A Note from DT
Romans 12:2 (tpt) Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.
This verse is a permission slip from your Father. It’s permission to listen to His voice and follow Him with your life no matter what it looks like to anybody else. It’s permission to give your life fully and wholly unto Him in complete trust because His plans are far better and more fulfilling than anything that you could imagine.
Many times there is an unseen pressure to conform to the conventional path of the majority in order to feel safe or to gain acceptance in life. The Bible calls this the fear of man and often it is this fear which keeps people from walking freely into the way of Lord. As comfortable as It may seem not to ‘rock the boat’ by veering from the conventional path, living our life to be approved in the eyes of man is nothing less than a trap. Poverbs 29:25 states, The Fear of man is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety. If the decisions of our lives are driven by the motivation of things like image, status, or reputation we will find ourselves contorting our person in order to grasp for these fleeting things rather than manifesting the image of the One who created us to bear His image. Simply put, when we seek to conform ourselves to the culture of this world we cease to manifest the culture of our Father’s Kingdom.
I’m reminded of a time in my life where I felt that I did not really fit in with the culture of this city where we live and have founded a church. Tyler, TX is a really great place but it also has such a strong and distinct cultural flavor that is unlike any place that I’ve ever lived. There is a pretty strong religious vibe but also there is the presence of a class system within the local culture and early on I would sometimes feel that I could never really belong here. A few years back while I was feeling these things I was given a dream where I was at Lake Tyler and there was a prophetic representation of Nichole and I in the water. I watched as little by little the lake water began to be converted into what was like the most beautiful clear/blue salt water of the ocean. It was being transformed into a body of water that would be able to thrive with all types of sea life, not just the fish, snakes, and frogs that are native to our local lake. In this dream I was encouraged about our role in bringing this conversion to the lake and I was encouraged to see that the process was already taking place. There were some very specific details in the dream but the overall message was about a shift in culture.
As believers we have been given a mandate to live according to the culture and rhythm of our Heavenly family. This is what it means to be the ‘salt of the earth’. We are called to preserve and even to enhance all that our lives touch. We are called to do this by living in our true inheritance manifesting our Heavenly culture everywhere our feet tread. It is our destiny.
Abraham was called out of the culture and heritage of his family and into the pursuit of an entirely different culture which he would later recognize was his true heritage. He is known as the ‘father of the faith’ and even more importantly he was called a ‘friend of God’. We have been given the privilege of knowing God and walking with Him in this life. Nothing could be better. Not only that, but He has brilliant plans and purposes for all of us to walk in. There is nothing more exhilarating than connecting to the purpose and destiny that God has for you. Every form of pressure and every bit of fear that comes into our hearts in this life is truly an opportunity to sink our roots deeper into the reality of the Kingdom realm of our God and Father so that we manifest His reality in the earth. It does not matter what ‘ideals and opinions’ we may feel swirling around us. We have been given the ultimate freedom, the ultimate permission, to step out of these pressures and into the peace that comes from knowing God and following Him. This is where we uncover the direction, strategy, and will of God for life… this is how we will change the culture. This is the Way. He is the Way. Be free…
-DT