It is common for Christians to believe the Word of God, but not too honestly. They may make an application of a Scripture to their lives that does not really work. For instance, they may quote, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away,” pointing out that when you become a Christian, everything is changed.
The tragedy is the fact that though change is possible, and there are changes, they are often misunderstood. Many Christians do not change very much, and it is sometimes difficult to see any difference between the life of a Christian and the life of a nonbeliever.
To make the fantastic statement that “everything is passed away and all things have become new” should be clarified, because many times a Christian is dominated and motivated by the same negative emotions and basic human nature as the unbeliever. Unless we find the key to change, the world can rightfully point its finger at us and say, “I don’t see any difference between their life and mine.”
II Corinthians 5:14–19 is a familiar Scripture. Looking into this passage very carefully, we can discover the keys of change and move immediately into a higher plane. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Now all things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
The love of Christ had become the one motivating and controlling factor in Paul’s life. There was nothing more important to him than the love of Christ which controlled him.
Becoming a Christian is not a matter of following a new schedule or having a new control over the flesh. It is far beyond that. A Christian is to be motivated by a controlling love. We do not become new creatures by establishing a new way of life or a new scheduling in our life, but rather by a new motivation.
We do not know one another after the flesh; we know one another after the Spirit. We have a new motivating control. Many homes have difficulty with family prayer, because they still have the idea that it involves a new routine and a certain schedule. This is not what this Scripture is talking about.
When you become a new creature, you have a new motivation. If everyone in a home decides to get up at six o’clock in the morning to pray, and that is their only motivation, it will be to no avail. But if they choose the one with the greatest need, and make him the target of prayer, that will provide the right motivation for getting up at six o’clock every morning to pray. While that one has the need, they can reach out in love and pray for him.
If a family has no greater motivation in conducting a family altar than to follow a certain schedule to read the Word and to pray, it will fail. But if the motivation is one of love and everyone in the family decides, “Now we are all going to get up and pray because Daddy has to be a prophet, and the children are going to be prophets and prophetesses; therefore, we must get up and minister to one another,” they will accomplish their goal.
If your motivation is simply to discipline your time and change your schedule so you can get up in the morning to read the Word and to pray, you will continually fail in it. You will go along for a while and then it will phase out, because that kind of motivation is not adequate. But if you open your heart to love the Lord and say, “The love of Christ controls me,” you will begin to love Him deeply, and that love will become the motivating, controlling factor in your life. Then you will find it easy to do the things you are supposed to do.
Now in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. Galatians 5:6. Your motivations must be faith and love rather than a new and different regulation and scheduling of your life.
Perhaps in old order you arose early to attend a sunrise prayer meeting, but you did it merely as discipline which does not work in this Walk with God; you arise early and gather for prayer because faith and love control you. This is what avails. This is what gets you out of bed in the morning; this is the motivation that drives you. The love of Christ controls you.
This truth will open the door for you if you would like to become a person of prayer who is living in the Word, witnessing, ministering, and prophesying.
Suppose you only desire to prophesy well in the house of the Lord. You will not be able to do so because prophecies are an overflow of the love you have for the Lord and for the people of God.
When I see young ministries become zealous of gifts, I tell them they must learn to relate to the people. Prophecy becomes as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal unless it is motivated by faith and love (I Corinthians 13:1). When the love of God controls you, and that becomes a motivating drive, there is a beautiful flow unto the Lord when you prophesy.
Ministries are not produced because the churches love them and appreciate what they are doing, for there will come a time when the ministry will not be appreciated. Ministries who are motivated towards appreciation, ambition, and gain will fail.
But when the love of Christ controls a ministry, he is a new creature. And when he ministers he will not fail, because he is not serving man as such, but he is serving God and His people by the will of God.
For a long time I have watched people walk, run, limp, and stumble. And I have learned that when a man has a strong ambition for a ministry, sooner or later he washes out; he is driven to fulfill his own ministry, but he fails.
On the other hand, ministries I have seen succeed have had an intense love for the Lord. They ministered out of their love for God and for the people. It was not a matter of a sanctified ego trip, nor was it for what they would receive in return. They did not need that kind of appreciation, although I think we should be more appreciative than we are, but that is not the point. If appreciation is the only force that motivates us, sooner or later we will fail. Our motivation must be our love for the Lord.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. What is new? You have the same soul, except the Lord is working out its salvation; you have the same body, except it has become a temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit dwells therein. The one area of your being that is made new is your spirit. Your spirit has been born anew of God. This opens up the possibility of everything else changing, because the spirit is the basic entity of the unity of man.
