Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzales, your pastoral and soul care encourager here in Southwest Florida. And I am so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for 35 years now.

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for his heart to touch our hearts. And if you’ve been with us, you know that we’re going through a series that I’m calling the Abiding Presence Portraits of God. As you know, I see portraits of God throughout the scripture. I’m putting him in thematic groupings now.

The last series I did was the Soul Care Portraits of God, an eight part series. And by the way, all of these 27-minute broadcasts are archived on my website at markpg.org. I call it Helping You Hear God, markpg.org. And there are articles there.

There are one-page quick guides. There are videos. There are these broadcasts that I do and have been doing for, as I said, 35 years now.

And so, man, if you want to see them and listen to them and just be blessed and hear the Lord more and more deeply in your heart and your soul, then check out markpg.org. And again, it’s called Helping You Hear God. Well, as we continue our journey through the abiding presence portraits of God, you know that we’ve talked about, if you’ve joined us, the abiding presence of God in general. talked about the difference between omnipresence and the manifest presence. And then the second one was talking about how his abiding presence is manifested by his inner presence.

And oh, that was fascinating, all the different ways the Lord does that. The next one, number three of this eight-part series, was how the Lord is our holy presence. Manifested holiness in our life.

So many different ways, so many different stories and scriptures. And all of these, I have sub-portraits, additional portraits to really highlight how these things are manifested. The fourth was how he is our comforting presence. And you know what?

Those two broadcasts about the holy presence and the comforting presence, nice balance to one another. It’s a both and, not an either or.

So I hope you check that out and really just drill deep into that Last time we talked about how he is our whispering presence and all the ways he is our daily conversation presence our instructive warning presence quiet wisdom presence, all of those marvelous journey there. And that brings us to number six. Today we’re going to be talking about, oh, this is fascinating and we forget this so often, but my friends, the Lord is our transformative presence. His abiding presence with us, he’s always abiding in us and us in him.

That’s John 15, the overall picture. One of the ways that abiding presence is manifested is by seeing that he is also our transformative presence. And I’m going to give you five sub-portraits of this so we can even be more specific in how we can see this, understand it, receive it, and live it in the Lord. Really excited about sharing this with you.

And we’ll be going to Romans and 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians and Ephesians and Colossians and Acts, just to see all these different portraits of how he is our transformative presence as he abides in us and we bear much fruit.

So as we get started, it is our custom let’s just go before the Lord. Ask Him to speak, shall we? Lord, I love sitting at Your feet. And I love doing so whether it’s our, you know, a quiet time, just you and me together or with my wife as we get to sit at Your feet or with my brothers and sisters over the airways as we get to sit at Your feet together.

When we do, we get to gaze into Your eyes and listen for Your heart whispers and let you speak to us heart to heart. And today, as we talk about this phenomenal truth, Lord, about how you are our transformative presence, I pray I’ll be able to do this well. I’ll be able to explain it clearly and help us all just relish and savor this reality in our lives that we tend to forget so often in the busyness of life and the pace of life and the shallowness of life when we let it keep us at the shallows instead of going deeper.

So, Lord, I pray you’ll speak and speak deeply to us today and reveal yourself as our transformative presence. Oh, thank you, Lord. We love you, Lord. We pray this in the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by his precious cleansing and healing, transforming empowering and forgiving blood Amen amen and amen All right my friends Well let start over in Romans chapter 12 verse 2 This is the theme verse for this particular portrait of God We looking at today how he is our transformative presence, because it very specifically says in Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed to this world.

By the way, that’s easy, isn’t it? We get swept up in the current of all the craziness and the busyness and the responsibilities and the do-less and it’s just a frenetic pace we live at and we get conformed to this world. We live as if we aren’t transformed by the salvation and abiding presence of the Lord and his transformative presence. We forget that.

Anyway, it says, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is. Is that phenomenal or what? I mean, this just blows me away. Don’t be conformed to this world.

Be transformed. Well, the fact is that we are being transformed.

