God’s thoughts and ways are higher yet He made it possible for us to tap into them and be influenced by them in the presence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us Who endlessly reveals the truth of the Word of God to us.

The finished work of Jesus Christ made us new creations in Him.  It came by grace through faith, but the renewal of our minds that brings forth transformation in our lives is our part to play as we meditate His Word day and night.  What grace has made available, our faith explores.

 ^“And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be TRANSFORMED and PROGRESSIVELY CHANGED  [as you mature spiritually] by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].”  Romans 12:2 AMP

Transformation begins with a renewed thinking.  A renewed thinking is a result of meditating His Word day and night.  “Study this Book of Instruction continually.  Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it.  Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” (Joshua 1:8 NLT)

To meditate is to utter, to mutter, to imagine and to speak.  When we pray, what we hear ourselves speaking is what is hidden in our hearts, for out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths speak.  When we hear faith-filled words, it only shows that the reservoir of our hearts is filled with the deposits of the rhema word of God.  It is flooded with His promises that are yes and amen, thus making our prayer life more exciting and full of expectations.

Yes, we are a work in progress.  We are on a journey of learning and every time we take in something whether good or bad, we increase accordingly.  We are never the same as five minutes ago.  Our thought process changes as we receive what we CHOOSE to receive and believe.  Why not be geared towards meditating on something that is highly beneficial to us?  Meditate on the Word that causes our minds to be renewed and our lives transformed.

A caterpillar transformed into a butterfly doesn’t happen in an instant.  It goes through stages that not a part of the process is to be skipped for every step is vital to its development.  The larva slowly dissolves from its former worm-like state into an unrecognizable, gooey substance and dies. But, within the goo is the promise of life and change and struggle. Sleeping cells within the goo originally present from birth turn on and begin to build a new creature unlike the former.  Such transformation shows us a dramatic shift from one stage to the next until it becomes a totally new creation before our sight.  It’s that point in time when we can’t logically look at the newness, freshness and beauty of a butterfly and say it was once a caterpillar.  There’s nothing in it that will make you think that way.  Nothing from the old is part of the new.  That’s transformation.

 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  2 Corinthians 5:17

A new creation means that something NEW has shaped and formed.  It is an outcome in the process of change.  We are new creations in Christ Jesus.  The way we think is to reveal the brilliance, the radiance of God’s word and His very nature.  We are to have a mind that picks up God’s mind and radiates His hope to any given situation, confidently expectant that something GOOD is about to break forth.

God never requires us to do something we are not.  Do you know why He can say to us, “Be holy for I Am holy?”  It is because He made us new creations in Christ as we received Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God by faith, as our Lord and Savior.  He is not asking us to do the impossible.  He is not asking us to do holy deeds to make us holy.  No!  He is trying to make us understand that we have a new nature of holiness in us, and this new nature will empower us to do righteous deeds.  Our identity always precedes our activity.  Our walk of faith is a walk of rest.  It does not come from striving.

Being new creations in Christ, we have to be able to recognize our old nature and put an end to it by renewing our minds. The more we understand who we are, the less influence our old nature has until it comes to a point that it does not resurrect any longer.  It is all about activating our new divine nature, believing that we are more spirit than flesh.  This temple is now housing something new and beautiful by God.

We are a temple of joy, a temple of praise, a temple of glory.   As His holy habitation, we welcome every word that He reveals to us and walk in it for it is He Who leads us in the way that we should go.  It is He Who knows the end from the beginning.  It is He Who knows what is way ahead of us, thus leading us on how to always walk victoriously.

When we became believers of Jesus Christ, He never wanted us to be better caterpillars.  The reason why we cannot fly is because we think we are caterpillars required to fly in and of our own ability.  The reason why we cannot think that we are holy is because we are convinced that we are unholy person being asked to be holy and we cannot do consistently what we do not believe we are.

We have to believe the Word of God over and above our experience in spite of having experiential proof that we are unrighteous.  We have to crucify our old belief system about ourselves if we want to live our lives in a new and living way as new creation in Christ.  We are to be fully convinced who God called us to be and be ready each time to say, “Be it done to me according to Your Word, Lord.”

When we start understanding of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, we walk differently.  We are to imagine ourselves as who God called us to be.  Faith is visionary and it means that we are to see something different that we have been seeing before.  We are to create new thought patterns that are congruent to the Word of God.  We are to allow the Holy Spirit to paint that picture within us and to actually believe something different, we have to speak it, decree and declare it, until we imagine what it looks like.

Recently, this verse keeps echoing in my spirit, “My tongue is a pen of a ready writer.” (Psalm 45:1)  

This happened when I was praying for someone who was recently tested for covid19.   As I was doing my declarations, this verse came up.  When this verse suddenly surfaced in my mind, I knew it was establishing a new identity in me of how my tongue is full of power.  I knew I needed to meditate on this new and fresh identity and learn how to walk in it.