Whenever a man’s spirit is recreated in the image of God, it is then easy for him to change also in his soul life and in his physical life. The reason these changes can come is because he knows he is a product of habits.
As soon as he starts becoming a spiritual being, because he is a creature of habits, he can change his habits. Think on this. All of our actions are motivated by our emotions, our ambitions, and our appetites, and being the kind of creatures we are, it is easy for us to take one action and continue it a few times until it becomes a habit.
A person is a success or a failure because of his habits. For instance, a man who fails in business does so because he has built up certain habits. He makes a habit of not being diligent in certain areas. Because of these habits his failure is assured.
On the other hand, a salesman who wants to be a success does not waste half the morning before calling on a client. He has learned to be a self-starter. He plans his work the night before and lays out his clothes. In the morning he hits the deck, and soon he is shaved, dressed, and on his way. He knows where he wants to go, the contacts he is going to make, the proper approach to take, and he goes after it. His presentation may not be much better than that of the man who fails, but the difference is that he is persistent with it. He has built up habits—habits that assure his success.
You can talk all you want about how you are going to be spiritual, but the only way you are going to be spiritual is to enter into the actions that are motivated by your spirit, until they become a way of living.
You must get this into your understanding. A ministry does not go down the street thinking, “I am looking for a place to minister. Where can I minister? I just have to heal someone; I must do something.” It does not work that way.
A ministry is a way of life and habits of living. These are not habits of action as much as they are habits of love and faith. If you make a habit of looking at a person with love and faith, you have a ministry. There is no greater key to ministry.
I never look at the people individually without loving them. I turn loose love to them, and I have faith for them. They are aware that my love and faith is flowing to them.
When I see they need a special blessing, I minister to them and give them the word they need. I relate to them, but not because I am looking for a ministry. A ministry results from the habit of love and faith. It is not phony.
When love and faith become a habit, then you change. Then you are a new creature. The love of Christ controls you, and the manner in which you continually express yourself becomes an habitual way of life.
This may change your concept of ministry somewhat. All your actions must be motivated by emotions, so when your spirit opens up to the love of Christ, that love becomes the controlling factor in your life.
You may think that if you prophesy in every service, your ministry is a habit of action. But behind that prophecy your spirit has to be motivated by a love for God.
The reason we generally worship at the beginning of a service is because the moment we reach out in our love for the Lord, other things happen automatically. The habit of a true ministry is based upon the controlling motivation of the emotions.
Many times the Scriptures tell how Jesus healed those who were sick and possessed of the devil, but He first looked upon them with compassion.
There was never a time when Jesus thought, “I will go into the country, and people will come out of the brush from everywhere. When I start healing and delivering, I will build up a ministry.”
The controlling motivation was His love. He was moved with compassion for the multitudes. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, so He had to stop and teach them. He was so motivated and moved to look with compassion and love that it was the habit of His life.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. It is not the action that counts. Action apart from the controlling, motivating love of Christ, and His faith in us, is nothing. And God sees it as such.
One day there will be those who say, “Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name? Did we not cast out devils? Did we not do mighty works?” And He will say, “Depart from Me; I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22–23). In the final verdict, a man will be judged on the basis of whether he was a new creature, controlled by the love of Christ.
Old things will pass away when you have a new controlling, motivating emotion in your life that is greater than any other emotion. Do not say you are defeated by the flesh because you are weak and helpless. I do not believe in willpower; I believe in motivations.
A man who is strong in willpower is weak in other areas. But if he is given a motivating force, the weakest of men will rise up and do the will of the Lord. He is motivated because he loves the Lord.
A new brother had a habit of chain-smoking, and day after day he cried out, “Lord, I love You very much, but I can’t stop smoking these cigarettes.” Then he would light up another. One morning, after having served the Lord for about two weeks—smoking pack after pack of cigarettes every day—the Lord spoke to him as he was reading the gospel of John, “Do you love Me more than these?” With that, he threw away his cigarettes and never touched another one again. It was not willpower. The love of Christ was controlling him, and that was a higher motivation.
