I value transition. I do not always like it but I do value it.
On New Year’s Day 2021, the Spirit told me to go back to the International House of Prayer for a year and sit at the feet of Jesus. I did not want to, I had every reason to reject it but when He speaks, I listen. When he says go, I walk forward.
You see when you surrender your life to Christ and are led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14), your desire and preferences no longer matter. The gospel delivers you from yourself or it is not the gospel at all.
When someone is biblical saved, they do not care about “self love” and all the lies of the false gospel of psychology. They realize the gospel is just as much saying no to everything the world has to offer as it saying yes to the Lord. To most believers, coming to Jesus means being murdered by their family.
Only in America does the gospel include psychology, humanism, culturalism and a dash of nationalism. We hear that Jesus came to make a better you but the Word of God is clear that He came to destroy the worldliness and love for self in you. Do you believe in the biblical Jesus or not?
This is a video of a night at the Brownsville Revival that I remember about the very subject, whenever I am in a season of transition; I seem to listen to this again and again.
Following Jesus is walking free from self
Jesus came to die on the cross and to show up how. As Steve Hill said so many times during the revival, “religion is getting on the Cross, Christianity is getting on it.” You can not worship your own desires and emotions yet be surrendered to the cause of Christ.
Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.(Matthew 16:14)
What does it mean to deny yourself? In the Greek, it means to disown, repudiate , disregard, or forsake. To follow Jesus, you must reject your own wants and desires. It means to no longer look to your emotions or mind for support on any level. It is when nothing or no one matters but the presence of the Spirit.
At the end of the greatest revival in the Bible, Paul is about to leave and hand things over to the local leaders, in his final words to them, we see a repeat of the word of Christ,
I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:23-24)
The message of the Cross remained in the teaching of Paul. He knew that many would come to reshape the gospel and turn into a self-help and self-love work of compromise. He consider his life worth nothing but lived for the completion of Mark 16:15-20
Lesson from Rambo
I grew up in a home where we value being holy. However, I had friends who lives worldly lives. The good thing was they had television (and cable). It was at their house that I got to see movies. (Pentecostals see the TV as hellivison!) One of the movies I saw a lot as a young boy was Rambo.
He would end every movie with walking off with no idea of where he was going. He did once in Washington, once in Thailand, again in Afghanistan and yet again in Burma and Arizona. Each time, he has no plan of what is next, he is walking into the wilderness of life.
The same is true for the biblical believer. Following Jesus is not easy or fair. Paul said the only thing he know no matter where he went is he would hated and people wanted to murder him. Yet, he was faithful to the end.
Living out the gospel is living in the unknown. He is just blindly trusting God and obeying Him no matter the cost. You might not know the next step but you walk out into it anyways.
The good news is, just like Rambo, there is also another mission waiting for you somewhere. He starts in Washington but at some point is on the border of Pakistan. The journey of walking by faith and not by sight!
Living in transition
As a person of biblical faith, you are always going from one place to another. This is spiritual as well as geographical. We are moving from darkness into light, for example. Abraham was told to go to the unknown and he was moving. The bible is full of people in transition.
I have found myself in one of the seasons where everything seems to say to prepare for a major shifting. Embracing the change is the only response that God would accept.
The Holy Spirit is the leader, the world of the Lord is not an invitation but marching orders. The only “choice” one has after hearing the prophetic revelation is to walk in the Spirit or walk in sin. Telling the Lord to either wait or just no is sinful and cause division between you and Him.
Your purpose on the earth is not for you but through you. When you give your life to Jesus, you exist for the mission of God alone. The deed of your days has been signed over to the Spirit of God.
As I end this year of being back at the International House of Prayer, I am asking the Holy Spirit what is next. I realize my desires, my plans and my goals do not mean anything. I surrender them all on the floor during the Brownsville Revival.
