Transformation: embrace the season
We are entering into a season preparing us for holiness; a season of removing stumbling blocks; a season of preparation to cross the threshold into the glory realm; a season for transformation. Not just a minor adjustment of surface appearance, but fundamental, radical change, affecting body, soul and spirit.
Let’s not resist it, but embrace it. Let’s cooperate in being changed from glory to ever-increasing glory. Entering into the process of refining and purifying is entirely voluntary. That said, we know that sometimes God will engineer circumstances around our lives to give us further opportunities to volunteer! We can fall on the Rock, or the Rock can fall on us.
Like you have never known
Here is part of a prophetic word which God gave me before I first taught this series at Freedom in 2012:
“It is time to pray that the lid comes off and to call forth my angels who are waiting to start gathering and removing stumbling blocks both within and without. Holiness fire is coming, the highway of holiness has been prepared. It is time to walk in the river of fire. You have walked over it and felt its heat but now it is time to be baptised in fire. The heat will turn idols back into the dust they came from: to be under your feet, not in your hearts.
Call forth the gathering angels. The lids are coming off the sewers, the secret and hidden things of the heart are about to be exposed. All I ask is for the willingness to submit to the fire that will refine, purify and prepare you for true holiness.
I am about to restore your souls like you have never known, and lead you on paths of righteousness like you have never known.
I am going to prune the church. I am going to cut off the branches that are producing no fruit. I am going to remove the stumbling blocks to true kingdom government. I am going to close the access doors that the enemy has had. Some have already been removed.
I am looking for those who are willing to be pruned in the unproductive areas of their lives and in their desires and their priorities…”
Metamorphosed, transfigured
We have seen that happen at Freedom Church (kingdom government is being established here, but in the process, lids have certainly come off some sewers and we have experienced some painful pruning, both corporate and personal). What is true for us locally is true for you, wherever (and whenever) you are reading this. God wants His whole church transformed, metamorphosed, transfigured, changed, conformed into the image of Jesus; not patterned, moulded, conformed to the world.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).
Transformation is a process of change, a renewal, a restoration to original condition; not to what Adam was like before his sin but to what he would have become. How would things be today if Man had not fallen, but had spent the intervening centuries pursuing God’s plan for him and for creation? How would we be?
Our goal in transformation is to become wholly like Jesus; to live like Him; to do as He did, and greater things (John 14:12); to be conformed to His image.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29).
One degree to another
In our day, the prophetic books (portals) have been opened and we are receiving deeper levels of revelation and understanding. But these also call for deeper levels of transformation. It is like going from preschool mathematics (recognise a number), through primary school (counting, simple sums, addition, multiplication), to secondary school (algebra, equations, calculus), undergraduate, postgraduate and so on. I suspect many of us are not much beyond preschool as yet.
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).
There are progressive levels of transformation to maturity, progressive levels of responsibility and authority. God wants to take us from servant to bondservant to steward to friend; lord to king to son.
By the mercies of God
Freedom from sin (Rom 6:16-18); the gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23); peace with God (Rom 5:1); the grace of God (Rom 5:2); salvation from wrath (Rom 5:9); the gift of repentance (Rom 2:4-5); the love of Christ (2 Cor 5:14-15): the mercies of God are new every morning, and they motivate us to present ourselves as living sacrifices, ready for transformation.
It is indeed a process, and it may take some time. But we can begin today (and every day) by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice. We can invite Him to do what He needs to do in us.
He will challenge our conscience, imagination, reason, mind, emotions, will, and choice; our motives, desires, attitudes, mind-sets, belief systems, familiar spirits, patterns of sin, trading systems, idols, stumbling blocks, entanglements; hurts, pains, rejections, fears, inadequacies, inferiorities, disappointments and more besides. He will deal with our sin, transgression and iniquity. He will restore our supernatural abilities.
Are we up for that?
If so, let’s pray:
God I thank you for your presence in my life.
I open the gate of first love and invite you into my spirit
I invite you to activate my spiritual senses and flow through me
Jesus I surrender control of my life to your lordship.
You are Lord of my life.
I choose to be a bond servant.
Train me as a good steward
So that I can be your friend.
Renew my mind
Heal my emotions
Restore my conscience
Cleanse my imagination
Direct my will.
Train my senses to hear your voice
To know your heart
See your vision
And be directed by your peace.
Cleanse my bloodline and seed-line
Transform my DNA.
Father I choose to follow my eternal destiny
Into lordship, kingship and sonship.
I choose, as an ambassador of heaven,
To administer the rule of the kingdom of God
On earth as it is in heaven.
Display me as a son of light on the earth.
Manifest your kingdom rule through me to the world around me.