Changing Your Mindset
By: David Martin
Some years ago I was visiting a fellowship in Syracuse, NY. A lady was also visiting who usually attended a fellowship that did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit. Now, here’s a point of reference. Growing up in a culture that doesn’t believe in “fire’s hot” is kind of weird. That’s just an illustration. But what is a very real illustration is that people believe God doesn’t heal anymore. People believe the gifts of the Spirit are for long ago and they’re not for today. This lady that was in my meeting in Syracuse, NY happened to believe that. And she was sitting there and the place was packed. Right in the middle of my message, God spoke to me and pointed her out to me and I knew by the Spirit that she had a back problem. I didn’t know what the back problem was, but I stopped and I said, “You there in the red sweater. I just got a word from God and the sense that I have is you have a back problem, is that true?” She said, “Yeah, wow, serious back problem,” which as I remember was from a car accident. Although we haven’t defined specific gifts of the Spirit yet, what happened to me was God gave me what is called a word of knowledge. I knew something I had no prior knowledge of.
Later after the meeting, I found out this lady belonged to a fellowship that did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit, and did not believe in the operation of the supernatural. But she had come with her friend to this meeting, and what happened is God singled her out. When I said, “Is that true?” and she said, “Yes,” I said, “Would you just stand?” She stood and I am sure there was reluctance. When she stood up, the power of God hit her, she fell over and she got up completely healed. She left a believer. She had an experience, and this is what’s missing among believers today—personal experience with an almighty God.
God wants to use you in the same way. God wants to reveal to you, by His Spirit, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, discernment of spirits and then operate with supernatural power of miracles, and faith beyond your own, and gifts of healing. God wants to work through you to demonstrate and to change people’s beliefs. People are stuck in a rut, believing what they’ve learned because of the culture, because of the religious system that they’ve been part of. And because the power of God has been so void in the body of believers, we see more people today buying Harry Potter books than we do Bibles. There’s something on the inside of people that wants the reality of a miracle working God. How are they going to get it? Through you. They’re not going to come to fellowship meetings, but they do come to work. They go to the market. We get to take the gifts of the Spirit with us, where people live, where they shop, where they work.
Again, number one, what is God’s will? He wants you to have life and have it more abundantly. Next, He wants you to reign in life. We can see this in Romans 5:17: “For if by the transgression of one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive of the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life through the One, Yeshua the Messiah.” As great as all the teachings were that we had in Bible school on faith and healing, the greatest teaching I had was understanding righteousness. Understanding who I am in Yeshua, the Messiah. Righteousness simply defined is the ability to stand in the presence of an almighty God as if sin never existed. That’s what you have because you accepted Messiah. Because you’ve accepted God into your life, you have received the gift of righteousness. It is like a woman who gets pregnant. There is no showing of it at first, but over the course of months, everyone knows. But she was pregnant the moment she conceived, and likewise the moment you received Yeshua, you received the gift of righteousness and this gift of righteousness has given you the ability to stand in the presence of an almighty God as if sin never existed.
Now, that’s critically important for you in operating in the gifts of the Spirit because when you know who you are, you also know your position. That’s what righteousness is. Righteousness is a position that’s been given to you. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it. It was given to you, but it is because of that righteousness that you reign. That’s what it says in Romans 5:17. You are going to reign in life. You are going to be able to accomplish God’s will on earth because on top of your right standing with God, which is what righteousness is, now you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the power of God to do signs, wonders and miracles.
A person who understands their righteousness prays differently. It is like when Yeshua operated in a miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. There was never a question. He approached it with a confidence of knowing because He had the leading in His heart from God. Days before it happened, He knew it was going to happen, but when He stood there He didn’t say, “Oh God, I hope this works.” No, what did He say? “I thank you, Father. You hear my prayer, always.” And this is why it is so important here as we look at God’s will. It is because you know God’s will that you are going to be able to walk into a hospital or wherever God takes you and you know the gifts of the Spirit are there to meet people’s needs. Every moment of every day, the power of God is available.
I heard someone say this, “Being a believer is not a responsibility. It is a response to Messiah’s ability.” As we look at the gifts of the Spirit, we’re looking at the ability of God. We’re looking at the fruit of the Spirit. We’re looking at His nature and His character, but as we’re looking into the gifts, we’re looking into His ability. And He’s giving you His ability by the gifts of the Spirit, so that you can reign. You can accomplish His will here on planet earth. This word “reign” in the Greek, it is “basileuo” which means, “to rule literally or figuratively, be a king and exercise kingly power.” Yeshua told his followers about the coming promise of the Holy Spirit: “You shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, to be my witnesses.”