But guess what? There’s the dimension of the way the Lord works in which we have been transformed, another dimension in which we are being transformed, and another way in which we will be transformed ultimately when we get to glory. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today and how that works in our everyday life, my friend.

But when you came to Christ, when you entered that personal covenant relationship with him, when you got saved, when you got born again, the scripture puts it in so many different ways. When that happened, you actually were instantly transformed in one dimension of your being. And it started a series of events that is going to progressively transform you. We are being transformed and one day we’ll be ultimately transformed and in his very presence forever and ever.

Wow.

Okay.

So let’s break that down then. I love how this Romans 12, two passage tells us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And so when you, I know when I first read that, I’m just saying, yeah, okay, I got to work to really renew my mind.

Now that I’m saved, I got to renew my mind. Well, no, it’s being renewed. If you just abide in Christ, if you just hang with him, if you just speak with him, if you just engage in that daily conversation, because he is our daily conversation presence, as we talked about last week this whispering presence he listening for his whispers Guess what The more that you listen and hear and receive those your mind will be not only transformed but get this Let me take you to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 for the first of five sub-portraits of this overall portrait of how he’s our transforming presence.

Because when we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 15 and 16, we get this mind blowing truth about the renewing of our minds.

Because not only are our minds being renewed, we actually have the mind of Christ. What? Yes, I’m calling this sub-portrait his mind of Christ presence. The transformative process is taking place because we’ve been given the mind of Christ the moment we are born again.

Phenomenal. Listen to this, 1 Corinthians 2, 15 and 16.

But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? Well, we have the mind of Christ. That’s what it says.

But we have the mind of Christ. What?

Okay. we know that when we get saved the spirit of the living god comes to live within us the presence of the lord he’s abiding with us father son holy spirit the mystery of the trinity we have that within us which means we have the mind of christ within us how are our minds being renewed simple It’s all about access.

Now that he resides and abides within us, now that he is right there all the time and never leaves us or forsakes us, and he’s always whispering, guess what? We have instant access to him anytime we want. Is that phenomenal or what? Hey, he’s the king of kings.

He’s the Lord of lords. And you know, the king was not easily accessible to just anyone in the old days. You had to be invited in to see the king. You had to have been granted special access.

Same thing with our president of the United States today or any other official or celebrity or stuff. You just can’t waltz in there.

But you know what? The moment we got saved, we became family and we have instant access to the Lord in his throne room, anywhere we want, anytime we want. We have total access and it is the ultimate AI that we have access to that transforms our minds. Oh, I’m not talking about artificial intelligence.

And that’s a whole topic for another day. And all the complexities of that. And the potential dangers. And the responsibility.

Anyway, that’s another day. AI, in this context, I call the almighty intelligence. Not artificial intelligence. Almighty intelligence.

My friend, do you realize you have instant access anytime you want to AI of God himself? of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. And if that’s not transformative, I don’t know what is. When we start thinking like Christ, we’ll start living like Christ.

Oh, my friends, savor the scriptures, savor your time of prayer, savor the insights, chew on them, meditate in them, marinate in them, abide in them. We have total access to almighty intelligence because we have the mind of Christ. Wow. All right.

Not only is that a secondary or sub-portrait of how this transformative presence of God is manifested, but let me give you another one. I call it his fresh start presence. Not only his mind of Christ presence, but it’s fresh start presence. Let’s go over to 2 Corinthians 2, verse 17, a passage many people who grew up in the church know, but I don’t know that we stop and think how remarkably and crazily phenomenal this is.

It is supernatural. It is transcendent because it says this in 2 Corinthians 2, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

What? That’s right, my friends. When we get saved, old things have passed away. The old does pass away and all things have become new.

We become a brand new creation, a brand new creature, a new species, a new specimen. We now become part divine by the presence, the very presence of Christ himself and the mind of Christ. And yet our humanity is still a part of us. We’re a blended creature.

We are a new creature. Once we were just pure human and our spirits were dead. We’re going to talk about that in a minute.

