May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (Eph 3:17-19)
Do find your self in a situation where you are dealing with someone impossible to get along with, at work, school or even in a marriage? Do you cry out to the Lord “O’ Lord, please change this person? Yet it seems to get worse and worse?
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: (Phil 2:3-5)
I have found myself in these situations many times. In fact for three years I cried out to God, please change so and so yet it was to no avail. Then one morning I was grumbling to Him about her and He answered me sternly “It is not my desire to change them to your liken, it is My hearts to desire to change you to accept them as My creation as well– for you too look at them through My eyes”. I thought to myself – Now, that is a radical impossibility. Yet once that Word was released into my life, Holy Spirit was like a blood hound on a trail, relentless in pursuit of bring this revelation to pass.
The Gospel Message put into action
Now, when I started putting the Word into action, the impossibility became possible. The same thing was transpiring with my employment. I would spent wasted hours thinking – Man, if God would only change the situation that I have it would become bearable, yet when I allowed Holy Spirit to transform my character to realize that I needed to start Praising Him in the midst of the storms at my work – the storms began to dissipate.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10)
Now, do others still do things that irritate my fleshly man? Yes! Do situations arise at work that attempt to stretch my character to what appears to be its natural limit? Yes! Yet, when I allow the spirit man to rise up, when I put on the mind of Christ, my whole out look take on a different perspective. When I enter into to praising the Lord for my marriage, for my employment, as well as in many other situations though they change not from an outward perspective, from a spiritual perspective something changes in the atmosphere – it is as though the enemy, who once could position my sight soulishly on self, could stir of the carnal man with all its self appointed rights that come from carnal thinking lost his strength!
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:7-10)
The Lord allows us to enter into to situations that are death chambers to our flesh, so that through them we may die to self and come into victorious life in the spirit! It makes no natural sense, this radical idea of denying self and finding purposed good in every situation. What shouts of glory must echo through the halls of His Throne room, when He looks down and sees His children praising Him regardless of what this world throws at them.
If one can grasp the spiritual truth in this revelation, one will begin to see the power we have to quiet the storms of the enemy.
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,” (Eph 2:14)
What a glorious sight it is, to be positioned with the three young men from then book of Daniel, who entering into the fiery furnace did not see the situation as of death, rather they where able to look past the flames that violently sought to consume them and find the Son of man standing right there with them, Reaching out and sheltering with His arms of life and protecting them!
“…and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come(Eph 1:19-21)
Is it easy? Not the least bit, in fact it is impossible in the natural man, yet in the spirit man, through the knowledge of Christ, all that He is it is a radical possibility that turn a natural impossibility in the a super natural possibility”
Disciples of the Lord, if you will allow Holy Spirit to transform your mind, to train you to put on the garments of praise your storms will loose their violence; the enemy will begin to lose his ability to toss you about on the strings of your emotions. When you position yourself to start viewing every situation you face, every person you encounter through His eyes – you will see miraculous atmospheric changes!
The transforming power of the Word of God!
Simply put, the Gospel renews the minds of those who embrace it, leading them to think with the righteousness of Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:17-24). The Gospel offers every human being the opportunity for clear-headedness, honest thought, holy plans, and the ability to see all of life through the eyes of the risen and victorious Savior of the world.
His grace released through you is a breath of Freedom to those who are bound!
People who are still in their sins cannot help but depend on futile, debased thinking for the hope and change they desire. They cannot break out of their sinful patterns of thought, their truncated worldviews and selfish plans, on their own power. They need the power of Christ, the power of the Gospel, to blow out the cobwebs of wrong thinking and move in the furniture and accoutrements of the mind of Christ.
And Jesus can do this, is doing this, and will do it for all who embrace His righteousness as their key to a liberated life. Our calling is not to be ashamed of this Gospel, so that we draw back from opportunities to make it known, but to live out the mind of Christ in all its fullness, and to invite our neighbors and friends to consider this Good News as the only way to real hope and real change.
“This is the reason I kneel in the presence of the Father from whom all the family in heaven and on earth receives its name. I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of his glory. I pray that he would give you inner strength and power through his Spirit. Then Christ will live in you through faith. I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep his love is. You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge. I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God.
Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory belongs to God in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time and eternity! Amen. (Eph 3:14-21)
Radical Disciples - A Remnant Revolution 