Category Archives: Holy Spirit

Who is in Control?

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We pesky humans try to control things.  Even  things that are way beyond our control.  You thought I was going to go off on global warming, right?  Nope, I’m thinking about coming to faith in Jesus.  We can’t control that, especially when it concerns others coming to faith.  Nevertheless, we try.

When I was a kid, my church baptized infants, declaring them saved – at least temporarily.  Then as we approached puberty, they decided we needed a booster shot of salvation.  They called it “confirmation.”  We snored our way through classes, learned how to say the Apostles’ Creed, and we all stood together in church to say “I do” to Jesus.  Bingo, we were saved, they said.  To prove it, they gave us a certificate and allowed us to take communion.  It was not until I was 38 that I discovered that all that carefully planned procedure and ritual hadn’t changed anything in my soul.

On the other side of things are those who encourage others to “walk the aisle” or “pray the sinner’s prayer.”  They have the prayer conveniently laid out in a numbered sequence in the back of their tract.  Good intentions, good motives, but again, a futile attempt to regulate what really is in the control of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t get me wrong!  I am sure that many people have genuinely crossed the line of faith during confirmation classes or by praying the sinner’s prayer.  I know the Holy Spirit can use even those experiences.  And I am not denying that part of the process depends upon our own genuine faith and surrender.  My point is this: we cannot make spiritual transformation happen with our little tricks and rituals.

Peter discovered that early on, as he was telling a group of people about Jesus at the home of a Roman Centurion.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.  –  (Acts 10:44 NIV)

I picture Peter thinking, “Rats! I didn’t get a chance to give them the invitation or ask them to come down front.  They haven’t said the prayer or repeated the creed.”   Of course, he didn’t think those things.  Instead he had his mind blown as he witnessed the people receiving the Holy Spirit.  Which is the mark of genuine spiritual change.  Jesus called it being born again and said:

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.   (John 3:6  New Living Translation)

Paul wrote to his friends, saying:

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,  because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. …  –  (Thessalonians 1:4–5a (NIV84)

God uses believers to tell others about Jesus but the work of making them new is in His control.

Perhaps you are wondering how you can know if you have received the Holy Spirit.  Chew on this and we’ll take that up in a couple of days…

Water Power

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The water bubbles up continuously, constantly filling and refreshing the pool and then flows out through a hand-crafted, wooden trough, dropping onto a water wheel.  The wheel powers the steady turn of an antique flour mill at the Heritage Homestead in Waco, Recirculating Mill PondTexas.

Tail-Water Dumps into Pond

On a recent visit, I was struck by this nearly silent, steady source of power and reminded of Jesus’ words:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.  (Jn 7:37b–39a).

When a person recognizes the Identity of Jesus, the Son of God, and responds in surrender and complete trust, an amazing transformation occurs as His Holy Spirit is given to live forever in his or her soul.  That Spirit becomes a Spring of “living water” flowing up from within.  He refreshes and cleanses, informs and guides us.  He restores our living connection with Almighty God.  But this Flow of living water also empowers us to do what we are intended to do.  He does so in a silent, steady way.  It may not seem like much at first – no screaming machinery or belching smoke – but we can learn to rely on this Source of power, day by day.

Quotes: The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Mo Bettah

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There wasn’t much my mother and I agreed on during my adolescence.  Especially music (Yeah, I know: big surprise…).  She was into lofty, classical refinements; I tended toward Four Strong Winds and Mr. Tambourine Man.  So when she announced that she had bought me a ticket to a performance at the local university, I groaned and protested.  With great reluctance I slumped down the dusty halls of academia, preparing to sleep my way through some tedious Elizabethan minstrels or something.  But it was legendary blues great, Josh White playing!  Far from being tedious, he held the audience captive with his plaintive, rich baritone voice.  His soulful guitar work, replete with amazing, raspy slide licks with his leathery thumb, put the whole experience over the top.  An experience I almost missed because I assumed I knew what to expect.  Score one for Mother. 

So frequently when I try to communicate the exhilaration and joy I’ve found in Jesus, I am met with the same indifference.  Usually, I am convinced, it is because they hear the name, Jesus, and immediately associate it with dusty, boring, irrelevant religion.  But I’m talking about lighting the afterburners on life and blasting into a whole different reality.  

Of course, this is nothing new; you can hear a bit of similar frustration in Paul’s words:

“I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.
  –  (Colossians 2:1)

He goes on to say that the purpose for his struggle is:

“… so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
  –  (Colossians 2:2b-3)

If you have kept yourself a safe distance from Jesus because of dull religious experiences (or worse), don’t let what you assume you know keep you from experiencing the “One in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!”

