Category Archives: Holy Spirit

Worthy

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Once you have been qualified and trained as a marine, you are considered to be a “leatherneck” forever.  Which means, you are expected to live out the values and attitudes of a marine. The Marine Corps Officer’s Guide,” 1964 edition, makes it clear: “Traditions are not preserved by books and museums, but by faithful adherence on the part of all hands—you especially.”  Translation?  Since you are a marine, live like one.

Paul wrote something similar to fellow Christians:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. –  (Philippians 1:27-28a)

What does it mean to live a life “worthy of the gospel of Christ?”  In this short quote, we see it means to confidently stand firm in what you believe without letting opposition sway you.  It also means to be joined with other believers by the Spirit of God, operating on the same page and working together to spread the good news.   With no fear.

In a team sports contest, you can generally pick the winner by observing which team plays with the most confidence and unity.  Confidence and unified hearts and minds are the essentials as well for a life “worthy of the gospel.”

For Sure

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Here’s the truth for Ann Maree, things she knows with certainty in Heaven:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

                                                           (Psalm 23)

Turned Heads and Hearts

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Come Sunday, it will have been a year, a tough year.  A year ago today, my wife, Ann Maree, was taken by ambulance to Hospice for her final struggle.  Understandably, I spend a lot of time thinking back.  Our 50 plus years of courtship and marriage were way too short.  We had some wonderful times.  We also went through some pretty big changes.

The best and most powerful change came as we individually discovered the truth about Jesus and welcomed His Spirit into our souls.  At first, the changes were fresh and exhilarating.  Gradually that excitement evened out into a satisfying and fulfilling joy.  Worry was exchanged for contentment.  There was a dramatic shift in how we saw life in this world.

As an example, Annie was good lookin’.  Yes indeed, she turned heads.  But strangely, that physical beauty was, for her, a source of insecurity.  Maybe you can relate.  But when Jesus showed her how much God loved her, that anxiety was gradually laid to rest.  It was transformed into a thorough sense of inner beauty and inner peace.  Heads still turned, but that wasn’t of as much importance.  Recently, I came across this, underlined in her Bible:

Your beauty … should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.  (1 Peter 3:3a & 4b)

When folks remember Ann Maree, most of the time they talk about how she had “…the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit…”

Yes indeed.

Too Much, Part 2

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Cramming for a final is like trying to put packing peanuts back in the box.  Put one back and two or three pop out.  Our brains can only hold so much.  There are some things too vast to fit in such a limited space.

Jesus’ love is one of those.  (If you haven’t read the previous post, scroll down to read it first)  It’s too much to comprehend, without a supernatural power boost from the Spirit of God.  But God gives that boost, not so we will have more information.  It’s not so we will have the answers to pass a test.  It’s for something that surpasses the mere possession of more facts.  Paul prays for believers to be strengthened to more fully understand the enormity of Christ’s love, SO THAT THEY MIGHT…

…  know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  –   (Ephesians 3:19b)

Read that again.  Let it sink in.  The more we know the love of Jesus, the more we become filled with the essence of God!   The “fullness of God” is manifested in the astonishing love of Jesus.  And we are meant to be filled to the brim with His “fullness,” so our lives would demonstrate His love, His essence, too.

If you are thinking, “No way I could ever pull that off,” remember, this is a prayer for God to do it!   And Paul wraps up this prayer with this encouragement:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  –  (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Too Much

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Ever feel like your head is about to explode?  Maybe it was in a class or seminar where the information was  shooting out of a fire hose.  I’ve felt that way, trying to wrap my mind around what Einstein was thinking, or figure out why my computer wasn’t working.  The first time I saw the Grand Canyon, I just couldn’t comprehend the size and scope of it.  It was too much to take in.  At times like that, it would be nice to push a button to get a mental power boost.

There’s a prayer for that kind of a power boost in the Bible.  The prayer is for the power to comprehend the vast love of Jesus!  It’s too vast, too much.  There’s no way to take it all in, without a supernatural power boost from the Spirit of God.  Check it out.  I’ve highlighted the main ideas in the prayer, but don’t dance lightly over the other stuff; it’s all important and all amazing:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, …  (Ephesians 3:16-18)

The idea is that the love of Jesus is so immeasurable, it would make your head explode.  It’s too much to comprehend without spiritual help, even for those who, by faith in Jesus, have been “rooted and grounded” in His love.  We are like seedlings who cannot imagine becoming a flower.  Or a tree.

Perhaps that is why some reject Jesus, saying His crucifixion is too cruel to be required by a good God.  Perhaps they only see the cruelty because it is impossible to comprehend the love.

More on this next time…

Know Better

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You say, “I’ll pray for you,” but then, what do you ask in your prayers?  “Lord, please bless Amy, please heal her foot…”?  Something like that?  Me too, most of the time.  That’s what makes this prayer of Paul so startling and attractive to me:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.  (Ephesians 1:17)

Here’s my hunch:  When we need prayer, when we struggle or suffer or lack certainty, if we could somehow really know God as He truly is, know Him at that moment of need, it would make things much better.  It might satisfy us.  I suspect Paul understood that from personal experience.

