Genesis 1:26 (YLT) And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.’
But Adam fell, and fathered a son after his image.
Genesis 5:3 (YLT) And Adam liveth an hundred and thirty years, and begetteth a son in his likeness, according to his image, and calleth his name Seth.
We are spirit soul and body fathered in the image of Adam; we need to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:29 (KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed (two words 1-together with 2-form) to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Our body is world conscious through our five physical senses. Our soul is self-conscious which has at least seven senses. Our spirit is God conscious and has at least eight senses. The senses or functions of our spirit, soul and body are all supposed to work together, but unfortunately through our life experiences this has not been the case.
All our different senses become gateways for the life of God to flow through. We need to see these gateways opened and aligned and all working together, so that everything begins functioning, so that we are not fractured but a whole person.
God’s desire is that we would come into perfect peace and peace brings wholeness, so nothing is missing, nothing is broken, everything is working as it should be from God’s perspective and not ours. This is salvation.
We may think that we are doing just fine and life is good. But God has a predetermined destiny for us to walk in and we want to see that fulfilled. It is called the pathway of responsibility.
The gateways of spirit, soul, and body have to do with the pathway of intimacy, where we are transformed into the image of Christ, where we discover our true identity, enabling us to walk out our destiny.
Everything needs to flow from the inside out. There is a first love gate in our spirit that we open to the Lord so that we can engage with His presence. We join ourselves to the Lord and surrender the throne of our life to him, and begin to drink of the river of life that flows out of heaven.
Gateways in the Bible are places where authority and dominion are exercised. Whoever controls our life gateways will exercises authority over us.
If Jesus is in control we can be aligned with his perfect will.
If familiar spirits are in control they will try and align us to their personality. And if we’re in control we will try and work out how to do things in our own strength which never results in a good ending.
Our gates are designed to be open and flowing from the inside out so that all of us become a gateway of heaven onto the earth.
God has given us free will, but by choosing to surrender that will to God he can then direct us and lead us and all our senses will work together in an integrated flowing way.
1 Corinthians 6:17 the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. But there is a process in which our whole being comes into oneness with him.
1Thessalonians 5:23 now May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, spirit, soul and body.
That means to set us apart completely for the destiny that he has designed for us. So there’s a process that needs to take place within us so that we become whole, complete and blameless.
Our gates can be blocked, and that can happen through nature- genetic programming, Nurture- environmental programming and trauma- experiential programming.
Our soul is use to drawing things from outside in. So it’s been affected by the world around us, therefore the soul can block the flow of the spirit.
We need to dethrone self, that union of soul and body that acts independently of the lord, the pathway of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that we can begin to walk on the pathway of the tree of life, the pathway of intimacy, from the inside out.
The more intimate we are with God the more we will want to live from the inside out, so that we begin to experience- it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives through us.
We want to experience transformation, we do not want to remain as we are, damaged and hurt and affected by our life, by our upbringing and everything else. God wants to bring us into wholeness, peace, healing and transformation. So transformation is an opportunity and a stepping stone to our destiny.
Philippians 4:4 rejoice in the Lord always again I will say rejoice. That is the attitude that we need if we are going to embrace change.
James 1:2 consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect complete lacking in nothing.
How we see and perceive our own existence is either positive or negative? Depending on how we view everything will determine how we will interact with it. So if you see everything as negative we carry a negative attitude and then everything becomes difficult.
We are learning how to become like Christ. So in this process we have to love the learning.
If we see change as a positive thing then everything we experience can become something in which we can engage with God to help bring change and transformation to us.
The belief systems that we have filter information through our minds that keep us the same. Whereas God wants to bring revelation that brings transformation and change so we don’t stay the same.
Our belief systems frame our reality from an earthly perspective because they have been brought about by what has happened to us and what we’ve experienced in life.
Information we received from birth through our physical senses gives us our frame of reference.
Romans 12:2 do not be conformed to this world. The world has shaped us and put us in a mold. We want to be conformed to the image of his son (Jesus). We want to be transformed, changed metamorphosed, transfigured, by the renewing of our mind. So how we think will determine what were conformed to.
The mind- subconscious and conscious has a powerful effect in our lives. Our subconscious mind and our conscious thinking is a key to transformation, so we need to deal with both of them.
Proverbs 23 :7 as a man thinks within himself in his heart so is he. So the way we think about ourselves has been programmed into our heart and will determine what goes on in our conscious mind.
So through the process of transformation we are going to discover why we think and behave the way that we do.