Being Filled With the Holy Spirit

It is 2:30 a.m. and I went to bed around 11:00. I awoke and began praying and thanking God and got so excited that I wanted to write, but I asked God for this to be what He wants and not my babbling.  The first thing that I would like to share is on the subject of the Holy Spirit.

 The term often seen in various writings including the Bible is "Being filled with the Holy Spirit." Some believers hold to the conviction that this is a power that God instills in a Christian who is capable now of being a "conduit" of God's power to be used in carrying out the ministries of healing and signs and wonders. I must confess that  I have not been privileged to witness first hand the aforementioned examples  of God's awesome power, but I have some very close friends who have, and it was the reason he and his wife came to Christ. Also, God's power through miraculous healing is readily seen in third world countries and many people are coming to Christ because of them. However, I do want you to know that although I have not witnessed an immediate healing, I have experienced being healed...I am on my the tail end of being cancer free for the 5th year.  PTL!!!

So, what is this idea of being "Filled with the Holy Spirit?"  When I accepted Christ, didn't the Holy Spirit come to reside in me forever (Eph.1:13-14). The words "...a deposit guaranteeing our eternal inheritance... " tells us that we have the Holy Spirit living in us forever, so how can we be given more of something that we already have in full. There is only one God, but 3 persons within that God....Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Another aha moment ...you do realize that when God the Holy Spirit dwells in you that we are indwelled by the same God who created the universe and everything in it.  And, we are not just given our "part of God" and some else gets just their portion, and so on. I hope you are like me and will readily admit that I honestly can't wrap my mind around God's qualities of omnipotence(He is all powerful); omniscience(He is all knowing); and omnipresence(His being everywhere at the same time).  If you really understand this, then feel free to comment and help me better understand.  However, just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean I don't embrace it as absolute truth as declared throughout God's word.

On this subject of "Being filled with the Holy Spirit," this is what I believe to be another Joy of Discovery God has allowed me to enjoy. My times with the Lord have frequently sought my God in this way. I have often prayed that God would just fill me to overflowing with His Spirit and  His very presence would course through every fiber of my being that I could absolutely feel Him. I do hesitate and am not suggesting for a moment, the idea of the necessity of feelings as being the sole determinant of whether we are believers and then, this idea becomes the litmus test for accepting truths.  However, I have had the feelings of electricity running through my body from my head to my toes which absolute gave me goose bumps. I have talked with many friends and other believers and I don't think this concept is not real because many of them have experienced these things as well. They are of short duration, but peaceful and calming.. Let me caution you again lest you think I am saying anything about the necessity to have these experiences to be closer to God or that if you don't have them, then your faith is weaker than someone who does.

I think when we ask God to fill us it is because we want all of Him if it is possible, but we have already discussed the difficulty of understanding this, so what does this mean to me.
Could this "Being filled with the Holy Spirit" simply be the actualization of God just communicating with us in a special way. I think so as far as my own experience is concerned. The Holy Spirit is our comforter and is given to us to empower us to have victory and joy in our walk with Christ. In my perception, I see the Holy Spirit as being the "Gasoline" of our Christian walk(our car if you will.) What?  If you allow your real vehicle to deplete or run out of gas, what happens? Duh, your vehicle will come to a slow heart wrenching stop and you are not going anywhere to you replenish the gas in your tank. Another example would be if you are trying to start your car to leave for somewhere(work is the worst), you better have enough gas or you are not going even to be able to start the car,!

I think this Holy Spirit gasoline is what runs our spiritual cars, whether you drive a high performance car or a hybrid of some sort that gets good gas mileage. Think about this for a moment.  If you are not excited, joyful, and compassionate about God so that you can't get enough of Him, could it be possible that your tank does have enough that EternaShell gas that only comes from God. Or maybe, we have just enough gas to start and get the car moving, but the engine performance is so poor that we are sputtering and misfiring because we have been running our car with a grade of gas which would not even start a lawn mower. This gas may be called "SELFCHEAP" and is dismally ineffective in our spiritual cars.

Well, here is another kicker. Why would we risk the dangers of using poor performing fuel when we have access to the absolute best fuel there is .the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. So, I hope this has been relateable and if you are not enjoying your performance of your spiritual car, or maybe it might not even be starting right now, I hope you will drop in to your local EternaShell station and say "Filler Up."

Do I Recognize the Shepherd's Voice

My reading today was in John 20 and I found it interesting that Mary of Magdala was the first one to be privileged to see the resurrected Christ. She was not the first one to enter the tomb, although she was the first one there, but after going and reporting to the disciples she went back to the tomb and remained outside while Peter and John went inside.   The men left and Mary stayed and wept deeply before finally going into the tomb.  She saw two angels and they told her that Jesus was not there because He had been raised from the dead.  Jesus appears to Mary, but she does not recognize Him.  However, when He speaks to her and calls her name she immediately knows that it is Jesus.  We read in scripture where Jesus is called the “Good Shepherd” and that His sheep will recognize His voice just as a real shepherd will be heard and followed by his herd.

I find that as Jesus often did in his 3 years of ministry, His appearing to a woman who sought Him dearly was such a sweet example of how He loved Mary.  It reminds me of luke 12:48  which says “…those who have been forgiven much, much will be required.”  Oh, to have such faith that we immediately recognize the shepherd’s voice ourselves and don’t have to wait to follow the rest of the herd.  When God has our attention and our love and devotion, He only has to speak softly and we know that our Shepherd is calling us. The herd mentality is that as the herd moves the rest go along, but not all of them necessarily heard the voice of the shepherd.  How precious it is to be in tune with Jesus that we can be immediately obedient when we hear His calling.  Are you close and listening or are you following the herd because they are moving?