If you want to be freed from a habit, you must become that new creature. When a person comes to know and to love the Lord Jesus Christ, he does not hold back. If there are habits in your life that should not be there, then you do not love Him enough yet.
You will come into the house of God with defeat on you. There is nothing legalistic about this—it is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision that avails anything. You could quit every bad habit and still not become the kind of new creature God wants, because in a moment of discouragement you will revert to your old ways. If you really want to be delivered, become this new creature where old things have passed away and new things have come.
The new things come because there is a new motivation. You do things you did not do before because you love the Lord; you did not do them before because you did not love Him enough. When you love Him enough, you will talk to Him.
You do not need someone to beat you and say, “You had better learn how to intercede and wait on the Lord, or you will never make it.” You only waste your time in frustration and agony trying to wait on the Lord if there is no motivation.
If you come to really love Him, you will wait on Him. If you really love Him, you will intercede. You will be motivated, not by some ego trip, thinking your intercession will make the place shake and rumble, but by your love for God and the Body.
Your habits of living will not be a schedule that you get into, but a motivating drive that will change your life and make it flexible. For instance, if a person is scheduled to work two months on days, and then two months on nights, for two months he has his program all worked out. Then when his schedule changes, his spiritual life falls apart.
Because he is only scheduling his life, he is not reaching into the motivating love that would be so flexible it would reach into God, if his work schedule changed every day, and he would find himself lost in the Spirit.
It all depends on how much you love Him. If you love Him enough, you set about to act upon that love. The emotions of love and faith are constantly expressed in actions that become habits, and the habits determine your life.
Suppose a young couple love each other very much and decide to marry. After they marry, problems begin to arise, and so they seek counseling. It would be easy to tell them certain things to do, but if a man is wise in counseling, he will not try to produce actions without the proper motivation. That will never work. He would do better to tell them, “Pray and seek the Lord, and come to really love each other. Then act upon your love.” As they act upon it, it will become a way of life. It will be a good marriage.
A couple does not have a good marriage simply because everything is scheduled and they know exactly what to do and how to meet every situation, for the unexpected will always happen. Marriage becomes the real battleground for love. It requires a great deal of love. They have to love. Through the years the love will change its form and expression, but it has to be a habit.
Many parents who seemed to lack wisdom, and who had faulty judgment, did surprisingly well in raising their children. They really did not know what they were doing when they were raising them, and many of their actions were wrong. What is it that brought them through? An action may not be very wise, but if it is motivated by much love, the love will come through.
Many parents have been wise in their actions, but without love, and their children grew up to hate them. They sensed there was no real love behind the actions. Parents can do their best, perhaps making many mistakes, but if love is behind every action—no matter how wise or unwise—it still comes through.
God is saying the same thing about you. There is no way that you can schedule your life. You cannot say, “Now I am going to have a certain discipline and schedule to my life; therefore, I will become a successful ministry.”
Purely and simply, ministry is faith and love that have become a habit in your life. In everything that happens, you love and you have faith. Although people may at first be suspicious of it, after a while they will begin to trust. They will see the motivation behind it and respond in kind; they would actually lay down their lives in true love and dedication.
When people tell me, “We do not follow you as man; we follow the word and the ministry,” they are trying to express the fact that they trust the love of Christ that controls me. The ministry is the product of that love.
The Word tells us, “We do not know one another after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, we know Him so no longer” (II Corinthians 5:16).
We know one another after the spirit, yet we are constantly looking at one another’s flesh. Some think they do not follow their pastor after the flesh, that they follow the word of God he speaks. They often do follow his flesh, but not in the sense of a blind follower. They see his needs, just as he sees the needs of their flesh. But if he has a habit of love, they develop the same habit. They are blessed, and they in turn bless and love him.
Suppose you see what I am in the spirit and also what I am in the flesh, yet you refuse to know me after the flesh, and I refuse to know you after the flesh. We see each other after the spirit. My faith gives me that image of you. If God has called you to be a prophet, I let the prophecies spoken supersede every other vision or revelation. We respond mutually in the same way.
Your ministry is the sum total of all the habits of your life, if your habits are motivated by love and faith.
As long as you focus on the habits you want to overcome, you will never overcome them.
Change your focus and move into another realm. Change your interest and suddenly develop new habits based upon actions that have a higher and better motivation. That changes everything. This is the key to becoming one of the manifested sons of God.