Getting on with the end

The other week after work, when it was still summer like due to the highly unusual fall weather, I went to a nearby park suitable for me with my medical boot. It had a bench by the side of the road that I could easily access by parking my car in a set off spot and hiking up a small incline to overlook a valley.

I was sitting at the bench, just soaking in the beautiful leaves and setting sun, when all of a sudden a bee landed on my glasses. I immediately tore off my frames and the bee moved to my hair. As I raked my hair to try and swipe it out, the bee stung me on my left ear lobe!!

This was while I was in the thick of my cold and my right ear was first starting to clog up. Sitting there with all my different maladies (including a super sore right shoulder from slipping at work that same week), I had to laugh even as the bee sting started to really take effect, causing an immense, lasting stinging sensation that even went down into my neck.

Just after it happened, I said to God something like, "This really takes the cake. I am going through it!"

Several immediate thoughts came into my head. One thought was me in my college years when I worked at a Putt-Putt with a concession stand and I ran a Sno Cone machine as a part of my duties.

When I squirted the different syrups on top of the scooped ice in front of the customers, including little kids, I often had to deal with bees coming around, and whenever one would land on the Sno Cone as I was about to serve it, I would instinctively flick it off with my index finger, sometimes even getting "oohs" and "ahhs" from the bystanders.

The other thing that came to mind just as readily was no thing--it was Vincent van Gogh, who to this day I can say has been a tremendous figure in my life, no matter how flawed he was, probably even saving my life in a way.

I am going to talk about this in my testimony, which I decided today I will start writing to finish my "book" (as in tomorrow), but shortly after I moved to Chicago, I hit a real hard place where I was struggling with depression.

What really kicked it off was learning that my childhood dog, a Shih-Tsu we took in from a mall pet store who I treated like a baby, died at 12 years of age. It was like the straw that broke the camel's back for me, already super lonely from moving to a big city where I knew no one (accept my friend who moved with me from Ohio) and had to drive to a far suburb every day for my job.

On Saturdays, having the day off, I would walk to the lily pond inside The Rookery of Lincoln Park Zoo and sit by the water's edge and read Vincent van Gogh's letters to his brother, compiled in English by Irving Stone.

I would also go to the lakefront and read the letters, sitting on the stone slabs near the Diversey Street entrance. I read them so thoroughly that the old paperback had pen lines drawn under sentences on almost every page and then highlighter pink and blue under so many, many passages throughout.

This is what I was up to shortly before I was introduced to my church by a virtual stranger!!!! I will give the rest of the story starting tomorrow as I put my memory into high gear.

*****

Hebrews 4: [11] Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

[12] For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
[13] Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
[14] Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

When it says it’s powerful, that means it’s energetic; it’s got a transforming dynamic in its life that will transform you from the inside. It changes your attitudes, which changes your actions. It transforms your heart and renews your mind, says Richard Jordan.

When He says it’s quick, that word "quick" means alive, but don’t be so quick to jump over the quick concept because the word alive means it’s functioning in every part. The Word of God doesn’t function lethargically. It’s not that it functions eventually.

What’s in view is that it’s in a state of activity. The word function has the idea of being able to respond without hesitation and delay. God’s Word will respond to your faith quickly. It’s alive, and when you believe it, it works!

It doesn’t take six months to work. It’ll work the moment you believe it. That’s why it says "quick." It’ll do it now! The part about the quick I like is I didn’t have to do anything but believe it and it worked.

He isn’t waiting on me to do something. He’s just waiting on me to believe it! The word becomes the sustaining internal compulsion with the life of Jesus Christ that gives victory.

*****

Paul writes in Romans 8:27, “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

The "he" in the verse is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Your Bible has no problem attributing the male pronoun "he" to the Spirit. Isn’t that interesting? You say, "Well, why does it refer to the Spirit as ‘itself’ in verse 26?" Because that’s the proper translation of the verse.

In a first-year Greek grammar book, you learn that the Greek word for spirit is the word "pneuma." We use it in the words "pneumatic" and "pneumonia," for example. The word in Greek means "neuter." Just in case you would misunderstand the personality issue, verse 27 has it as "he" and the reason for that is the textual reason about the pronoun.

*****

The term Holy Ghost is used to refer to the third person of the godhead and every time it’s emphasizing, in the context, the person of the Holy Spirit.

When you see Him called the Holy Spirit the focus is going to be on the work that He is doing. The part of you that hosts the presence of the Spirit of God is not your flesh or your soul; it’s your spirit.