“Don’t do anything that doesn’t
require faith,” advises a preacher. “The key to momentum is to always having
something in faith to look forward to; something to anticipate. We live by
faith or we don’t live at all. Either we venture or we vegetate.”
The Apostle Paul says,
"Be careful for nothing.” An old maxim says, “Worry is faith in the
negative . . . wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s opportunities with
yesterday’s troubles.”
I am oft-reminded of an old TV interview Oprah had with a woman who was kidnapped by
guerillas and held hostage in the deep jungles of Columbia for six-plus years
(2002-2008), tortured and in solitary confinement where she had to ask
permission just to use the toilet or brush her teeth.
The woman, who became a French politician, said one of the biggest
lessons learned from the ordeal, where she says she was stretched to the absolute
limits of loneliness, sorrow and deprivation of all that made life worth living,
was, “Whoever the person you ultimately want to be, that one you always dream
about one day becoming, just be that person right now. You don’t have to wait.”
*****
In Luke 12: 4-5, Jesus Christ advised, “And I
say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after
that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall
fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I
say unto you, Fear him."
Jordan explains, “It’s important to know who to fear and Christ says you’re to
feel about things just the way God does. You’re going to fear God and think the
way He thinks rather than fear the ‘Pharisees’ and think like they think.
“Jesus Christ reasons, ‘Are not five sparrows
sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even
the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of
more value than many sparrows.’
“Christ in Luke 12:8: ‘Also I say unto you, Whosoever
shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the
angels of God.’
“Jesus said not only did the Father not forget,
but you know what’s going to happen if you acknowledge the Son? He’ll
acknowledge you and He won’t forget you either.
*****
In I
Corinthians 2:9, Paul assures, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love him.”
He tells the Philippians to “only let your conversation be as
it becometh the gospel of Christ.” The “conversation” doesn’t have to do with
speaking.
“In the middle of that word are the words ‘converse’ and
‘concourse.’ When you’re conversant with something, you’re intimate in the way
it works. You know how it happens and how it’s accomplished, and you can become
conversant with a book, or a subject, or with a computer, or whatever it is you
want to be conversant with. You have a thorough knowledge of it where you’re
able to live it and handle it and deal with it.
“Conversation is more than just being able to talk about it. It’s
that you get right into it, and into its life, and let what’s at the basis of
who you are, and the way you live, be as ‘becometh the gospel of Christ.’ Let
your manner of life, your lifestyle, who you are be becoming, adorned, make
look good…
“Let who you are down inside adorn the doctrine. It’s Titus 2
terminology. Or as Paul writes in Philippians:
[8] Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, [9]
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and
the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.
*****
When Paul advises to “be filled with the Spirit” in Ephesians 5,
he’s not talking about getting more of the Spirit of God; it’s to be filled by
His instrumentality.
“God the Holy Spirit is going to be used by the Father to put some
things into you that ought to be there. It isn’t about putting more of the
Spirit of God in you; it’s rather by the instrumentality of the Spirit of
God--by the working of Holy Spirit --that some things are going to begin to be
produced in your life.
“What it is is to have God’s Word—the Spirit of God never works
apart from His Word. It’s to have God’s Spirit; take His Word and fill your
heart, your understanding, and renew your mind with an understanding of what it
is God’s doing.
“It’s an objective, measurable operation of the Holy Spirit. It’s
something that can be measured by words on a page in the Bible and be
identified in your life in specific ways.
“To be filled with anything is to be saturated by that thing to
the point that it completely dominates and controls your life.
“In Luke 5, when it says the Pharisees were ‘filled with fear,’
that’s saying they were so astonished and afraid that fear just took control of
them, and the emotion of fear just completely consumed them to the place they
were incapable of doing anything because it controlled them.
“In Luke 6:11, they were ‘filled with madness,’ meaning they were
completely controlled by their rage and it gripped them and carried them along
and they couldn’t get shed of it.
“John 16:6 says ‘sorrow hath filled your heart.’ The emotion just
came in and grabbed them and wrenched them to the place that they couldn’t get
out from under the control of it.
“We could go on and on with passages like that. To ‘be filled with
the Spirit’ simply means to be under the complete, total dominion and
domination of the Holy Spirit.