Skinning Your Spiritual Knees

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Learning to ride a bike involves skinning a few knees.  Most kids, after successfully riding a few feet without falling, look up and shout, “I can do it! I can do it!”  –  that , just before they dump the thing, trying to avoid the neighbor’s dog.  Dad runs along beside the bike, shouting encouragement, but he cannot actually teach a child how to ride.  He can describe what to do, but balance, the skill that makes bike riding work, has to naturally and gradually emerge from inside the life of the one who is learning.  Balance is built in to their system; they just need to learn how to use it.

Learning to follow Jesus is a lot like that.  Most of us skin our knees repeatedly in the process.  We default to our old habits, which don’t work, and we crash.  It can be discouraging.  So we say things like, “I should be better; I shouldn’t make the same mistake over and over again.”  And the biggie: “Maybe I’m not really a real Christian.”  But remember this:  Christlikeness, like balance, can be described but it cannot be taught.  It does not show up instantly.  It emerges gradually as a natural consequence of the Holy Spirit coming to live in the believer.  That’s why Paul said this:

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy … being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.(Philippians 1:4–6 excerpts)

If you have followed Jesus by faith, God is going to make the changes in you. He is not going to be rushed in His work.  He also isn’t going to quit until you are finished.  God doesn’t give up.

So then, if God is going to do the work, what is our part?  Should we just passively wait until He makes us to be like Christ?  Nope.  That would be like waiting for balance to show up before we try to ride a bike.  Our part is to pay careful attention to what God is telling us, climb on this new life and try once again to take it for a spin.  See if we can get further down the road before the next crash.  And don’t sweat the skinned knees.  Paul said it like this:

“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.“  –  (Philippians 2:12b–13).

Quotes: The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

If Nobody is Home

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Exorcism can be dangerous, Jesus said, because it can leave you worse off.

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.  Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” –  (Matthew 12:43–45)

The problem in this scenario is that the soul of the exorcised person is not filled with another and better spirit.  It is merely “swept clean.”  It may be “put in order,” temporarily following a set of rules for moral living.  But it is vulnerable to spiritual attack.  This is the condition of so many who attempt to become morally good by following rules and strict discipline.  In Jesus’ day, it was the Pharisees who followed that path.  In our day it is frequently those raised in a legalistic church who find themselves in this kind of peril.  His or her “house” is “swept clean” but it is “unoccupied.”  Take that person out of their childhood environment and plunk them down, unsupervised on, say, a college campus and some very strange and sad things tend to happen.

However, when a person trusts Jesus, He sends His Spirit to live in their soul to guide them and empower them in truth.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  –  (John 14:16–17)

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. –  (John 16:13a)

This is an essential difference.  Their “house,” their soul, is no longer “unoccupied.”  It is the reason why the message of Jesus is not merely another religion, doomed to failure, but is genuine, Good News!  He gives the Holy Spirit Who lives in our souls and overpowers the forces of evil.

Quotes: The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Mt 12:43–45). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

One Tool

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The biggest Swiss Army knife would never fit in your pocket.  It is 9″ wide and weighs 2 pounds.  It has 141 different tools folded up in it, including a hook dis-gorger and a snap shackle.  If you bought it, you might have more room in your pocket though, because it lists for $2100.  I suppose this thing is a joke, but before it went to seed, the idea of having one tool with which you could do most things was attractive.

Paul lists a bunch of new behaviors for followers of Jesus to put into practice:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.   –  (Colossians 3:12-14a (NIV)) 
That’s quite a list – a nice list, to be sure – but a lot to remember.  And, even at that, it is not comprehensive; it doesn’t include everything for us with which to “clothe ourselves”.   However, there is a “Swiss Army Knife” of attitudes for Christians, one tool for most circumstances.  Here’s the rest of what Paul wrote:

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  –  (Colossians 3:14b)

If you understand that love is an act of will with which I put away my self-interest to minister to what you need, all of the attitudes listed in the first passage really are bound together under the one tool called love.  Better yet, you will discover that “Love” fits in your pocket.  It’s not free however; it costs you, maybe even more than $2100 in some circumstances.  But it is a great tool, worth much more than the biggest Swiss Army Knife.

Refocus

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While you are reading this, do not look to your right.  Have you messed up yet? “Thou shalt not…” commands have an unintended effect on us: they make us want to do the very things they have forbidden. This, in a nutshell is what makes legalistic religion fail. Rules don’t restrain us, they tempt us.

