2018 is the year of new beginnings. The understanding is that we will experience something new – we will enter a new season and experience a new dimension. This new dimension is something that surpasses the ordinary – something supernatural.
What we must do to experience this new dimension is to set our minds on things that are above, no on earth (Colossians 3:1-4). People generally think life is only about the physical things. To live a happy life, people think they need success, fame, acknowledgment and wealth. In reality, it seems like those who do not have money have a bad life. The result is that people only look after the physical or materialistic things. Those kinds of people will not experience a new dimension.
‘Things that are above’ are not the things people chase after on earth. These are the things that surpass all things, which are spiritual and heavenly things. To get these, we need to set our minds on them and seek after them. For example, in the story of Job, Job reached the maximum level of what others say is a success. One day, everything he had vanished and he did not understand the cause. He had thought that when everything was gone, his life also ended. But the Lord had a different plan. In his great suffering, Job had an encounter with the Lord. He listed to God’s Word which opened his spiritual eyes. The truth is success in life isn’t the main goal, but it is the personal encounter with the Lord (Job 38:1). At the end, Job understood why he had to experience those difficulties. His life did not end because he lost all of his possession. Instead, he went to the next level spiritually and physically.
For us to understand the things above, the way we think has to be changed by God’s Word. Then, we will be able to follow God’s will correctly. Reading and meditating on His Word daily is a way to have a new mindset. Our ways of life must also be changed to new. ‘Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.’ (Romans 6:4). A new way of life means we must leave behind our old ways that were not pleasant before God – every sin, lust, fleshly desire, compromising with sin and worldly things. We must guard our lives to be holy and have a fear of the Lord.
New way of life also means depending on the Lord, not on our strength and mind or even others. Those who depend on the Lord will always build an intimate relationship with the Lord – close with Him through prayer, praise and worship, as well as reading the Word of God. Let us experience a new dimension with the Lord. God bless.
Source: Article from GBI Gatot Subroto, Jakarta