Most believers do not practice agreement between themselves and the work of the Holy Spirit. They can be soulish, led mostly by their feelings, and heavily influenced by rationale thinking. They do not live by the Spirit because they usually use logic to talk themselves out of the spiritual dimension. But God rarely employs a logical plan. Often, He tells us things that simply do not make rational sense. While it resonates with the inner man of our spirit, it offends the soulish nature of our own mind. Our brain then spends the next few minutes talking us out if the plan. (Graham Cooke, Manifesting Your Spirit, p.27; Brilliant Book House).

I have to agree with Mr. Cooke. I know what he says is true because I have often experienced it in my own heart and I suspect that you have as well. We want to think of our faith as rational because our culture and even the church values what is rationale, logical, and scientific. But think about it. How rational is sending a wanted criminal back to Egypt at the age of 80 to lead a nation out of bondage? How logical is it to command an army to march around a walled city for seven days without saying a word and them to simply blow trumpets to bring down a massive stone wall? How logical was it for a young shepherd with no training and no armor to charge an armored veteran who stood nine feet tall with a slingshot? How rational was it for Jesus to raise the dead, impart sight to the blind, walk on the Sea of Galilee, and submit to utter defeat to secure victory?

It’s not that we have no hard evidence for the reality of our faith and the historical Jesus, but kingdom principles are usually in opposition to the principles of the world. In the kingdom, the first shall be last, the servant of all will be the greatest, the meek shall inherit the earth, and we are to give more away than we are being sued for. God doesn’t operate by earthly principles or perspectives but our rational minds do when they have not been renewed.

Paul instructs us not to conform to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2). To have a “renewed” mind means that we have learned to think as the Holy Spirit thinks. We think first in kingdom terms rather than in the natural realm. We exercise spiritual logic rather than our unrenewed logic and we don’t let our natural man talk us out of our Spirit-led impulses.

Agreeing with God begins by acknowledging that his ways are higher and more authoritative than our own and that we are ultimately spiritual people who need to live fully by spiritual principles. The Holy Spirit should rule over our thought processes rather than our natural man ruling over the Spirit’s leading. Then we should get busy learning God’s perspectives on every crisis, every challenge, and everything we encounter. We should then make a decision to begin to say what God says about those things, regardless of how illogical or unscientific it may sound to those who are not led by the Spirit of God. We should then ask the Holy Spirit to give us a revelation of those truths at a heart level so that God’s truth frees us from the narrow range of possibilities we perceive with our natural mind. Remember, Jesus said that all things are possible with God.

Agreeing with God is what unlocks the heavenly realm for us. It will be a process. We will agree with God on some things but then discover our faith failed as our natural minds overcame the leading of the Spirit. When that happens, repent and move on with a greater determination to believe God for all things. As we move into 2016, I encourage you to make this your Year of Agreement! May you be richly blessed in this coming year!