As Christians, we know that God lives on the inside of us (1 John 4:15). It is when we open up the gateway of first love, and allow Him to have first place in our lives, that He will begin to transform us from the inside out. Our spirit can take its proper place of authority over both our souls and our bodies.
Praying in tongues all the time allows our spirit to be in constant connection and communion with God, and to experience a flow of revelation from heaven.
The third thing which will help us to build a strong spirit is waiting on the Lord, and being still.
Be still
As I mentioned before, I went through a period in my times with God in which I could not see anything, and nothing seemed to be happening. I found it really hard. I did not think that I would, but I did. God effectively put me in a place where I needed to trust Him. I thought I did trust Him, but I found that in fact I needed to know what was going on. So I had to surrender that to Him, allow myself to rest in a place where I did nothing but wait in His presence. When I did that, after a few weeks he began to reveal Himself and show me things again.
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint
(Isaiah 40:31).
He becomes our source. We draw from Him all that we need in our lives to fulfil our destiny in Him.
Be still, and know that I am God
(Psalm 46:10).
He wants us to know – not in our head, but by personal encounter with His presence. That is what the hebrew sense of the word ‘know’ is: it means ‘to encounter intimately’. We have to stop trying to do things in our own strength, even trying to change ourselves, and instead surrender to Him. If we read that same scripture in the Amplified Bible it says:
Cease striving,
Let be and be still and know that I am God
(Psalm 46:10 AMP).
He will give us everything we need and empower us to do all that He is calling us to do.
Beholding and becoming
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.(2 Cor 3:18)
As we behold Jesus, as we look at God, and wait in that place where our whole attention is fixed upon Him, we become like that which we behold. We know that the kingdom of God is as close to us as the hand in front of our face; we can turn into it at any time, we can behold what is in God’s kingdom, and we can become the image of Jesus. Or, we can look at what is around us, fix our eyes on our problems and difficulties, and become more like them.
It is a choice: what are we going to look at?
If we look into a mirror, we see a reflection of ourself. But this scripture says we can see the glory of the Lord. God wants us to see ourselves as He sees us, to see ourselves through His eyes, to see ourselves the way He created us to be: full of His presence and His glory.
As we focus on Him, and see ourselves as we are supposed to be, He changes us a little at a time, so that we become more like Him. So when we actually look into a mirror, we start to see what we are like in the kingdom of God.
Now when the enemy looks at us, depending how far along this transformation we have come in relationship with God, he sees the light that is in us, and it challenges the darkness he seeks to bring. What he might see is described in Revelation chapter 1: fire in our eyes and a flaming sword coming out of our mouth – this is the likeness of Jesus into which we are being transformed. As yet, perhaps he only sees a flickering candle, but the more we focus on God, the more we wait in His presence, the more we learn to behold Him, the more that light begins to shine on the inside of us, and the more visible it becomes on the outside too.
Fix our eyes on Jesus
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith (Heb 12:2).
As we do that, He is the One who will start to change us. Our part is to fix our eyes on Him, and not be distracted; to behold Him so that we can become like Him.
If we focus on the problems, the problems always look bigger, until all we can see is the problem, and we cannot see a way out. But if we focus on the solution (which is always God), the problems look smaller, until all we can see is the solution, and we change.
For nothing will be impossible with God (Luke 1:37)
There is no situation, nothing which has happened to us in the past, nothing right now, and nothing in our future, that He cannot change if we look to Him. There is nothing He cannot transform. Nothing is impossible. There is nothing we cannot overcome; there is nothing that can stop us fulfilling our destiny, if we allow Him to strengthen us. He will make us strong, as we look to Him.
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me (Phil 4:13).
I encourage you to spend some time today (and every day), building your spirit up by just waiting in the presence of God, and looking at Him.