Supernatural Transformation: Change Your Heart Into God’s Heart (22 page)

Therefore, in addition to regularly reading the Word of God yourself, make sure you are receiving anointed preaching that will take your faith to the next level.

Unbelief makes God marvel.

5. Regularly Speak in “Other Tongues”

As I wrote earlier, another way we can bypass our human reason to reach the mind of God is to speak in
“other tongues”
by the Holy Spirit. (See Acts 2:4; 1 Corinthians 14:2, 14.) When we pray in tongues, we can activate the supernatural. The Scriptures say,
“
[God]
is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works in us
”
(Ephesians 3:20). Make it a practice to pray in tongues regularly so that you may break through the barrier of unbelief and receive from the spiritual realm what God wants to give you.

Prayer for Deliverance from Unbelief

God is calling us to surrender our heart to Him so that He can transform it, removing offenses and unbelief. He is preparing us for the end times, when a great harvest of souls will be reaped, and when God will transfer financial wealth from unbelievers to His children, so they may use that wealth for His glory and kingdom purposes. In order to receive that wealth and be faithful stewards of it, we must have a pure heart, one that is free of unbelief. With the
“spirit of faith,”
and
“according to the power that works in us,”
we can receive every promise God has reserved for this generation. Now is the time! Surrender to God, renounce unbelief, and allow the supernatural transformation of your heart to take place!

Dear friend, let me guide you in a very simple prayer for deliverance from the spirit of unbelief. Remember to confess it daily until every root of the spirit of unbelief in your heart has been pulled up and discarded.

Heavenly Father, thank You for opening my spiritual eyes and enabling me to see the unbelief in my heart. I praise You and bless You for teaching me how to be free of this rebellion against You and this resistance to Your will! In Christ, and with all my heart, I ask You to forgive me for having allowed my limited human reason and intellect to make me doubt You and Your promises, and for having permitted the spirit of unbelief to enter my life. Forgive me for making a “god” of my mind. Right now, I renounce the wicked spirit of unbelief, and, in the name of Jesus, I order it to leave my life.

Lord, I ask You, through Your Holy Spirit, to release the
“spirit of faith”
in me. “Baptize” me in faith to believe any portion of Your Word that I have previously found difficult to accept and receive—and to believe for even greater things! I receive Your faith right now. Help me to guard my heart and mind so that I will not allow unbelief to enter. I declare that everything that was held back in my life due to unbelief is now released. I receive my [salvation, healing, deliverance, financial provision, family restoration, or other blessing], in the name of Jesus. Amen!

7

E
verywhere I go, people ask me, “What is the key to the success of your ministry?” My answer is always the same: “Obedience to God.” Although I believe that various factors contribute to the success of a ministry, a family, a business, or any other entity or project, I know that obedience to God is always the main factor. Each time God has asked me to do something, I have obeyed, regardless of the cost. And I have seen His faithfulness in the rewards and accomplishments I have witnessed as a result. Every day, thousands of lives—locally, nationally, and globally—are saved, transformed, healed, delivered, and enabled to prosper because our ministry has obeyed God’s mandate to form and equip leaders as God has taught us to, according to the pattern in which He has formed and equipped us. I could share countless testimonies of the times when God has honored our obedience.

That is why I believe this book would be incomplete without a chapter on the obedient heart. Every heart transformed by the supernatural power of God manifests obedience as one of its key characteristics. Obedience is not easy. In fact, making the choice to obey is one of the greatest difficulties believers encounter when they begin to draw close to God in a desire to submit their whole life to Him. This is because we humans are rebellious, independent, and egocentric by nature—by the sinful nature, that is. In this chapter, we will examine some of the themes from previous chapters in more depth, in order to better understand the rebellion against God that frequently erupts in our heart and that is manifested in our decisions and behavior. We will also discover how to establish a lifestyle of obedience to God.

Obedience Flows from a Love for God

Jesus said,
“If you love Me, keep My commandments”
(John 14:15). When we love God, we desire to obey Him. In fact, we express genuine love for Him by obeying His Word. Any love that would keep us from following His commandments is false love.

In the following testimony, we see a clear example of obedience to God inspired by a deep love for Him. It was loving devotion to God that led Alejandro of Costa Rica to leave his profession as a medical doctor and surgeon to follow the call of God on his life to be a pastor. He writes, “A family member who was a pastor felt the need to come to Costa Rica and preach the Word to my family. My mother, sister, and aunts received the Lord Jesus through her. My sister later asked me, ‘Alejandro, do you want to receive Jesus into your heart?’ My answer was, ‘Yes, what should I do?’ That was my conversion experience; there was a desire for God within me that went beyond the capacity of my reason, because my analytical and intellectual mind had often been an obstacle in me. I believe there was a void within me of which I was unaware, which led me to accept Christ above my reason.

“Although I fondly remember my time at the university, I also remember having a deep need to serve God. Every year, I wondered when that moment would come. For nine years, I served at the church—learning, growing, evangelizing, and preparing to make the decision to dedicate my life fully to God’s service. I knew it would not be an easy decision because of my family history; the most ridiculous thing I could do was to leave my profession to become a pastor! But God confirmed the decision in my heart, and I decided to face my family. My mother, sister, and aunts supported my decision because they were already Christians, and my father also supported me, but the rest of the family opposed such ‘craziness.’ I have served my Jesus with all of my heart to this day, and I will continue to do it!”

