Hey guys!
I’ve officially made it through training camp! Praise God! This week, I’ve been coming to know the Holy Spirit as Refiner, specifically in the sense of refining my mind, thoughts, and patterns of thinking. Two verses have come alive and have greatly changed me: Romans 12:2 – do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND, and 2 Corinthians 10:5 – We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and WE TAKE CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGH TO MAKE IT OBEDIENT TO CHRIST.
This week we had a three-part teaching on spiritual warfare, and I learned, that it starts in the mind of people. That my thoughts can either agree with Jesus or the enemy, and therefore have the power to open doors for the enemy to fester. The Holy Spirit has been revealing my thoughts to me, firmly, but kindly, on whatever is not in alignment with his truth. He illuminates what thoughts need to go, so that I can live in more of his freedom. And even in one week, the more I replace the enemy’s lies with the Holy Spirits truth and commanding the enemy to leave, the less room there is for the enemy. Even “simple” lies I’d been believing before, such as “they’re better at x,y,z that I am” or “my words won’t really change anything” have come back less and less, and soon they’ll be gone!
So yeah he’s been refining the way I think, helping me make every single thought obedient to Jesus, but he’s also been refining my sensitivity and obedience to his voice. A group of us took a trip to Walmart, and as I walked past the dairy section with my best friend Rose. I saw a girl driving an electric cart because she had a broken ankle. The Holy Spirit brought to my mind the part in Matthew 10 were Jesus tells his disciples to heal the sick and raise the dead. That’s actually crazy if you think about it, but I turned to Rose and said something along the lines of “Jesus tells us to heal people, whats stopping me from just stepping out in faith and doing it? There’s nothing to loose, and it’s an opportunity for his glory to be revealed.” So I turned back, walked to this girls with a broken ankle, and prayed for her healing. It wasn’t any long or profound prayer, and even now I don’t know if she was healed, but it made me ask my self, that since I know the voice of the Holy Spirit, why don’t I obey more? And even through this one act of obedience, my faith was encouraged that in fact, truly the Holy Spirit is in me, and I do have the power through him to heal others.
So yeah this week, experiencing the Holy Spirit refine the way I think through having scripture come alive in my life, and refining my response to him, that I respond quickly out of faith and love for him. It’s been mind-blowing, and literally I can never see things in the same way ever again, in the best way possible. It’s actually such an exciting life to obey the Holy Spirit! He exceeds what I can imagine every single time.
ALSO!!
Tomorrow my squad leaves for domestic ministry at Excel College in Black Mountain, North Carolina! Please pray with faith that we would have no fear of man when it comes to preaching the Gospel, and that we would have supernatural energy and stamina and joy during a week of manual labor and lots of children! And that God will MOVE! Thank you guys!
