Transformation & Favor

Transformation & Favor
By Graham Cooke www.outlawedwonderings.com
Affection takes a disciplined mind toward our relationship with the Holy Spirit. We have to focus our attention on Him. As Paul wrote in Colossians 3:2—“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” To love God, we must let our mind dwell on His nature. That makes meditation a key to intimacy. We need to think long and hard about who God is, maintaining an unbroken fellowship with Him.

“In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus,” Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Intimacy has a voice—thankfulness. We need to be extremely vocal in our gratitude, practicing our thanksgiving. Real intimacy cannot be hidden because it is a transforming force. When you learn how to stay in the presence of God—to “keep yourselves in the love of God,” as Jude 24 puts it—you come into favor and into the future of fulfilled prophetic words. Favor rises out of the heart of God for us, and He puts us in a place of continuous blessing.

God wants to transform us to look like Him. The goodness He is developing each of us can overcome the evil that permeates throughout the world. Intimacy with God produces goodness in each of us, and that goodness can touch an entire community. What if the favor over your life is actually an umbrella that can cover an entire neighborhood, church, or even city? What if the favor on your church corporately is so large that it can cover and bless thousands of people in your town? When we, as believers, do not live in the favor of God, we allow evil to flourish around us.

Imagine a community protected and enhanced by God’s favor! It all starts with Christians falling in love with Jesus and releasing His goodness to the people around them. What if God decreed that you will be so full of His presence that no one around you will be safe from a blessing? What if your role in life is to go and bless as many people as you can? What if God has marked out a specific territory for you to cover with His blessings and kindness? It is important that we explore the current level of our favor. We need to take our favor out for a spin. Just as Jesus grew in favor with both God and men, so we have to discover both of those veins of favor. God wants us to press our favor with those around us, taking as much territory for His Kingdom as possible.

It took a long time for the ancient Israelites to learn this principle. When Moses dispatched twelve spies into Canaan, only Caleb and Joshua came back ready to press God’s favor to their advantage. Everyone else was terrified by the cities and armies of Canaan. In Numbers 13:33, we see how fear overcame favor—“There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” But Caleb and Joshua knew they had favor, and a prophetic word that this was their Promised Land.

They tried to explain that God had given them an advantage, but the Israelites didn’t listen, as we read in Numbers 14:7-10— They spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, ‘The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.’ But all the congregation said to stone them with stones.

No one told the Israelites to feel like grasshoppers; they simply took on that persona. In the end, God had to wait until a new generation of Israelites emerged and were willing to push His favor as far as they could. When God puts a giant in front of us, it is to inspire us to see how big His favor is for us. Giants shouldn’t frighten us; they should gets us excited for the victory that’s about to come.

Our favor can overwhelm the obstacles in front of us. God will often allow an issue to arise that seems to large for us to overcome. Yet this is His way of pushing us to use our favor to its fullest advantage. When the teenaged David faced Goliath, all he had was a slingshot, a few stones, and a prophetic promise that he would be king someday. David could have hid, like Saul, and let someone else handle it. Goliath wasn’t his fight, after all. But David wanted to take his favor for a spin. In the blink of an eye, David went from being a goofball teenager to a warrior hero. That’s the power of God’s favor.