What to do when God touches your life

Last weekend we were at Global Awakening in Harrisburg, PA, helping launch their kingdom business initiative called Kings and Priests. It was wonderful! And, during the last session I was so impacted by a touch from God, I ended up on the floor! What do you do with that?!

(Listen to this as a podcast here)

So often we come face-to-face with God in some sort of encounter with God and we leave mostly unchanged. So, what do you do when the Lord has touched you in some way to make sure that the ‘encounter’ brings the transformation that it was designed to?

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor 3:18 

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

2 Corinthians says that we are transformed from being face-to-face with Him. Obviously, every time we come into His presence there is a measure to which we are changed. We see who He is, and we are changed by that revelation. The challenge is when we get back to our normal routine. What tends to happen is that we immediately fall back into the old way of thinking and the patterns of behaving. In order for us to be transformed in a greater way we must partner with Him to let our thinking change in response to our interaction with Him. This takes some effort to do.

When we have any kind of encounter with Him it is really an invitation for an on-going, life-long interaction with Him. For example, I had an interaction with the Lord where He showed me a scene where He allowed me to take an honored place beside Him. I knew in the interaction that He was showing me that He wanted to take me into a season where He was giving me greater favor. It was an invitation to continue to dialogue with Him about favor, which I have continued to do. It is a scene that I have constantly gone back to as I continue to ‘lean in’ to what He is saying about favor. I go back there and allow Him to minister to me over and over again about the truth of how He sees me.

At the same time as He has been talking to me about favor, I have had a number of experiences where the opposite of favor has been ‘in my face.’ Each time I have, in my mind, gone back to what the Lord showed me, and allowed that reality to be foremost in my thinking. I had to choose to make that the reality I focused on and chose to believe. It has allowed me to stay anchored in the reality that He is with me and wants to give me greater favor.

Likewise with other moments that I have with the Lord. Those moments are not just to make me feel good in and for a moment, they are meant to be an invitation for me to continue to dialogue with Him and to change how I see myself and Him. My encounters with Him are supposed to inform how I live, not out of a mental assent to what He is saying, but out of revelation of who He is and what that means to me.

Practically what does that look like?

1. Remember

I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.  Psalm 143:5

I go back to when I felt the Lord’s presence or heard His voice and I step back into that place. I don’t remember it dispassionately but instead I, in essence, relive it and ask Him to speak to me again. I ask Him questions about what happened. I let Him take me further and speak to me in a deeper way.

2. Re-engage

I engage with Him again over what I experienced so that it changes the way I think. I allow Him to continue to speak to me about how He sees me. I allow that perspective to inform my decisions and responses to the world around me.

3. Repent

Repentance is changing the way we think, taking a 180 degree turn. As I engage with the Lord I allow Him to high-light where my thinking needs to change. In the encounter I had about favor I initially just felt His presence and how it felt to walk in favor. Later as I mediated on what He had shown me I realized I needed to repent for how I had seen myself. I had to change my thinking to agree with His thinking.

4. Re-align

The final part of this is to take time to allow Him to realign your thinking with His. This is where the rubber meets the road. Many of us like the ‘warm fuzzies’ of feeling His presence but we don’t want to do the ‘work’ of allowing Him to truly adjust and realign the way we think. It’s not always easy to change how we have thought for years. It takes discipline to become aware of what we are thinking and make sure it aligns with how He thinks. But Romans 12 says that we are transformed by this change of thinking. Feeling the Presence of God is meant to draw us more into His presence and into closer relationship where our proximity to Him allows us to be shaped by Him.

Activation:

• Remember an encounter you had with the Lord. Step back in and feel His Presence again.
• Re-engage with Him in the place you met Him. Ask Him questions, allow Him to speak to you more.
• Repent where you need to. Allow Him to show you lies and then the truth.
• Realign your thinking with the truth. Come up with a plan on how you will keep pressing into that truth to bring freedom and change to your life.

 NEXT STEPS:

We are getting super excited about what is going to happen in Atlanta, GA February 29-March 2nd. We sincerely anticipate a whole lot more moments (corporate and individual) that happened to Janine last weekend. SINCERELY, do what you can to join us there OR, no excuses, jump onto the weekly live calls so that we can all grow together with what is unfolding this year.

Conference link here

Weekly community free trial here