A transformation is a complete or major change in someone or something. Ephesians 2:11-22 is a very good example of such a change. It describes the state of a person before the person comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ and the radical change or transformation that takes place after the person comes to know Jesus as His personal Lord and Saviour. This can be explained in this way: a person before he comes to know Christ is separated from God, excluded from Citizenship in Israel; citizenship from Heaven. The person is a foreigner to the covenant of the promise, is without hope and without God in the world. What an awful life! But when a person opens his heart to allow Jesus come and rule and reign in his life, he is now near to Christ. There’s no distance whatsoever between him and God. The wall or barrier separating him from Christ has been destroyed. He is no longer a foreigner and stranger but a bona fide citizen of heaven, a member of God’s household. Consequently, the person is now a joint heir with Christ and a full beneficiary of all the promises of God (Romans 8:17). He now has a living hope (1 Peter 1:3, Colossians 1:27), God lives in him and works through him (John 14:23, John 14:16-17, Philippians 2:16). In fact, now he is God’s home, God’s dwelling place. What an awesome transformation!
Indeed this is the ultimate transformation everyone should desire and experience. To move from being far away from God to being so close to God with nothing at all separating you from God, to move from a life of groping and living in darkness to a life of basking in God’s marvelous light (Colossians 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9).
What has the power to bring about this kind of transformation? What can deliver a person from spiritual blindness (2 Corinthians 4:4) and open the person’s eyes to the truth of God’s word and God’s love? It is the Word of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us that the message of the cross is the power of God. The Word of God is the power of God to transform. It has the power to bring about a complete change or turn around in a person’s life or situation. Romans 1:16 says “it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes”.
There is great power in the Word of God. For you to experience the power in the Word of God, you must not only read it and believe it, you have to speak the Word. Romans 10:19 tells us that a person is not just saved by believing in his heart that Jesus is Lord, he has to open his mouth and confess that Jesus is Lord. He has to speak and declare the Word.
When the devil threw fiery darts of temptation at Jesus, Jesus was able to quench those fiery darts with faith in God’s Word. He used a Word of God to counteract every temptation the devil threw in His face. Jesus spoke the Word with power and authority and the devil left Him. Speak, confess and declare God’s Word and every devil and demon out to bring you down will flee.
But can you possibly speak the Word and get results if you don’t even know the Word? You have to daily hide the Word in your heart to keep temptation away (Psalm 119:11). You have to have the Word dwelling richly in you to have an answer to give to the devil or any situation that wants to overwhelm you (Colossians 3:16). We are not just to fill our stomachs with physical food, we need to fill ourselves with spiritual food; the Word of God (Matthew 4:4). Let it be daily food you take in so as you are faced with decisions to make, you are guided by the light of the Word (Psalm 119:105). So as you come across hopeless, impossible situations, you can release a Word of life that can turn impossibilities to realties (Luke 18:27).
Let us look at an instance were by merely speaking the Word, a transformation took place.
DRY BONES BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE THROUGH THE POWER OF THE SPOKEN WORD (EZEKIEL 37:1-14)
Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”. This was exactly what happened in the valley of dry bones. The Word of God penetrated into those dry bones and they came back to life. We see from that encounter in the valley of the dry bones that:
- It is not only human beings that can hear and respond to the Word of God. Ezekiel told the dry bones to hear the Word of the Lord. He must have looked very stupid talking to those dry bones. But the bones heard. They actually heard him as he was talking. The dry bones heard because he wasn’t just speaking mere, ordinary, inconsequential, lifeless words. What he spoke to those bones had spirit and life (John 6:63). He spoke the Word. The Word didn’t pass over them. Indeed the bones were dry, there was no life in them, but that didn’t prevent them from hearing the Word of God. Their dry, hopeless state was not a barrier to the Word reaching them and affecting them. If those dry bones could hear the Word of God, everything that is dry in your life whether it’s your spiritual life, bank account, business, or marriage will hear the Word of God, respond and come back to life.
In Matthew 17:20, Jesus told us that when there is a mountain before you, you have to speak to that mountain to move from your front. Just like dry bones can hear the Word of God, mountains can hear the Word of God. So speak to every mountain of delay, opposition, obstruction, sickness, barrenness, poverty and stagnation before you to move.
In Mark 11:12-14, Jesus told a fig tree “may no one ever eat fruit from you again”. The tree heard every word Jesus spoke. By morning the next day, the fig tree had withered from the roots (Mark 11:20). What are you doing about those trees your Heavenly Father has not planted? There is power in the Word, use that power to command every tree your Heavenly Father has not planted to wither from the roots. Command every tree of confusion, discouragement, strife, disunity, sin, failure and barrenness to dry up from the roots.
