As I sat and listened to the sermon in our worship gathering yesterday, a light really came on for me on the inside. This was the latest message in the sermon series called “Hidden Treasure”. The focus of the truth being delivered was that we all have walls of limitation that we run into when it comes to fulfilling life goals and/or running after the dreams we believe in for ourselves. Our pastor was challenging the powerful mantra of our culture which says; “If you can dream it then you can do it!”. He was provoking us to face reality. It’s just not true… we can’t accomplish everything we set our mind to and our dreams don’t all come true. We run into walls of limitation.
Somewhere in the middle of his talk a bolt of spiritual wisdom from the Lord nailed me. He was talking about our need not only to believe in Jesus and be baptized with water but to also to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and power. My heart was already stirred up when he got me right in his sites and said: “You need a breakthrough in your mind to change your life”!
That was a good 24 hours ago and yet the Holy Spirit is continuing to work away on me. It dawned on me that many years ago I came to the end of myself in what I was able to conceive of and piece together philosophically about my beliefs, my life, my worldview. I am so grateful for that season in my life when I surrendered (even daily for a few years) to the Lord in prayer turning away from my self sufficiency and asking the Holy Spirit to come fill me with His love, power and gifts so that I could flow with what He is doing in the world. I can testify that over the years He has empowered me over and over again to break through and tear down stubborn walls of limitation in my mind based on human thinking that is completely preoccupied with the earthly realm. He has changed my life by renewing my mind with the realm of his kingdom which by the way has come and is all around us. I am convinced that His will for your life and mine is to be a place where the realm of heaven and earth meet and He is allowed to shine freely through our ordinary lives that Jesus truly is Lord. He wants His kingdom to come and His will to be done in and around us in our sometimes nasty earthly challenges as it is in heaven.
In one of Paul’s letters to his friends who were learning to follow Jesus in their very earthly lives, he coached them this way: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:1-2
It matters that you ask the Holy Spirit to bring a breakthrough in your mind so that the walls of limitation that keep you imprisoned can be demolished! He is faithful and if we will surrender our mind to him, meditate on His word as greater than our thoughts and emotions, He will set us free and we will experience His glory in increasingly practical and tangible ways. Baptize us Lord!!