And so, I decreed over the result of the test to be “negative”!   The day after, the test came out to be “positive”!  Hmmmm …

Honestly, I did not question the Lord at all.  I just knew that His Word is the truth and is the final authority in my life, therefore, it is I who need to make adjustments and dig deep into this new identity that I am about to explore and experience.  Then, His still small voice like promptings brought so much comfort in my heart when He whispered, “Your identity of having a tongue of a ready writer is not subject to the result or the experience that you had.  You have to see yourself as I said you are.  Then, when you are fully persuaded of who I called you to be, your condition will bow down to the position of who I created you to be and your situation will conform into your declaration that you speak.”  Hmmmm …

I remembered one preacher who said, apple trees are created to bear apples.  When these apple trees are not yet bearing fruit, you do not call them by any other name just because you have not seen the fruit yet.  They are still called apple trees.

Then, a further revelation came forth about the power of our words.  When Mary, the mother of Jesus had a visitation by angel Gabriel and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35), Mary conceived Jesus in her womb.

Then, she went to the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.  ^“And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:39-41)

When we know who lives inside of us, CHRIST IN US, THE HOPE OF GLORY, the power of His Word breathed and revealed to us by the Holy Spirit should have an undeniable effect into the realm in which we are speaking to, just as Mary who was carrying Jesus in her womb supernaturally made the baby leap in Elizabeth’s womb when she greeted her.  Thus, our words matter.  Our prayers, decrees, declarations, proclamations, preachings, teachings, songs of thanksgiving, praise and worship matter.  If negative words that proceed from our mouths carry weight, how much more when our words come from the throne of God fragrant with His presence.  We are to always remember that no promise of God is empty of power when believed and received.

Yes, many were praying for that special someone who was tested positive with covid19, but we are to personally and confidently see that each one of us who prayed mattered.  Their words mattered.  My words mattered.  Praise be to our Lord Jesus, Who is our ultimate healer, that she is supernaturally and speedily recovering without complications.  Indeed our prayers, decrees and declarations alter the direction of our challenge when mixed with faith and reset it to conform into what has been spoken and declared that “By the stripes of Jesus Christ, she is healed!” (Isaiah 53:5)

The answers to our prayers many a times may not be in an instant, but His word says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” (Romans 12:12 ESV)   We rejoice with confidence in anticipation that something good is about to breakthrough because our God is a GOOD, GOOD Father.  We put our hope on the finished work of Jesus Christ that a divine exchange is expected with certainty when we believe that all our sickness and diseases have been paid for by His stripes that He bore in His body.  We be patient while waiting upon the Lord for His timing is always perfect.  He is never early nor late.   We pray unceasingly knowing that our awareness of His continual presence brings forth hope, peace and joy that is our strength.

The Word of God always works.  It is never void of power.  But many consider delay as unanswered prayers, thus, many do not see the promise fulfilled.  His Word says, “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them..” (Mark 11:24)

The quickest way to stop a miracle, and allow access to the enemy, is to engage our tongue while waiting for the manifestation of God’s promises.  The Word says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.  When the proof of what we are praying for has not manifested yet, it does not mean that our prayer is unanswered.  It just means it is on the way and that we are to continue to stand strong with our words that conform into His Word.  We are to take into consideration as well that the answer may be packaged in a different way than our expectation.  Mind you, there is nothing written in the Bible that deals with unanswered prayers.  When His disciples came to Jesus and asked Him why they could not cast out the demon, it was not talking about unanswered prayer, it was an inquiry on how to do it.  And Jesus replied, this can only be done with prayer and fasting.

We are speaking spirits created according to the image and likeness of God, therefore, if God framed the world with the word of His power, we, too, were created to decree a thing and it shall be established.  Therefore, know this truth that our words matter.

In  Proverbs 18:21, it says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.”  This is how powerful our tongue is.  It sets the direction of our lives wherever we want it to go.

How interesting it is to know that even “horses have bits and bridles in their mouths so that we can control and guide their large body,”  (James 3:3 TPT)

“And the same with mighty ships, though they are massive and driven by fierce winds, yet they are steered by a tiny rudder at the direction of the person at the helm. (James 3:4 TPT)

“And so the tongue is a small part of the body yet it carries great power! Just think of how a small flame can set a huge forest ablaze. And the tongue is a fire! It can be compared to the sum total of wickedness^[and is the most dangerous part of our human body. It corrupts the entire body and is a hellish flame! It releases a fire that can burn throughout the course of human existence” (James 3:5-6 TPT) 

To walk victoriously, speak as a victorious person and keep in mind that we fight not FOR victory but FROM the victory that Christ won for us.  This puts our hearts to rest and our faith to work as we put our trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Our identity:  VICTORS and not victims!  Our words:  Words of victory and not of defeat!  Our weapon:  Our tongue is a pen of a ready writer!  What we want to see in our lives, we write it out into existence as we speak!

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place..”  (2 Corinthians 2:14)

 

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, thank You for making known to us Your thoughts and Your ways by the power of Your Word.  Thank You, Jesus, for being the Word made flesh and dwelt among us.  You demonstrated to us how to walk a life of victory all because You defeated the enemy once and for all at the cross.  What You overcame, we can overcome.  What You have conquered, we can conquer.  It is not by might nor by power, by Your Spirit.  Thank You, Holy Spirit, for always breathing life in every word that is revealed to us.  Teach us to walk in this new identity as new creations in Christ, having a new divine nature in us and giving us a tongue that is a pen of a ready writer.  Bridle our tongue if need be so that what comes out of our mouths are words that are spirit and life, in Jesus’ Name.  Amen!

 

Photos Credits:  Babette Arriola