Embrace Transformation in all you do in 2018
Transformation is a Kingdom word that is key to all God wants to accomplish through our lives this year. However to fully embrace all God has ahead of us in 2018, we must understand the transformation 2017 brought.
At the beginning of last year, the Lord spoke the word ‘Reset’ to me, based on Romans 12:2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may know the acceptable, perfect and pleasing will of God.” I realised that transformation describes the process of metamorphosis. That being transformed means the changing of the form or nature of a thing or person, into a completely different one.
It is impossible to enter transformational change, with preconceived ideas about what life will be like on the other side? The truth is, we will not be the same on the other side and therefore, our approach to life, our goals, mindsets, and desires for the future, will all be viewed through the grace of a new lens. This is the power of effective internal change but it is also it’s greatest challenge because old internal regimes are often resistant to change and redundant mind-sets hate to be dethroned.
Reset your life to experience transformation
2017 gave birth to right alignments and transformational change. I liken it to the moment when the manufacturer of your internet device, asks you to hand it over for a manufacturer reset. Having done all that you can to stop the throwbacks of its dysfunctional activity happening in your world, all that there is to do is hand it over to a manufacturer’s reset. When it is returned to you, it has no memory of its dysfunctional past and it re-recognizes its mandate. It is set on go and ready to fulfill its true purpose. A complete programming erase has actually restored it to full functional capacity and it can now operate according to its authentic design.
Last year, we watched the governmental resetting of the nations. Courageous reformers rose to bring national and international, political realignments, to things that were out of line with their nation’s true mandates. We saw policy change, internal change, rhetoric change, industrial change, and a huge change in political relational alignments. All of this taking place under the fierce opposition of old ruling regimes, voices, mindsets, and systems of belief. Yet still, we saw in 2017, the resetting of the future which demanded a renovation and restoration, to that which is right before God and pleasing in His sight. We also saw that in order to attain these deep internal changes, some in the political arenas had to literally push through an army of destructive forces.
A realignment to God’s path
It is not insignificant that all four of the Gospels contain the call of John the Baptist to: “Prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight.” The word straight is directly linked to the ways of God. Our relationship to His ways, are the determining factor of the direction that our lives and nations will take.
John’s call is to take our ways, beliefs, mindsets, natural reasoning or directional pathways and line them up with the straight paths of the Spirit of God. All His paths are straight and in 2017, we saw the realigning, shaking, stripping, dismantling and pressing requirements, that are all a part of the process which enforces the demands of metamorphosis and draws us closer to the image of Christ.
The price of surrender is often great and transformation is always on purpose. For some 2017 meant the end of toxic relationships which have hindered their walk with God. Others who were running in the wrong direction, or had fallen into the trap of striving in order to attain, were brought to the end of themselves at the foot of the Cross.
Some bound to the comfort zones of religious living, felt a new breath of divine realignment in their hearts, as they came to the realization, that in order to attain the true life of the Spirit; like Abraham they were being called to take a journey that they have not made before. Leaving behind the comforts of a self-satisfied, purely soul-led life.
Others faced giants they thought they would never defeat, in the knowledge that the call to divine life, brings with it the call to a higher life and the relinquishment of all that is beneath its glory. All of these and more, so often in the midst of a relentless opposition from lower life living, surrendered their lives to the upward call of the Spirit in 2017.
Jesus is always ahead of the game and as you run forwards this year, may you run encouraged and in the knowledge that the transformation you embraced in 2017, has empowered you to rise in the acceptable, perfect and pleasing will of God for 2018. Far above and beyond all that you could ever ask, think or imagine. So, keep moving forward!
This article was written by Jeanet Elisa of Chosen Ministries. Jeanet is a visionary, teacher, missionary and mother. She worked on staff at Kensington Temple, London and has served as a missionary in Malaysia, Borneo and Nepal.