But when we get saved, guess what?

But the Bible says that when we in Christ we new creations We get a do a fresh start born again as if we’d never lived before. We have a do-over.

So one of the easiest illustrations that I’ve come up with over the years, and others have as well, is the idea of how our transformation into this new creation is metamorphosis, like a caterpillar experiences in becoming a butterfly. And I don’t have to remind you of your grade school science. Everybody remembers the little caterpillar chrysalis. By the way, a moth has a cocoon.

Sometimes we get those inverted, but it really doesn’t matter. The whole point is this. Here’s this little caterpillar, whether it’s a pre-moth or a pre-butterfly that crawls into a cocoon or a chrysalis. And within that, those weeks, metamorphosis, transformation takes place.

And what comes out? No longer a little crawling caterpillar on the leaf or on the ground, but a butterfly with beautiful wings that is now able to fly in the skies and the meadows and the flowers, set free a whole new creation. My friend, do you realize you are a butterfly believer? You have a brand new body, existence, identity, because the scripture tells us so.

It’s the transformative presence of Christ. when it comes to a reside and abide in you. He is transforming you from the inside out. You go through metamorphosis. And my friends, the transformation in one sense has been done instantaneously.

You’re a butterfly, but then it’s also in progress. And I’m going to explain that. And then someday it’ll be complete.

So hang on to this. and don’t live like a caterpillar. When the enemy tries to convince you, oh, you’re not really saved. Oh, the Lord’s not really doing all that much stuff. No, you still struggle with envy and pride and lust and anger and bitterness and depression and resentment and all those things, don’t you?

Don’t you? You think God can’t see that? What do you think you’re doing? What a game this is.

Well, that’s the enemy.

Now, do we have those struggles? Yeah.

But it’s not because we’re still sinners. We not only caterpillars We butterflies Unfortunately the enemy is so good at duping us he can convince us that we are not what we really are New creations in Christ saints in Christ transformed creatures in Christ part divine, part human. He convinces us we still are that old man, that old person.

But the Bible says the old man is dead and gone.

But he can convince us to fold up our wings, find our old chrysalis or caterpillar and just crawl in and be depressed and disoriented and discouraged and, you know, useless in the kingdom of God because he’s duped us into thinking we’re still caterpillars instead of butterflies. Don’t let the enemy do that to you. Take every thought captive in obedience to Christ and drill deep and stand firm in who you are in Christ. Transformed, renewed believers, part divine, part human, because Christ is abiding in you and you have the mind of Christ, the strength of Christ, the peace of Christ. to the degree you abide in him, it will be more and more manifested and second nature to you.

That’s the process of being transformed. We call it sanctification, progressive sanctification. And you will become more and more Christ-like as you live out this life and abide in him and let the fruit come through you in him. It’s that simple.

Fly like a butterfly. Commune with the Lord, abide in him, and his transformative work will be ongoing as you and I still live on this earth.

Now, I did mention that sometimes the transformation is immediate, and that’s the next thing I want to talk to you about.

So we’ve talked about how this transformative presence is his mind of Christ’s presence and his fresh start presence.

Now I want to talk to you about his spirit resurrection presence. because you see your spirit was dead because of original sin passed down to us you had a dead spirit and it has to be made alive it has to be resurrected for you to be saved so let me take you to the scriptures ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 listen to this and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the course of this world according to the prince and the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience all right let me stop there you know when adam and Eve were in the garden and God gave them one limitation one instruction one commandment you know he said now of the trees of the garden you shall eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, because in the day that you do, you shall surely what? You know this, die. Well, we know the story of the fall of man, the serpent, and the fruit. And they both ate it.

Now, did they physically die? no. Did their soul, mind, will, and emotions die? No, they were still talking and all that. What died? Their spirit died.

