Posts
Power
Point:
I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad
news. The GOOD news is that if you are a Christian, you have God’s own Holy
Spirit in residence in you. Jesus said,
“He’ll teach you, comfort you, empower you, and be everything I was and have
promised you will be. He’ll never give up on your development into a child of
God, until I am formed in you.”
The bad news is that there will always be an out and out war
between your flesh and His Spirit. Would you like to know how you can
tell who’s winning? Paul said in
Galatians 5:19 that its obvious. I think he's saying that if you're walking in the flesh, your actions will "stick out like a sore thumb"! If we've chosen the flesh, it is probably obvious to everyone around
us. Ouch!
On the other hand, if we’re choosing
to walk in line with His Spirit in us, it should also be obvious shouldn’t
it? Praise the Lord!
If you choose to be impatient,
people are probably taking note that you are walking in the flesh. It will be obvious to them that you do not
have self-control, or love, or peace, or joy, or kindness, or…you get the
picture.
When we choose to be bitter and
resentful and violently unhappy, we're allowing the "flesh" to win the battle. When we do that we sadden the Holy Spirit. Why? Because God’s Spirit is not any of those things.
In Ephesians 4:30 Paul says that we should not hurt the Holy Spirit.
I’ve heard many people over the years asking what on earth they could do to
make Him sad. Beloved, if He is in you, then you have the ability to push past
impatience into the patience of God. If
He is in you, and you allow Him to, He will help you push past anger into
peace. If He is in you and you choose
Him, He will help you to love and not hate.
Is it possible that when all the
fullness of God in us is not allowed to make one tiny difference in our
emotions, He is saddened? How does God always treat us? He treats us with love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Always. It’s who He is. And its who He
is calling us to be. It’s the future perfect person He has planned for you right now. When
we refuse Him, when we choose the fleshly responses, we grieve Him. We slow
down the progress of Christ being formed in us. We limit the power of God to
teach us to experience what knowing Him is really all about.
My mom used to say, “You can go hard,
or you can go easy.” It was hard for Jesus to lay down His life for us, but He
did it. He gave up His flesh that we
might be just like Him, nestled in the arms of His father, and empowered to
bring heaven to earth, just as He did. We have the same choice today. Beloved,
you can go hard or you can go easy.
Have you ever found yourself sprinting down the road of life and
suddenly you realize that Holy Spirit
isn’t with you? You know that He’s
there, but you can’t see Him or hear Him.
Years ago that happened to me, and the Lord gave me a perfect picture of
it. I was just strolling along doing my
own thing, and suddenly I realized I was by myself. I stopped and looked around and couldn’t see or hear Holy Spirit. Eventually I turned my head and saw Him several feet behind,
sitting on a stonewall. He was patiently
waiting for me to realize that I was on my own.
Of course, the moment I called to Him, He was right there again, but it
really made me understand the importance of making sure He and I were walking together united in that wonderful divine partnership.
Ephesians 4:30 in The Message puts it this way. “Don’t
grieve God. Don’t break His heart. His Holy Spirit moving and breathing in you,
is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for Himself? Don’t take such a gift for granted.”
Is it possible that you’re asking Holy
Spirit to bless what YOU think, and what YOU want to do, without asking Him for
His wisdom? Could it be that you’ve made
your decisions and things aren’t working out so well and you’re wondering why?
Are you missing some pieces of His peace?
Is that anger drowning out His voice?
Is bitterness stealing His joy in you?
Do you think that breaks His heart?
Is it time to stop making progress on
the road to nowhere? Should you turn around and go back to the place where you
last saw Him? He’s waiting. He’s eager to fill up what you’ve been missing in
your experience of Him. That makes
Him happy. It will make you happy too.
Power
Thought:
So who's winning?
No comments:
Post a Comment