- No state or situation is too bad or hopeless for the Word of God to affect, change or transform. Who would have thought those dry bones could ever live again. But the Word of God brought them back to life. If you are faced with a hopeless situation, you are not without hope. The Word of God is your source of hope, it is a living hope, a hope that does not disappoint. God didn’t tell Ezekiel to lament, complain, or weep about the hopeless situation the bones were in. God told Ezekiel to speak the Word of God into that hopeless situation. Your tears can’t change a hopeless situation. Worrying about the hopeless situation won’t reduce the size of the problem. Complaining and lamenting about it can’t change the situation. But the Word of God can. So speak the Word!
In John 11, Martha and Mary were faced with a very hopeless situation. Their brother Lazarus had died. The situation was hopeless. He had been dead for four days. Yet the Word was able to bring about a transformation in that seemingly hopeless situation. Here was a man dead for four days, a man that a bad odour had already started coming out from, but when Jesus said “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man heard. He was transformed from a dead man to a living being by the power in the Word (John 11:43-44). It wasn’t yet time for Lazarus to come and be with the Lord. The enemy tried to cut short Lazarus’ destiny. Satan wanted to bury all the virtues and glory of Lazarus. But his destiny the enemy tried to truncate and cut short was redeemed from the grave by the power of the spoken Word. When the grave heard the Living Word, the grave released Lazarus. Never underestimate the power of the spoken Word.
Pray this important prayer: I command every grave where the enemy has buried my testimony, glory, virtue, and opportunities to release them.
- The Word won’t work unless you put it to action. You have to speak it. You have to declare it. You have to confess it. Ezekiel told the dry bones you will come to life…you will come to life…you will come to life. What happened? They came to life. The word must go out from your mouth. Don’t just keep it in your heart (Isaiah 55:11). It is when it goes out from your mouth that it can start accomplishing the purpose for which it was sent.
- Speaking the Word is not a one off thing. Note that the transformation didn’t come the very first time Ezekiel told the bones you will live. He didn’t just say it once. He kept on speaking to them until the transformation actually took place, until they were changed from dry bones to a vast army (Ezekiel 1-10). Don’t give up if nothing happens the first, second, fifth, or tenth time you speak God’s Word. Every time Ezekiel spoke the word, something happened in the spiritual realm, something happened to those dry bones. There was first a noise, then a rattling sound, then bones coming together bone to bone. Next tendons and flesh appeared. At that state, you are very right to say a change had taken place, a transformation had occurred. After all, the bones that were scattered in pieces had come back together, the bones that had no flesh were now covered with flesh. But the miracle wasn’t complete. To perfect and complete that miracle, Ezekiel had to speak the Word again and again. When he did, breath entered them and they stood up on their feet as a vast army.
Sometimes, we speak the Word and we see a change and conclude that this is the testimony. But it isn’t the whole testimony. God is still doing something, God still has something to add to it to bring it to perfection, to complete the miracle, to bring about a glorious transformation. When the lifeless bones received tendons and flesh, Ezekiel could easily have concluded that he had seen the power of God, a change had taken place, and he would have ended his ministration for the day and gone back home. But that would have been a half-baked miracle, a minor transformation compared to the transformation God had in mind.
In Mark 8:22-23, Jesus spat into the eyes of a man that was blind and then put his hands on him. As soon as Jesus did this, a change took place. The man who couldn’t see a thing before started seeing. But what was he seeing? He was seeing people that looked like trees walking around. Jesus had to put his hands on the man’s eyes again so he could see people clearly, so his miracle could be complete (Mark 8:24-26). God had started something good in this man’s life the moment he started seeing, just like God had started something good in the dry bones, when the bones came together and flesh and tendons appeared on them. But God had to complete what He had started (Philippians 1:6). It's not just enough for the miracle to start, the miracle must be complete. Don’t settle for half testimonies or miracles, keep speaking the Word until God is through with you, until God is through with that situation, until you have been transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Say this prayer: Lord this year, I don’t want half baked miracles or testimonies, your good hand you have placed on me, don’t ever remove it from me. Please Lord, don’t let your involvement in that situation end here. Continue to work on me until my miracle is complete.
After those bones were brought to life, people who had seen them when they were lying on the floor of the valley without hope and life, must have said things like this is amazing, this is wonderful, this is too good to be true. I prophesy into your life that God will give you an amazing testimony, a testimony too good to be true. I prophesy into your life that every dry bone in your life will come alive. They will be transformed by the power in the Word from dry lifeless bones to a situation that brings God glory. When God is through with you, your testimony will be that God is with you, God is for you, only God could have done this.
