Christians most often ask God for a change in their external circumstances. We ask God to bless us financially, end persecution, restore relationships and such. And while God does want to change our circumstances, what concerns God most is that we allow Christ to fill our hearts and change us first on the inside before He changes the outside.
Often believers are attracted to messages that preach liberation from economic, political, relational and other external forces. This is the attitude that the disciples had after they had seen the resurrected Jesus. Their reaction to Jesus was to ask in Acts 1:6, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
All the while the disciples were still thinking that Jesus had come to bring about external, political, economical freedom to the nation of Israel. But God has bigger plans in mind. God does not only look to an external change in circumstance, but more importantly to an internal transformation of the human soul and spirit.
Most often we find ourselves in such situations that can make us think that just because our problems and trials are still there that God has failed or maybe even refused to move. Many of us fail to realise that though God does not bring changes to circumstances, He can move in much more powerful ways and maybe already has.
Maybe God doesn't bring relational peace right away to broken relationships, but He has promised that through the Holy Spirit, we can receive internal love, joy and peace (Galatians 5:22-23). Maybe sometimes God doesn't bring the financial breakthrough we ask for, but He gives us new heart values that make us love our family more than our bank accounts.
We must look to transformation that king David looked for in the time he needed God most in Psalm 51:10 where he declares, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." When we need God most, we must look first to his internal transformations and watch Him move externally as well. The power of the gospel changes more than just external, political and economical circumstances but move in ways even greater than that.
Through Jesus, we have received the ultimate miracle of spiritual regeneration, and as a result also getting internal change in our hearts and minds. He renews our thinking, creates new hearts of flesh, transforms our character, builds our perseverance and increases our faith. That is the greatest miracle of all - to see God move not just on the outside, but to bring lasting and powerful change in the inside.