Chew on that.  See if it doesn’t taste good and nourish.

Slaves and Sons

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How could God treat His people so differently in Old Testament times as compared to the New?  The Old Testament is full of long lists of rules and regs, along with severe penalties to be exacted upon those who break them.  The New Testament is all about grace and tells those in Christ they are free of the law.  What gives?

This is no big mystery.  The first part of the Old Testament was written for people who, for more than 10 generations, had lived as slaves.  After God sent Moses and arranged for their freedom, they obviously needed a bit of clearly defined structure.  The New Testament is about Jesus inviting us to become sons and daughters in God’s family.  For those who accept, He gives His Spirit as an internal guide, making rules irrelevant.

Ask yourself this question: Did you treat your two year old in the same way when he or she became 32?  I would imagine you began with rules, such as, “We never cross the street by ourselves.”  Later on, that rule changed to, “Always look both ways before you cross the street.”  And then, “‘Bye; Have a nice time!”

Here’s a great explanation of how God’s approach changed and why, taken from the New Testament:

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.  (Galatians 4:1-7  NIV)

Swooping or Lurching?

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“I’m doing it! I’m doing it!”  The child sits atop his first bike, exploding with joy and excitement.  No more trike for this guy; he’s graduated into the “big kid,” two-wheeler world.  Except, he really hasn’t.  There’s training wheels back there, firmly holding him upright.  He may think he’s “doing it” but he really isn’t.  He’ll find that out when he tries to take a corner at speed and topples over.  Training wheels are poorly named.  They give a false sense of security and make learning to really ride impossible.  Really riding requires learning to develop and control a sense of balance.  Really riding means gracefully swooping through the curves, not lurching back and forth from one training wheel to the other.

Like the kid who thinks sitting on a bike with training wheels is riding, are those who think being a Christian means being held upright by a strict set of rules.  But that isn’t it at all.  Rules give a false sense of security that fails when you hit the tight curves at speed. Real “riding” with Christ is about gracefully swooping through the curves, leaning on faith, not lurching back and forth from one “thou shalt not” to another.  That common misperception causes some to reject Christianity as restrictive and boring. It causes others to think “I’m doing it” when in fact they are not. 

The analogy breaks down here because, when someone places their faith in Jesus, a mysterious and powerful change happens.   The Holy Spirit comes alive within their soul. A living Presence, He gives guidance and strength.  The initial act of faith in Jesus becomes a dynamic, continual process of trusting and following His Spirit.  It’s a learning process, one which may be a bit tentative and jerky at first.  Swooping comes with practice. But, just like learning to ride a bike, it does come.

That is, if you don’t put those training wheels back on. That’s why this reminder is given in the “handbook:”

Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh [That is, by following the “training wheel” rules]? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? ( Galatians 3:3-5 – with my explanation in brackets)

Powerfully Weak

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It was malpractice and folks got so upset, the doctor skipped town for good.  He had applied hot poultices to the eyes of a 6 week old infant, causing her to become permanently blind.  But that tragedy didn’t stop the child.  Even without the American Disabilities Act, Fanny Crosby managed to live a triumphant and happy life. 

You probably know she wrote the hymn, Blessed Assurance (maybe not; I had to  Google it…) but how many other hymns did she write?  How about 5500, and that’s just the ones she submitted to her publisher.  She had another 2000 in reserve.  But we cannot measure her life by simply counting the number of songs she wrote. Try to imagine their combined impact. Someone slides into the back pew of a country church, devastated and grasping for hope. When the song begins, she cannot bring herself to sing but soon the swell of the voices and the encouraging lyrics penetrate her gloom. As she hums along and then quietly, tentatively, joins in, her spirits are lifted. Multiply that experience by many thousands. Only God knows how profoundly Fanny blessed others as her hymns are still sung, well over 100 years later.  How could a blind person have led such a powerful life?  The answer is simple and yet profound: The Holy Spirit revealed His power through her weakness.

Paul said it like this:

…I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan [some believe this was also trouble with eyesight], to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  …For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7b – 9 & 10b with my comments in brackets)

If you see a strong man bend a pipe, you think, “No big deal; He’s strong.”  You see a little kid do it, then you start wondering, what’s the secret?  The same principle is at work when the Holy Spirit gives special strength to someone who is weak. 

Like Fanny.

Or you.

More Than Simply Wine

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Why did Jesus turn water into wine?  There was deep symbolism in what He did.  Can you see it?  First read it:

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom  (John 2:6—9)

OK – to figure this out, answer these questions:

1. What were the water jars used for?
2. Do religious rites of purification, the ceremony of washing really purify a person? 
3. When you wash with soap and water, is that done on the outside or the inside? (I know, dumb question, but it will make sense when you read the next one…)
4. Is wine taken inside or used outside a person’s body?
5. When used properly, what is the effect of wine?  Is it the outward appearance of cleanliness or the inward experience of joy?

Jesus met a real need; the wine had run out and He supplied more.  But He also gave a big, symbolic hint about what He had come to do.