And that fall of mankind, well, we inherited that. it goes from generation to generation that’s what original sin is and it’s passed along from generation to generation and what comes with it is a dead spirit that has to be made alive that’s why this says you are dead in your trespasses and sins and by default you’re walking according to the course of this world according to the principle of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience we were all sons and daughters of disobedience until a miracle happened and we were able to see and hear the call of Jesus Christ to become born again. And when we did that, a miracle from above had to take place. I’m going to talk more about this in a minute too. The Bible tells us, and now we’re going to go to Colossians chapter 3, verse 1.

Look at the resurrection language we’re going to see here. We saw the dead language, dead spirit.

But when we get saved, it says this, therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, and we have, when we get saved, we’re raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And then it goes on to say verses 9 to 10, do not lie to one another since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self. All right, no longer a caterpillar, you’re a butterfly, which is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.

So, in one sense, you are in the process of being renewed. Progressive sanctification. We grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But, when our spirits were made alive at the point of salvation, that’s instantaneous. Boom, you’re resurrected. We see that in the whole crucifixion story. Jesus did die, but then he was, boom, resurrected.

We live in the resurrected power of Christ. That’s what this is saying. Is that phenomenal or what? You come to that place where you say, Lord, everything I have, all that I am, I give to you.

I am destined to be apart from you forever and ever. I’m a sinner. I cannot fix myself. I cannot clean myself.

I cannot heal myself. Oh, Lord, I fall at your feet. i say i do to your invitation to become one with you to be born again and instantaneously you are transformed and become a new creation in christ however in addition to that that’s called by the way uh justification uh where all of your sins have been forgiven you’re washed by his blood and your spirit is made alive instantaneously. That’s a done deal. You never lose that.

Once you’re saved, you’re always saved. God does the saving and he does the keeping and he does the justification. You are justified. The sins are no longer counted against you Christ died for them on the cross All right That instantaneously But you are being saved You are being sanctified gradually progressively We grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And one day we’ll be saved ultimately. And that’s glorification. All right.

So there you got it. Justification, instant. Sanctification, progressive. glorification ultimately. Is this cool or what?

Transformative presence of God. He is our transformative presence doing all this transformation work. You may not even realize it. We may put a little sign on our shoulder that says God at work.

You know, you see the men at work side and manhole covers or something. Men at work, well, this is God at work always. And that is so cool. And all we have to do is abide in Him.

And we will bear this fruit. We will continually be transformed. All right. Ooh, we got to get going here.

He also has given us his opening eyes presence. Listen to this. Our eyes were blinded, right?

First Corinthians 2 14.

But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him He cannot understand them because they spiritually discerned Second 2 Corinthians 4 The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. We were blinded by the God of this world. How do we get saved? God does a miracle.

He opens our eyes to see. We are blind men and a blind woman in an art gallery. It doesn’t matter how much people say, Look at this. Isn’t this beautiful?

Look at this. I can’t. I’m blind. A miracle has to happen.

That’s the miracle of salvation, the divine side, and then the human side. He initiates, we respond. And guess what? From there, we get a fifth portrait.

His life empowering presence, his life empowering presence. Ephesians 3.16, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner self so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. In Acts 1.8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. And that’s how it unfolds, my friends.

The transformative presence of God You have been saved instantaneously from the penalty of sin That justification You are being saved from the power of sin. That’s progressive sanctification. And you will be saved from the presence of sin. Ultimately, that’s glorification.

Is that cool or what? Oh, my friends, he is our transformative presence and i just give you these peeks through these sub portraits of god of all the things that you can explore and conversation with him and as you go through the scripture and as you look in your own lives and if you’re feeling overwhelmed and discouraged and the enemy is just pulling you back into that old cocoon having you fold your butterfly wings and get in there say no no that is not of god god says i am transformed i’m renewed in the spirit in my mind. I have the mind of Christ, the resurrected spirit. And walk in it, my friends.

Well, Lord, we thank you for this, and we will walk in this. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, I’m Mark Gonzales, and I hope you’ll check out my website at markpg.org.

Oh, until next time, fall in love with Jesus, our transformative presence.