How much better, God’s plan to restore us by implanting His Spirit to guide us, not by restrictive rules, but by creating in us the desire to do right. And yet, from the earliest days of the Christian church, men have tried to distort this message and turn the church into another religious bastion of rules.
Which led Paul to lament:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. – (Colossians 2:20-23)

It is not that Paul believed Christians are not tempted to do sinful things, or that nothing in the world is harmful to taste or touch. But, rather, that attempting to live by “Thou shalt not” rules never accomplishes in us a life in harmony with the ways God intended. But neither does Paul leave us passively waiting for the Spirit to overpower our temptations. Instead, he teaches us to refocus our hearts and minds:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
– (Colossians 3:1-2)

Necessary Power

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Do you know why they yell, “Clear!” when they apply paddles to get someone’s heart going?  It is because the tremendous power needed would be dangerous if you were touching the body.  If that’s the kind of power necessary to restart a heart, how much power would be needed to bring a dead body back to life, one that had been dead for days?  We humans have never harnessed that kind of power.  We know how much power it takes to kill a person, but not to resurrect.  That power belongs to God alone.

And yet, that power is offered to everyone who will trust Jesus.  God applies His power that we might be:

“… raised with him [Jesus] through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:12b- with my added explanation)

I pulled out that half-sentence from a lengthy and somewhat confusing description of what happens to those who trust Jesus for salvation, to highlight the power of God, necessary to bring dead people back to life.  Without that power applied, we all are dead.  We feel alive because our hearts are beating, but it takes much more to be fully alive.  We say someone whose heart beats but who has no brain activity is “brain dead.”  God considers us dead if our hearts and brains function but we do not have His Spirit living in our souls.  Without His living Spirit, we are missing the essential ingredient for the full life God intended when He designed and created us.  We humans lost that Spirit, that Eternal Life, when we rejected God and embraced sin.

By His power, God offers to restore us to full life.  This can only happen to those whose sin has been completely paid for and forgiven.  Because sin caused our spiritual death, the just penalty for sin is physical death and separation from God, a price we cannot pay.  But Jesus willingly paid the full price on our behalf, with His life.  God, by His great power raised Him back to life.  If you accept this payment for your sins and trust the One Who paid it, then you, too, are raised to life by God’s power.

“When you were dead in your sins … God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,” (Colossians 2:13 excerpt)

 

 

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Wince Some

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You’ve probably never seen a sign that says, “Adult Circumcisions, Overflow Room.”  Wanna get circumcised?  Probably not.  If you have been circumcised, it was probably done to you before you had a vote.  And yet, Paul writes, one of the best things about following Christ by faith is being circumcised (if I write that word enough, I’ll stop wincing…)

“In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,” (Colossians 2:11)

Obviously, he’s using a metaphor, describing a spiritual procedure with a physical one.  It’s an apt comparison, since both kinds of circumcision cut away an insensitive outside layer to fully expose a more sensitive and responsive inner core (more wincing…).  In Christ, the outside callousness of our “sinful nature” is cut away.  Callouses are built up through repeated acts – hiking, playing guitar, etc. – and protect our nerves, making the acts hurt less.  When we repeatedly do self-destructive things, sinful ones, we build up callouses over our hearts.  The first time you steal or lie, it troubles you more than it does on the umpteenth time.  That is due to the hard, calloused layer of your sinful nature.  In Christ, that layer is cut away, to expose your true sensitivity within, now revitalized by the Holy Spirit.

It’s not that your old habits vanish.  But, “in Christ,” they are now, no longer an integral part of your identity.  Where once they were members of the “family” of you, now, they have been disowned, cut off.  They may still stick around for a time, like unwelcome house guests that will not leave voluntarily.  Having been cut off, they are (slowly) dying as the renewed you emerges from within.  You are bothered by these old sinful habits, more than you were before, because your new nature, sensitive to the perfect ways of God, has been exposed.  You have been circumcised by Christ.

It’s important to understand this, as you struggle with old patterns of sin.  Remember: the reason the struggle is frustrating is because of the new sensitivity of who you have become in Christ.  You wince because you have been circumcised by Christ.

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Fullness

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This may be the most amazing sentence in the Bible:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10)

To fully appreciate what that says, answer these questions:

First, according to this verse, how much of Almighty God lives in Jesus?  Answer: All the fullness of the Deity!  All, every part of God’s “fullness!”

Second question: How much of the “fullness” of Jesus is available to those who have surrendered to Him?  Same answer. Oh, wow…

The chances are pretty good, if you have fully trusted Jesus, you have not been fully aware of His fullness in you.  But knowing you have His fullness is the first step to accessing it.  I just got a new Android phone, which came loaded with all sorts of special, tricky things it will do for me – provided I know how to access them and turn them on.  Which, of course, I can not do unless I know they are there!  One of the tricky things my phone will do is let me ask it questions about what other things it is able to do.  Such as, “Can you tell me how to get to Home Depot?”  Jesus comes into you with that feature already installed.  Not how to get to the hardware store, but the ability to show you how to understand and use your new operating system, His life in you. If you need to know how to use Him, just ask.  He will show you.  Because you have all His fullness, you have access to all the fullness of God through Him. In real time!

Astonishing…

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.