Let Me Have A Witness

My Utmost For His Highest

‘The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.  The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God— He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man.’ CHAMBERS

These are imposing words … transfiguration … ascension …. Words that we know, but really don’t think much about … they don’t seem to be relevant to our everyday life …  we tend to focus more on the ministry of Jesus and the cross.  On the mount of transfiguration, (Matthew 17, Mark 9) Jesus revealed His nature as the Son of God to Peter, James and John.  When Jesus ascended in heaven .. He revealed His heavenly nature again and told the disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit to give them a new nature.

‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.’ (Acts1:8-9)

It’s that nature that we know we have if we are Christians, but we very often live as though we have very little awareness of its reality in our lives.

So often we treat our new nature as if it were new clothes when in fact it was a new heart .. we have received a permanent heart transplant.  It’s not just a change on the outside but on the inside.  When we receive the Holy Spirit at the point of our conversion, we take on a heavenly – eternal nature … But even though I have this new nature, I find myself still struggling with the same mundane issues in life … people that are hard to get along with … pressures of making a living … disappointments … heartache … sickness …

Our salvation does not change the fact that we are in the world … in fact it is God’s intent that we stay in the world to be witnesses … We face what everyone else faces in this life, but there is a difference … we have the Holy Spirit in us and the result ‘should be’ the fruit of the Spirit – ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Because of that, we witness not only with our words but with our lives… in the way we respond to life.  Our ability to respond in a way that is different … is because of the Holy Spirit in us ..  ‘I (Jesus) do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.’ (John 17:15-18)

God has chosen to use us to point others to Him.  So, today as you deal with life … draw deeply on the Holy Spirit … let your light shine before all men and bring glory to the Father ….

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)