do it. I have a great deal of confidence, but it’s toward God.
Would you like to know when you’re going to meet God? I can tell you the very minute that you find Him. He says, “In the day that you seek for Me with a whole heart, you’ll find Me” (Jeremiah 29:13). He’s right here all the time.
I used to think that I had to go to the mountain to pray and fast to find God. But one day I found that He is in the valley as much as He is on the mountain.
It isn’t the place, and it isn’t the motions you go through that brings God close to you. It is the reality of practicing, with such faith, an awareness of His presence. You can live constantly in a spiritual state of awareness of the Lord and not have to live from one experience to another. We should all be constantly aware of Him. Walking with God should not be a few experiences, constantly blowing hot and then cold. It should be the maintaining of an awareness level and spiritual reality that we live in all the time. It can be! We loose it!