The Toothless Lion

    I was thinking about our adversary and what lengths he will go to destroy us.  However, and maybe most important, the realization of his power is there, but it has no bite unless we allow it.  Remember,  1^st. John 4:4 “…greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” This is one of those verses that is short and to the point and a good one to memorize. 

As I was thinking about this a picture of the adversary came to mind.  A toothless lion. Can you imagine a lion roaring with a muffled roar because his lips were folded in because he didn’t have his dentures in.  Pretty funny image, huh? However, do not think for one moment that the very same lion we are picturing is harmless.  He will pounce on you and devour you in a heartbeat, but here is the kicker.  The lion with no teeth only can devour you when you put his teeth in for him.  That is, one must give the lion his dentures before he can kill you.  What?  It is our will which empowers the lion when we turn from God and look for the teeth which will kills us.  This is literally how stupid we are and yet, we do it almost every day.

I realize that this is not the common image we have of Satan and his followers, especially around Halloween when we get to see the little children, and even many adults, dress up in red suits and carry a pitchfork.  Please, don’t miss the point.  We cannot defeat Satan in our own strength, but Christ can if He lives in us. We only empower Satan if we “put his dentures” in his mouth, and then he will eat us alive by our own stupid act.

1/15/2013 "Ahah s Moments"

     I love ‘AHAH” moments when God reveals something to you and it grabs you immediately.  This morning while I was reading some Psalms and Proverbs I experienced one of these moments that almost caused me to fall out of my chair. I was reading Pro. 25:2 which says “It is God’s privilege to conceal things; the king’s privilege to discover them.  This is the title of my blog/paper that God gave me “The Joy of Discovery” and, albeit I am not a king, but I am a child of the King, I was so thankful to God for allowing me to see this.  Please forgive the redundancy, but this is exactly what the writing has been about.  The absolute joy of seeing how God is working in your life every day.

An image of a lone prospector who finds the gold nugget and yells and laughs and celebrates seems to be appropriate because he has found something of great value and is overcome with elation. In essence, he is enjoying a “golden nugget moment” in the presence of God, and in the same way I am elated and excited and filled with joy when I find a new golden nugget discovery from God.

1/102013 Continued

This reminds me of something I discovered man years ago, but didn’t continue the practice …notice the “I Didn’t”.  If I would have been seeking God first, He would have been dressing me for battle.  Eph. 6:13-17  talks about the various pieces of armor that we must cloak ourselves with daily because we are in a battle and we must be ready to fight.  Every piece of our battle equipment is directly connected to the word of God.  Let’s just look at them for a moment.

I also want you to see the order in which they are presented in Scripture because it represents a pragmatic approach to memorizing this important passage.  First, we gird our loins with the truth. Second; we put on the breastplate of righteousness.  Third we shod our feet with the gospel of peace.  Fourth , we pick up our shield of faith which will repel the fiery darts of the devil. Fifth, we put on our helmet of salvation, and take up our sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  The pragmatism is found in the simple of act of doing this in order and recognizing  what each piece of our battle armor is for.  We will ultimately learn the verse, but more importantly, we will experience the comfort and protection that putting on this armor affords us.  I would sometimes try to consistently read the Word  in the early hours of the day, but often fell asleep or failed to prioritize this time and would find myself trying to read the bible before I went to bed, maybe out of some sort of guilt or obligation. Can you see the futility involved this “going through the motion” relationship with God, not to mention the total absurdity of going into battle without your armor.. no wonder I was often living a defeated, powerless, and certainly far from abundant life.  You see it wasn’t that I didn’t know about the significance of the armor or that I couldn’t find it.  It was right there in my closet hanging neatly and clean and shiny because it hadn’t been used.  Duh!  Trust me when I tell you that it is imperative that you incorporate the time for God to spiritually suit you up for battle BEFORE THE First arrows are shot by your enemy.  We need to be fortified and we cannot do it ourselves, God must be the initiator and will be if we are seeking Him first.  I find this interesting as we see over and over the importance of allowing God to empower us to walk with Him, and for us to not take the lead or the Throne if you will, so that we are in harmony with God’s will for our lives and He is helping us to see the more we surrender to Him, the more we want to depend and trust Him; albeit in child like faith.

The other day a long time dear friend of ours came by and my heart was grieving for his situation.  He is very close to getting a divorce and before me was an empty shell of a man who had lost all hope of ever saving his marriage. Here is the efforts of my loving on him and trying to console him.  I told him to please just go before God in a quiet place with no distractions and talk to Him aloud and openly honest. I shared with him that I didn’t know what was going to happen or anything about what the answer could be, but that both of us did know WHO does have the answers.  I shared with my dear friend that he could not fix the situation or change his wife or anything else, but God could. I shared with Him that God would not turn Him away, but would do just the opposite.  He would become so present in his life that He would actually allow my friend to take a breath and relax and to have the hollowness be filled with the unfailing love and mercy of God. 

I am not sharing this to sound “spiritual”, but rather to let you see the simple yet profound discovery of knowing and trusting God first, and then let Him heal your brokenness, fill you with his love and peace, and show you his faithfulness.  This is  Practical Christianity 101 and I missed it for a long time, and I am saddened to think that many others out there are missing it too.

I also wanted to mention that I asked my friend how his walk with God was going and he responded by telling me he was going to church pretty regularly, but he wasn’t reading his bible as much as he should, but overall he was doing ok.  Wrong!  When our friends tell us this it should sound off alarms in our heads because it is the same response we probably have given ourselves many times over the years. I would like to suggest to you that this response is one of obvious weakness and there is no joy or abundant life being experienced here.  It is a real indication that we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are ok, but we probably need more discipline implemented in our walk so we can be more faithful. Wrong again! What we need is more God.  We can never ever have enough God and the more we begin to truly experience this, the more we want.