Supernatural Transformation: Change Your Heart Into God’s Heart (36 page)

Recurring issues and problems in our life can indicate that we are trapped in a carnal mentality.

5. Prove the Will of God

“…that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”
(Romans 12:2). The Greek word translated
“prove”
is
dokimazo
, which means “to test,” with the implication of “to approve”—in other words, “to attest,” or “to affirm to be true or genuine.” When our mind is renewed, we will understand the will of God, which is
“good,”
“acceptable,”
and
“perfect”
for us. From the above conclusion to Paul’s entreaty in Romans 12:1–2, we recognize that, in order to discover God’s will, we must first present our body as a
“living sacrifice,”
making ourselves totally available to Him.

God’s will is a reflection of His nature and qualities, and one of His greatest characteristics is His supernatural ability. Therefore, to manifest the supernatural is to be in alignment with an aspect of His will. Some evidences that we are in His will are the supernatural healings and miracles and the instances of supernatural provision, guidance, peace, and/or joy that are manifested in and through our life. When we pray,
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
(Matthew 6:10), we are asking that the dominion and will of our heavenly King be exhibited and carried out in our midst. God wants the reality of His supernatural realm to invade our life, and He wants His will to be manifested through us as a result of the transformation and renewal of our heart and mind.

Consider how God’s will is demonstrated in heaven. Everything there is complete and eternal; no one experiences limitations due to time or space; and there is no iniquity, sickness, lack, fear, or sadness. In heaven, the redeemed experience true life, never-ending peace, perfect health, and an abundance of all good things. Therefore, if we live according to a transformed heart and mind, with access to the heavenly realm, we can bring God’s will—including all these elements—to earth.

When your mind is continually renewed, you will know God’s will and walk in it.

As our mind is renewed according to the
“mind of Christ”
(1 Corinthians 2:16), we become truly useful to God. If we operate outside the purposes of His mind, it will be a rare thing for God to use us, regardless of how “available” we make ourselves to Him. The Lord will not be able to work through us if our thoughts and/or our behavior are in conflict with the mind of Christ.

But when we renew our mind, we become a powerful instrument for God’s kingdom. This explains why our mind is the place of ongoing spiritual battle. The enemy will try by any means possible to stop us from renewing our mind. He will scheme to make the world’s culture and ways seem comforting and appealing; he will attack us with
“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”
(1 John 2:16). He tempted Jesus in the same ways, but Jesus was loyal to His Father’s heart, mind, and kingdom purposes. We offer ourselves to that which we enter into agreement with our heart and mind. Often, our thoughts reveal where we have placed our loyalties—either with God’s ways or with the ways of the flesh and the enemy.

A renewed mind is essential to bringing the reality of the
kingdom of God to others.

Let us now look at three striking testimonies that demonstrate God’s supernatural ability to transform the human mind. In these cases, He performed miracles to heal people supernaturally from physical and mental disorders of the brain. The first testimony is of Yanaris, who was born premature, weighing only two pounds. The doctors determined that part of Yanaris’s brain was missing, and he was diagnosed with mental retardation. As he grew, he had trouble sleeping, was unable to learn to read or write, had a very short attention span, was quick to become bored, and had problems with his memory—to the point that he would forget things within seconds. He was given prescribed medication, and he was dependent on his mother and other adults for everything. In school, the other children made fun of him. He instinctively defended himself, but his self-defense turned into anger, frustration, bitterness, and depression. He grew up to be a violent and abusive young man.

Tired of his situation, Yanaris began to ask God to help him to be “normal.” Then, he attended a youth conference hosted by our ministry. I preached at one of the sessions, and, at the end of the session, I purposed to demonstrate, by way of signs and miracles, what I had preached. Yanaris ran to the altar, and I laid my hands on his head. Yanaris testifies that he felt the fire of God burn throughout his body—and he also began to have a bad headache. When he went home, the pain in his head was still there. The following day, he was taken to the hospital to be examined. There, doctors discovered that his brain was now whole! Jesus had created the part of his brain that had been missing!

The doctors told him, “Yanaris, we don’t know how this is possible, but your brain is complete. You are now able to live a full life without any problem.” With joy, Yanaris jumped, shouted, cried, and praised God. He embraced and kissed his mother and danced from pure happiness. Now he is an independent man. He finished high school and, in a short time, went from being a waiter to being one of the best chefs at the Marlins stadium in Miami. He is happy and very grateful to God for the tremendous miracle that was given to him. When he shares his testimony, he says, “Parents, do not accept mental illnesses in your children. The supernatural power of God and His great love for humanity have no limits. Nothing is impossible for Him! If He recreated part of my brain, He can do great things for your children.”

The next testimony is of Safi, a young man who was well-educated but lived with internal conflicts that he couldn’t understand. Eventually, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia—a mental illness that only the supernatural power of God can cure. Here is his story: “When I was fourteen years old, I attended a school for gifted children. I would complete three hours’ worth of homework every night, but then I would spend all my free time in the ghettoes and lower-class neighborhoods. As a teenager, I was arrested several times for minor offenses. However, I graduated from high school and was awarded a scholarship to attend the university. By then, I was stealing from every type of business.

“My first schizophrenic episode was of demons raping me. This experience led me to question my sexual orientation. Later, I would hear voices making racial comments toward black women when they passed by me, and I thought it was my own thoughts. In an effort to calm myself, I started to drink. I had no idea what schizophrenia was, so I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I started to see demons with huge knives, stabbing people. The demons threatened to cut my loved ones if I didn’t attack or hurt someone else.

