The job of Holy Spirit is to make me look like Christ. If I don’t submit: if I won’t listen to Him, if I won’t receive His love, then I’ll never look like Jesus. What I will be left with is the self effort of trying to live right.
In the secret place, we surrender our old habits and our corrupt nature, allowing Holy Spirit to minister truth and life into our very being. And as our mind changes about who we are – as we start to see ourselves as being partakers of the image of Christ, we take on that very nature until we become just like our older brother.
The whole key is surrender. Most ministers focus on obedience, but God is after our heart. The heart that is transformed will naturally be obedient. He desires to love on us and show us the nature He has placed within us. How we surrender is mainly just coming into full agreement with who He says we are. We don’t change ourselves. We allow Holy Spirit to talk to us about the why behind our behavior, and surrender those “whys”. He will give us new reasons for living. He will release the love of Father deep within us so that His love becomes our only motivation.
When all of our other “whys” are gone, and the we are full of God’s love, living like Jesus is easy. This is what Holy Spirit is desiring to release to us. When our view of ourselves perfectly aligns with what He says about us, nothing will hold us back and nothing will be impossible.
These are the two points of surrender that allow us to take on the nature and image of Christ.
- Surrendering the “whys” behind our life.
- Surrendering our old identity.
Holy Spirit ministers to us in both of these areas.
- He pours love over us and replaces the old motives with Love.
- He replaces our old identity (nature) with the identity (nature) of Christ.
All the fullness of God will be experienced by us as we allow Holy Spirit to minister God’s heart to us, over and over again. This is how we receive the image of Christ as Holy Spirit speaks His nature into us. The result is that we all will “Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as his beloved sons and daughters.” -Ephesians 5:1 TPT