Nancy Taylor Tate
I was only a child when I met John Wright Folette. In fact, I was in kindergarten and my dad was a student in Bible school. During summer camp meeting, Brother Folette was scheduled to speak at an afternoon session. My dad felt to go and listen, and his heart was deeply touched by the truths that Brother Folette shared from the Word of God. As time went on, the two became friends, and my dad would go to Brother Follette’s home to spend time with him.
I will always remember Brother Folette and the grandfatherly impression he left on my young life. He was a kind man. Though I was too young to understand then, his teachings have remained within reach all these years through cassettes and books, and now some are available on the internet as well. What timeless treasures!
One truth in particular that Brother Folette taught opened my understanding, and I began to pray to experience it in my own life. He explained how there can come a point in our lives where our love for the Lord becomes sufficient enough to allow the cancellation of our own life, for His life. I began to pray that the Lord would increase my love for Him.
As I did, a process of divine displacement began to take place in my life, as that which was lesser began to fall away because of the greater that I now saw and desired.
This wonderful change coming into my life was progressive, one day at a time. I was being transformed from the inside out. Instead of merely a code of rules I had to obey or get in trouble, now I was being motivated by love.
There was a relationship I saw that I wanted. In response to His love, my love for the Lord was increasing. Because of that growing love relationship, I didn’t want anything that would separate me from being with Him. I wanted to know Him more. I wanted to please Him. I wanted to live with, and for, Him.
There was a little song I used to play on my autoharp while I sang from Song of Solomon 1:4. That song became a prayer that has stayed in my heart many years now. These two words, “Draw me,” expressed the desire of my heart. Then a commitment, “We will run after You.” Body, soul, and spirit — with everything within me — I will run after you.
As I came through circumstances or situations, I would pray that the Lord would draw me to Himself. My desire was (and still is) to know Him more and become more like Him. I prayed He would help me come through whatever was happening in a way that pleased Him. I committed myself to Him and prayed that Christ might be glorified in and through my life, that others would see Jesus and be drawn to Him as well.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
What joy when we start to realize what God has been doing in us and it begins to show! When more and more, it is the fruit of the Spirit seen in us and not our old nature. As we have more peace and joy, others are blessed as well!
This inner transformation is not a struggle as we try to die to this or that. Divine displacement has begun to work in us. We now see something so much greater, it begins to displace our desire for the lesser. Choices and behaviors begin to change. Old ways and reactions are buried in identification with His death. Then through the power of His resurrection, we rise up and experience newness of life.
What has happened? A divine process has begun in our lives. We are being changed from glory to glory through the Spirit of God that now dwells in us.
As He works within, bringing truth and healing, it becomes evident in our daily lives. We learn to seek His heart and respond as He would respond. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) is being formed within as we make choices to learn and to live in His presence.
The change this transformation brings in us is our testimony. We are becoming a sample of Christ. Acts 1:8 does not speak of us “doing” witnessing, but “being” a witness in every place and situation.
“You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and you shall BE witnesses unto me … unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:8
This is God’s glorious plan. Not that we just “do.” Jesus made provision for us to have the power and enabling strength of the Holy Spirit within us, that we might “be” or “become” a sample of who He is and reflect Him to others.
In John 14–16 we see the vocation of the Holy Spirit, which is to glorify Christ. And as a New Covenant body of believers, Christ has given us the power of the Holy Spirit, that we too might glorify Christ, and become a witness unto Him to the uttermost part of the earth, or, in every circumstance and situation, everywhere, all the time.
Through the indwelling of His Spirit, we have His discernment and strength to make right choices and live victorious lives. As we pray for the Holy Spirit to help us, He will!
May our love for Christ be sufficient to allow the letting go of lesser things, that we might attain unto the greater. As we allow our lives to be submerged into His, day by day, may we be transformed by His Spirit into His image, reflecting Him more fully.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory!” (Colossians 1:27). May our witness and testimony touch others as Christ is seen in us. And when the day comes that we stand before the throne, may a full measure of Christ be found in us.