“One Mother’s Day, the demons came at me stronger than ever. They told me they were going to hurt my mother if I didn’t go out and hurt someone. That morning, I went out and stole from about ten people in just under an hour, threatening them with a knife. The police were looking for me, but I just kept robbing people. Finally, I went to rob an elderly woman, and, as I looked into her eyes, I heard a voice that said, ‘You’d better not do it.’ I let her go and surrendered to the police.

“I was put in prison, where I fought the correctional officers, so I was placed in solitary confinement. When I found out that I was facing life in prison for the crimes I had committed, I broke down. I asked for a Bible, but they said I wasn’t allowed to have anything in solitary confinement. After a few weeks, during which I caused no further incidents, I was returned to the regular prison. I made friends with two men whom God used as ‘angels’ to guide me in the right path. I started to read the Bible, to pray, and to attend the church service held at the prison.

“I was discharged from prison a year later because I had been diagnosed as schizophrenic prior to my arrest and didn’t have any other crimes pending. I was given five years’ probation and was released on my own recognizance to live at a halfway house. I returned to the university and joined the Christian club and the business clubs, where I met my mentor.

“Now, four years later, I serve in the church and have scholarships to go to leadership conferences in Washington, D.C., Poland, and Israel. I never violated my parole, and I was released two years early. Today, God continues to work in me, and His mercy is eternal. I am a free man! God set me free! Through His grace, He has shown me that I can be a totally restored man—free of ‘voices,’ attacks, anger, and chaotic behavior.”

The third testimony is of Antonio, who was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and Tourette’s syndrome when he was seven years old. Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological disorder that manifests in bizarre thoughts or ideas, compulsive speech, and involuntary movements, including obscene words and gestures and the repetition of words. Antonio also suffered from sleep disorders, including sleepwalking, nightmares, and insomnia.

Antonio’s mother says that her son was treated with various drugs but made no apparent improvement. Seeing her child in this state drove her to desperation. She reached a point at which she simply got sick and tired of the situation and decided to take Antonio to the early-morning prayer meeting at our church. I was ministering that day, and I laid my hands on Antonio, declaring his healing in the name of Jesus. As an act of faith, his mother stopped giving him the prescribed medications. Let me emphasize that no one told her to do this; it was her own choice, as an act of faith, because that is what she felt God was leading her to do.

A few days later, she received a call from the school where her son attended. Antonio’s teachers told her that he was showing noticeable improvement in his schoolwork. He had passed all his exams with excellent grades, and the teachers were surprised. They thought his mother had increased the dosage of his medications, and they told her they would even be moving him to a gifted class. When they discovered that Antonio was no longer taking the medications, they couldn’t believe it!

Today, Antonio is fully functional. He can play with his fellow students, is well-behaved in class, earns good grades, and is able to participate in family gatherings. His grandmother, who was a doctor of psychiatry in Cuba, opposed the decision to stop administering Antonio’s medications, but when she saw her grandson’s improvement, she was amazed by the supernatural power of God. She has stopped believing in psychiatry and is now totally involved in the vision of our ministry. Both the mother and grandmother want to learn how to take the supernatural power of God to children who have been abandoned and/or who suffer with illnesses similar to those Antonio had.

Since God is able to perform creative miracles and tremendous healings that transform people’s minds, as He did for the young men in the above testimonies, He can surely renew our mind through the Holy Spirit, so that it reflects His own mind.

The Importance of Renewal of the Mind

Let’s review the following truths about the renewal of our mind:

• Unless we renew our mind and cast off our fallen, limited mentality, God will be able to do little in us that is new.
  

• As we renew our mind, we begin to perceive, “see,” and “hear” the spiritual realm.
  

• As we renew our mind, old and limiting structures that do not bear fruit for the kingdom will fall away. Jesus said,
  “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins”
  (Mark 2:22). I believe that the
  “new wineskins”
  Christ talked about refer to changes in mind-set, in structure, and in message. Again, we cannot use a new structure while we still maintain our old mentalities based on the fallen nature. Yet the transformation of the mind produces a change of structure and message that reflects a living gospel—which, in turn, produces the manifestation of the power and presence of God and revolutionizes our life as the
  “new wine”
  of the Holy Spirit flows in and through us.
  

No transformation can take place without true repentance.

• When we become established in the continual renewal of our mind, God is able to trust us with His anointing, His supernatural power, and the experience of His glory. Living according to the mind of Christ leads to powerful demonstrations of His will and purposes.
  

• The renewal of our mind assures that the deliverance, healing, or other supernatural manifestation we may receive from God will remain. No transformation is permanent without a change of mentality; there must be a comprehensive renewal from the inside out. Transformation cannot be counterfeited for very long; it cannot be maintained if it is not genuine.
  

When we renew our mind, we become a more usable and powerful instrument of God.

• The renewal of our mind is the beginning of success. When we break away from a defeated, negative, limited mentality in order to enter into the victorious, positive, limitless mind-set of the kingdom, we will prosper in every aspect of our life, just as our soul prospers. (See 3 John 1:2.)
  

• Renewing our mind, or establishing God’s thoughts within us, causes us to continually experience new spiritual challenges, and it demands increasingly greater surrender to God and sanctification in Him. Renewal must be an ongoing “rhythm” in our spiritual life. If we lose that rhythm, we will no longer flow in the supernatural but will slow down until we finally return to functioning according to a natural state. To keep from losing this rhythm, we must rise to meet these challenges and demands through faith, always obeying God immediately and fully, and retaining what we have gained spiritually in Him.