Yeshua also said, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This comes from the Lord’s Prayer. We know the will of God. We know what His heart is. We’re going to be able to go into the market, the job site, the school, and you are going to know without doubt that you are anointed to do the work of the King. Why? Because we can see in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Whatever heaven looks like, God wants to establish His kingdom in your backyard. You are anointed by the Most High God with the gift of righteousness to rule and reign. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden and what it means to have dominion on the earth.
Let’s go to Genesis chapter one, the account of Creation. We see from the very beginning, the plan of God for planet earth. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let him rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” We’ve been given dominion. It says we’ve been given “ruler-ship to rule.” Another translation says, “to have dominion on the earth.” In verse 28, God reaffirms it: “God blessed them; and said to them, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule [or have dominion] over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over everything that moves on the earth.”
God’s will for you is to reign. That’s what God planned from the beginning. What we lost in Adam was gained in the Messiah. Man lost that dominion. He turned over the keys, but Yeshua said in Matthew 16, “Who do men say that I am?” and Peter said, “Thou art the Messiah.” Yeshua replied, “True and upon that revelation of who I am, I am going to build the church, going to give you the keys to the kingdom and what you bind on earth is bound in heaven and what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” This is what’s been given to you.
When you get baptized with the Holy Ghost, and you are energized and you are activated with the gifts of the Spirit, you have access to His unlimited power, for the Glory of God. Yeshua is coming for a victorious body of believers. We have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. God wants you to understand the gifts of the Spirit and incorporate them into your daily life. And — if you want to really walk in the fullness of the gifts of the Spirit, all you have to do is die to self.
This is something that’s not often taught, but it is reality. When you accepted Yeshua Messiah as your savior, He bought you; He paid for you with His shed blood. You are not your own. You are His and the more you recognize that and the more you purpose to stop serving self and live for the King, the more the light of God that’s on the inside of you is going to shine on the outside of you. If you take a 100-watt light bulb, and you cover it with a very dark opaque shade, you are not going to see any light even though the light is there. But this is the wisdom, the revelation behind John 3:30, where it says, “I must decrease, so He can increase.” Messiah is in you. His light, His glory, is in you. But for many there’s this opaque shade called the flesh that’s covering it, and the light can’t be seen. Purpose to die to yourself: not my will, His will be done. You want the power of God because you want His will on earth. You want to have that dominion for His glory. That no one perish. The more you die to self, the more He lives. The more you die, the more translucent the shade becomes. The light bulb on the inside isn’t changing, but people are seeing it more and more.
In 1998, God took me to a place in Africa where there was this great revival. The people that were in that revival were radiating, they were shining, they were just bright for God. God took me there to that very place where this revival happened. I met the man who, back in the 1930s, was one of the “original shining ones.” At that point, I’d studied the supernatural 20 years and the one miracle of all the miracles God led me to was the transfiguration. This man was part of a revival that affected all of Africa, particularly the East Central part, and they were all shining. A dear friend’s father was part of that movement. In 1959, twenty years after the revival started, he remembers his father coming out of the church, shining. He was only five or six years old, but he remembered. There was such a work of God’s Spirit on him that twenty years later, he was still radiating in glory. In 1998 I was there in the chapel his father came out of. In the chapel was a man who was the pastor of that group, his name is Enoch. And he said the revival wasn’t about shining. It was about holiness. People in that revival could not live with sin. They’d come to the meetings and feel conviction of the littlest of things. They would would get on their knees and repent. Over the course of time, because they couldn’t live with sin, they began to shine.
I am telling you by the Spirit of God, that is where God is bringing us. Ephesians 1:4 says that “Before the foundation of the world” God knew you and He called you to holiness. In Romans 12:1 Paul says, “I beseech you—“parakaleo” in the Greek—the strongest word in the whole Greek vocabulary for a call to action. “I beseech you [I beg you, I urge you] by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy-which is your spiritual service of worship. And be not conformed to the world, but be transformed.” That is the same word, “metamorphoo,” as you see in Matthew 17:2: “and there Yeshua was transfigured.” Talk about brightness, talk about shining! How did that shining happen? Because He made a public declaration, “I am going to lay my life down and pick it up again.” That’s what we see in Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to the world, but be transformed [transfigured].” How? By the renewing of your mind, that you may prove the good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God.
I want you to walk in the fullness of the glory and the power of God to such a degree that you demonstrate everywhere you go the power and love of God with the gifts of the Spirit.
