God Doesn’t Do Magic. By Graham Cooke

 
LINK

When it comes to personal transformation and the prophetic, it’s easy to love God’s promises, but not the process attached.

It is not hard to envision the future, nor to get inspired about the purposes of God. But generally, people wish to obtain an impartation of transformation without the journey of change.

But that is not ministry; that is magic. And God does not do magic.

When God breaks through in power, we must then follow through in process.10

The church is full of people who have been touched but not changed. That’s because the key component to being turned into a new man or woman always lies in the mind. Transformation can only happen through the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2).

We must be delivered from the very part of us that made ministry inevitable. If we have to be set free, it follows that our minds must have been in bondage. The natural way of thinking is foolishness to the uninitiated (1 Corinthians 2:6–16) because they cannot be understood in logical terms.

God speaks to provoke faith and we always respond in faith, trust, desire, or need. But we must also follow up our response by changing the very mindset that created the deficit in the first place.

If we have not changed, we have not learned.

If our thinking has not been seriously adjusted, then our response will diminish over time. If that happens too many times, we become negatively intended, world weary, pessimistic, and even cynical.

We want new, but we cling to the old way of doing things. However, when God breathes on a structure it inevitably comes apart.3 An old structure cannot bear the weight of the fresh movement of God. We must begin again. A fresh impetus of the Spirit requires a new wineskin to accommodate and mature what God is doing.

We think that our first response to God is our only obligation.

But going to the altar is not our response to God, it is our acknowledgement that we are in need and things must change.3 Our true response comes after our initial agreement with God about our condition.

We need to follow up, and open our life to an ongoing transformation. After all, the renewal of our thinking is the key to change. We have all squandered too much of God’s blessing without being changed for the better.

Some things must change, or the new will dissipate.

It is simply not possible to grow in the new if we remain in partnership with the old.15

If interested in breaking this partnership, try asking yourself: What new experiences are you having at this time? What fresh encounters are you receiving? How do you plan to keep them? And what fresh movement of God are you praying for? How will you prepare the way of the Lord? What is the next phase of thinking that you must accommodate?

Then, simply write down the areas in your mind where renewal is required.