Renovations

The Bible says in Romans 8:11, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.” I love that verse. It tells us that the Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead. In the next sentence it says, “just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead…” If you are not sure exactly who Holy Spirit is, the Bible tells us that He is God.

Holy Spirit is powerful enough that when God was dead, He brought Him back to life. The King of kings lay dead and buried in the tomb, taking care of business with the devil in hell and Holy Spirit, at the right time, brought Him back to life.

My message this week is this, do not underestimate Holy Spirit. The devil wants to downplay God’s power by making us believe that when Jesus left, He left us in the hands of a dove. No, we have been left in the powerful and safe hands of our awesome Holy Spirit. If you are going to be in a fight with the devil, you need mighty, powerful Holy Spirit with you. It’s a faith fight. If you believe that the God who is fighting with you is small and gentle like a dove, you will lose. If you believe that the God who is fighting with you is mighty and strong enough to blow the devil away in one breath, to crush him under his thumb and to destroy him with one word, you go into that battle knowing you already won.

Use your faith to believe what the Bible tells us about God. Holy Spirit is powerful beyond measure. Yes, He came as a dove one time. He is gentle with us, but you better know that He is mighty, warring, powerful and unstoppable. He fights for us. He fights for us so much that the Bible says in Deuteronomy 20:4, “For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

God wants us to win in life. That’s why He gave us Jesus and that is why He left us in the capable hands of Holy Spirit. God does not want us living life defeated. As Christians, once we have been baptised in the Holy Spirit, we have God living on the inside of us. So, if we have dunamis power living on the inside of us, how come we still find ourselves struggling in life? For the most part it is because we do not know what we have, but it is also because we tend to believe the lies of the enemy.

If we are going to succeed in life, we need to come in agreement with the word of God and what it says about us. If God says I am more than a conqueror, then I need to believe that I am more than a conqueror in every area of life. When I believe this and start living my life in alignment with this word, I begin to overcome in life. One thing at a time, one battle at a time.

We come in agreement with the lies of the enemy more often than we come into agreement with God’s word. God’s word feels foreign to us. It does not come natural to us, why? Because we are born into sin. No one teaches toddlers how to be naughty, they just figure it out. 1 Corinthians 15:34 says, “Come back to your right senses and awaken to what is right. Repent from your sinful ways. For some have no knowledge of God’s wonderful love…”. When we are living in sin, we are not in our right mind. Our thoughts are messed up and we don’t think right. When we don’t think right, it is easy to be deceived into believing the lies of the enemy.

So naturally it is easier believe the lies of the devil than it is to believe the truth of God’s word. It is much easier to believe that my life will never change, it will always be this way, than it is to believe that God knows the plans He has for my life, plans to prosper me not to harm me. Why? Because if we choose to believe God’s word, we can’t just sit back and wait for it to happen. Nothing just happens. We have to roll our sleeves and fight the enemy out of our lives so we get the fruit of God’s words. Faith without works is dead, James 2:17. That is why we are filled with dunamis power. We can’t fight the devil in our own strength. But with God, not only can we fight, but we win.

If we want to start believing God’s word, and start coming into agreement with the word of God, then we have to be willing to let God renovate our minds and change how we think. Romans 12:1-2 says, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

The more we start coming into agreement with God’s word the more we can lean into Holy Spirit’s strength living inside us, so we can become who God has called us to be.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.