Love is the motivation behind true obedience. Any love that doesn’t result in obedience to God is false love.

God will not necessarily ask you to give up your profession in order to follow His will for your life. In Alejandro’s case, God had called him to change vocations and become a pastor, and he willingly obeyed because God had placed that desire in his heart, which was open to the Lord. The point is this: Whatever your situation in life, your profession, or your future plans, are you following what you know God is calling you to do, and are you doing it from a heart of love for Him?

Obedience Also Flows from Faith in God

The Greek word most commonly translated as
“obedience”
or
“obedient”
in the New Testament is
hupakoe
.
It means “attentive hearkening” and implies “compliance or submission.” Like the obedience of Abraham that we examined in chapter 6, true obedience is based on both a love for God and a faith in Him that is
“fully convinced that what
[God has]
promised He
[is]
also able to perform”
(Romans 4:21). When an individual is fully obedient to God, it means he has gone beyond the point of no return in fully trusting his heavenly Father. When we doubt our ability to obey, it is usually because we are not really convinced of God’s love, authority, and/or power to fulfill His promises. Someone with an obedient heart listens carefully to God’s Word, accepts God’s authority, and submits to God’s will by choice, with the full conviction that He will do everything He has promised.

Obedience to God is birthed in the heart, not in the mind.

What Is Disobedience?

If we are to obey our loving heavenly Father, we should understand what it means to disobey Him, or to rebel against Him. Disobedience is a heart attitude that won’t allow anything or anyone—particularly God—to persuade us to see an issue or situation for what it really is and to respond to it appropriately. Disobedience manifests when we refuse to believe that God’s will is best for us. Our sinful nature is inherently rebellious and always resists the truth. Judas Iscariot is a perfect example of someone who permitted the rebellious sinful nature to control him, so that he ended up betraying Christ. Afterward, he wasn’t persuaded by the biblical truth that if we repent of our sin, God is faithful to forgive us. Instead, he continued along the path of corruption leading to his death. Some people choose to remain in disobedience for so long that it becomes very difficult for them to accept God’s forgiveness and to turn away from their sinful behavior.

Disobedience is a heart attitude that won’t allow anything or anyone to persuade us to see an issue or situation for what it really is and to respond to it appropriately.

The Battle Within

Jesus came to earth proclaiming the kingdom of God and its power to liberate us from sin and from the kingdom of darkness. A battle commences each time God’s kingdom arrives to destroy the kingdom of darkness in the “territory” of a person’s heart. Furthermore, once God’s kingdom is established in an individual’s life, a new conflict breaks out between his born-again heart, or spirit, and the sinful nature. Formerly, the person may not have experienced much conflict in regard to his attitudes and conduct toward God, depending on how sensitive his conscience was. But now that his spirit has been renewed, he struggles against his sinful nature, which he won’t be entirely free of until he goes to be with the Lord or until Christ returns. People often wonder, “Why do I always struggle to obey God?” It is because of this ongoing battle within us, as well as Satan’s continual attacks on us as he attempts to win back the “territory” that he has lost.

The apostle Paul wrote,
“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me”
(Romans 7:15–17). In these words, you can almost feel the internal conflict Paul described. If you desire to obey God, but something seems to “push” you to disobey Him, it is because the sinful nature is rebelling, trying to assert control in your life.

Put Off the “Old Man”

“Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man
[
“old self”
niv, nasb]
which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”
(Ephesians 4:22). Paul wrote the above instruction in a letter to believers in Ephesus who were truly born again and full of the Holy Spirit but apparently lacked revelation of the sinful nature battling within them. Previously, we noted two synonyms for the sinful nature that are used in the New Testament—the
“flesh”
(see, for example, Romans 7:5) and the term employed in the above verse, the
“old man,”
or
“old self.”
Some additional synonyms are
“carnal mind”
(Romans 8:7 nkjv, kjv),
“lust”
(James 1:14 kjv),
“body of sin”
(Romans 6:6 nkjv, kjv, niv, nasb), and
“body of the sins of the flesh”
(Colossians 2:11 nkjv, kjv). Additionally, some theologians and other believers call the sinful nature the “Adamic nature.”

Let’s briefly review how the sinful nature came into being. God had clearly instructed Adam and Eve, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Satan denied God’s words, saying,
“You will
not
surely die”
(Genesis 3:4). When the first human beings believed the enemy’s deception and disobeyed God, the sinful nature was born. Adam and Eve placed themselves under Satan’s authority rather than God’s. Consequently, human beings became corrupt physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and this corrupt nature has been passed down to all people, from generation to generation, to the present day. The Scriptures say,
“
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).

Yet, even when human beings first disobeyed and went their own way, God made them a promise that He would redeem them through a coming Messiah. By this redemption, the heart of humanity would be transformed so that it could become a
“new man”
(Ephesians 4:24) in God’s likeness again. God said to Satan, “I will put enmity
b
etween you and the woman,
a
nd between your seed and her Seed [Jesus the Messiah]; He shall bruise your head,
a
nd you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).