“It has to do with surrender. Boy, we don’t like that word. It’s
the total surrender of your life and your thinking to the control of the Holy
Spirit so that He carries you along through life.
“Being filled with the Holy Spirit is you lose, you can’t, you
give up and He does. Paul said, ‘I’m crucified.’ If your Christian life is
going to be what God produces, it won’t be you.
“It requires the DEATH of selfishness and of self-will in your
life. It isn’t my thinking, my way. It’s His way. We got this whole thing about
‘my way or the highway,’ but it isn’t that.
******
“I was in the bookstore specifically looking for books telling you
how to be filled with the Holy Spirit and didn’t find one that had less than
six steps to get there and the first two had to do with ‘confessing your sins’
and all that kind of bunk.
“How do you get there? To be filled with the Spirit is easy to
understand; it means, ‘I surrender to His control. He controls me moment by
moment, day by day.’ My life is to be lived in an attitude of complete, total
surrender to the spirit of Almighty God.
“How in the world do I do that? It’s always fascinated me why
there’s so much confusion about what it is that produces--what the means of
producing this filling of the Spirit is.
“Like I said, it’s not simply a subjective feeling you get inside,
that your emotions point you to. It’s an objective work of God the Holy Spirit
in a non-experiential realm in your life, and you can measure it and identify
it objectively.
*****
Just as Paul writes to be “filled with the Spirit,” he refers to
“speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and
making melody in your heart to the Lord.”
This same advice is found in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to
the Lord.”
“If you get the same results from being filled with the Spirit
that you get from being filled with the Word of God, what does that tell you?!
“Listen, if you get exactly the same results, doesn’t that tell
you that being filled with the Spirit is equal to being filled with the Word of
God? Sure it does!
“Being ‘filled with the Spirit of God’ is equivalent to saying,
‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.’ It’s the Holy Spirit working
THROUGH the Word of God to fill your life with the qualities of spiritual
maturity. It’s taking the Word of Christ and letting it INFUSE every part of
your being. It’s having your thinking and actions controlled by the Word of God.
*****
“One of my favorite verses is I Thessalonians 2:13. Paul says, ‘For
this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the
word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as
it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that
believe.’
“There’s a lot of things to get from that verse. It’s the Word of
God that effectually works in people that believe. When you by faith take the
Word of God and step out upon what God says, God the Holy Spirit takes His Word
. . .
“God the Holy Spirit today works indirectly in your life through
the instrumentality of the Word of God as you by faith rest upon it. I don’t
know how to say that any clearer; if I did, I’d say it another way.
“The way God’s going to work in your life, it isn’t you sitting
down and saying, ‘Lord, I want you to take away this problem out of my life,’
and God’s just going to zap you and it’s going to be gone. That isn’t how that
happens.
“As you objectively take your thinking processes, your actions and
your attitude and bring them under the control and authority of the Word of God
. . . As you begin to think in your own heart and mind the way God says He
thinks in His Word, that is God the Holy Spirit working in you both to will and
to do His good pleasure.
“So rather than looking out there, we look in here. Rather than
asking God to move and do out there, it’s His Word that WORKS and He’s in us,
living His life out through our mortal bodies as we walk by faith in what He
says in His Word.
“If something is effectual, that means it WORKS. It’s effective;
it gets the job done. It’s not a misfire. It works effectually IN you. That’s
where God’s working starts. It’s in you that believe! That’s the catalyst of it.
“Colossians 1:9 says, ‘For this cause we also, since the day we
heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be FILLED
with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.’
“There’s that word again! Let the Word of Christ DWELL in you! Let
it come and fill up your life and be at home in you and live there!
“What should be the result of you having a daily and a weekly
intake of sound doctrine into your life? That you might walk worthy of the Lord
unto all pleasing.
“The first thing God is interested in you understanding about
Jesus Christ is not His earthly life and ministry. That’s what religion wants
you to know about.
“When you
look back to Calvary and watch all the things that happen there, then the Lord
speaks seven times. Now, you can only see into the heart of a person when the
words come out of their mouth. You can’t watch the actions of a person and tell
exactly what’s inside of them. They can be fooling you.
“But you listen to the words that come out a person’s mouth and
the Lord says that’s where the Spirit’s revealed. That’s where your inner man
comes out.”
(new
article tomorrow)
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