PART ONE - LOOKING UP, My personal journey into the Spirit-filled life
'I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me. Jonah 2.2
Chapter 1 - THE WONDERFUL SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE
*3....I meet believers all the time whose doctrine can be summed up in 2 statements:
1. Nobody's perfect
2. God understands.
for them, life is a long string of joys and sorrows with the promise of heaven at the end.
*8 ..Jesus let it be known... that God was looking for more than OUR best. He was looking for a life-style and attitude that superseded our best a life-style and attitude that we could never attain through our own efforts. and so He said,
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you, but i I go, I will send Him to you. John 16.7...
*9 if there ever was a group who should have been able to live a consistent Christian life by just doing their best, it was the apostles. think of all their advantages.
they had been trained by the Master.
they had seen lame men walk, blind men see and the dead rise.
they were privy to the inside scoop between the Son and the Father.
they had even performed miracles themselves!
nobody could have been more convinced.
nobody could have been more motivated.
yet in their last encounter with the Savior,
He let them know that they were still missing something.
...'and gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised...not many days from now...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest prat of the earth'. Acts 1.4-8
*13 Chapter 2 - MY FIRST ENCOUNTER
The Spirit Filled Life. I was 32 years old the first time I heard anyone use that term. when I was growing up, the Holy Spirit was always referred to as thee Holy Ghost. as a child I thought it sounded spooky - not something I was really interested in knowing much about...
I was 14 when I felt the call to preach.
*14 as I think back through those challenging years, I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit was at work in my life. I believe He was protecting me from the bitterness that destroys so many people who grow up in dysfunctional families like mine. again, I didn't recognize His presence, but He was there.
...learning to recognize the Holy Spirit is the first step in learning to live the Spirit-filled life. after all, if we are supposed to be led by the Spirit (see Galatians 5.18) , it would certainly help if we could recognized Him! it is difficult to follow someone whose identity is unknown. anyone who has been given the task of picking up someone he has never met from the airport knows that.
as you read this book, you may find yourself thinking, Oh, so it
*15 was the Holy Spirit who did that. so that is where those thoughts came from. so that is why I felt funny. so He brought that to mind.
the Holy Spirit is not as mysterious and illusive as some would have us believe. the Holy Spirit is an integral part of our Christian experience. but because we are so unfamiliar with His ways, we miss Him. as long as we miss Him, we certainly can't follow Him.. and, you guessed it, as long as we miss Him, we certainly can't follow Him. and, you guessed it, as long as we can't follow Him, we can't experience he wonderful Spirit-filled life.
to get us thinking in the right direction, I have listed a few tasks the Holy spirit endeavors to accomplish in your life on a daily basis. we will look at each one in detail later on. but take a minute now to familiarize yourself with this list. next time you experience one of these things, stop and thank the Holy Spirit. in doing so, you will develop a heightened awareness of His activity in your life. and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the grater your awareness, the easier it will be to RECOGNIZE HIM AND FOLLOW HIM.
the Holy Spirit...
*CONVICTS (..John 16.8-11)
*ILLUMINATES (John 16. 12-5)
*TEACHES "
*GUIDES (Romans 8.14)
*ASSURES (def- as(ad) 'associated with + free from, not exposed to danger) (Rom. 8.16)
*INTERCEDES (Rom 8.26)
*DIRECTS (Acts 20.22)
*WARNS (Acts 20.23)
another reason for some of the confusion regarding the Holy Spirit is that believers do not know who or what He is. His identity remains a mystery to a large number of those whom He indwells. ironic, isn't it? some think of the Holy Spirit in terms of a power or force - something like what we saw in the Star Wars series.
it is not unusual to hear Christians talking about 'getting the Holy Spirit' or 'tapping into the power of the spirit'. such phrases leave the impression that the Holy Spirit is some sort of divine energy source that Christians are to live in harmony with , thereby increasing our personal potential and power.
*17 I have herd New Age supporters talk about the Holy Spirit in a similar way. from their point of view, the HS indwells all humanity. our responsibility is to develop that Spirit within us and thus move toward a greater understanding of our personal deity and oneness with all people.
the Bible, however, does not present the HS as an impersonal force or power. the HS is not an 'it' or a 'something'. the HS is a 'He.'
as I mentioned earlier, I was in seminary before i began my formal education in the ways of the HS . I was sitting at a table with several buddies and during our conversation, I said something about the HS and called Him an 'it'. I didn't think anything about it having been raised in a pentecostal Holiness church, I had always heard the HS or Holy Ghost, referred to as'it'.
when our conversation came to a close. one of the fellows asked me if I would join him in his room. it just so happened that he was a doctoral student, so I felt honored by his invitation...after a few minutes of casual conversation, he reached over to his desk and pulled out his Greek New Testament and handed it to me.
'I noticed that tonight when we were talking about the HS, you called Him an 'it.
yeah, I said, Why?
'the HS is not an 'it, he said.
from there he proceeded to take me on a tour of the New Testament. we explored all the key verses where the Holy Spirit is mentioned. to my surprise, I discovered that the Ne Testament was consistent in its presentation of the Holy Spirit as a 'He rather than an 'it'.
one verse that particularly caught my attention was John 16.13:
but when He, the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all the truth.
I knew just enough about the Greek language to know that the term translated 'He' could not be translated any other way. John meant 'He', not 'it'. further study revealed that John went out
*18 of his way to use the masculine form of the pronoun. I was convinced.
I had been raised on the King James Version of the Bible. it's a wonderful translation..but ..translates the third person singular as 'it' rather than 'he'. Romans 8.26 is a good example
like wise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit ITSELF maketh intercession for us.
if you are like I was, you may be a little uncomfortable about changing your references to the HS from 'it' to 'He'. as we look at other biblical support for this view, however, i hope you will see why such a change is necessary.
the Bible not only refers to the Holy Spirit as a 'He, but it also ascribes to Him all the distinctives of personality. specifically, the HS is described as having 1. knowledge, 2. will and 3. emotion.
the apostle Paul certainly believed the Holy Spirit was knowledgeable. he wrote,
"for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. now we have received, not the spirit of the World, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God. I Corinthians 2.11-2
the Holy Spirit KNOWS the thought of God. and the Holy Spirit imparts KNOWLEDGE TO BELIEVERS. the HS, then, is not simply an impersonal force. He has knowledge and He has the power to impart knowledge.
the HS has a will as well. in his discussion of spiritual gifts, Paul referred to the HS's responsibility of distributing gifts at will:
*19 but one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. I Corinthians 12.11)
the HS makes decisions. He is not a power to be harnessed and manipulated. He has a mind and will of His own. to tap into the HS is not to enhance one's ability to carry out one's will. Oh, no! on the contrary , the power of the HS is available only to those whose intention is to carry out His will.
...a third aspect of personality ascribed to the HS is emotion. the HS has feelings. . Paul instructed the believers in Ephesus not to 'grieve' the HS. (Eph. 4.30) in his letter to the Romans he referred to the 'love of the Spirit (15.30) Love and grief are terms associated with emotion. the Bible portrays the HS as One having all the characteristics of personality. it makes sense, then, for us to think of Him as a person.
*20 another line of evidence pointing to the personhood of the Holy Spirit is His work. throughout Scripture, we find Him performing duties normally associated with a person. for instance, He Prays (Rom. 8.26) He Searches the mysteries of God and then Reveals them to the saints (ICor. 2.10) He Teaches (John 14.26) He Reminds (same) He Talks (Acts 13.2) and He guides (John 16.13).
the Holy Spirit is clearly not a force. He is a thinking, feeling, active person working with God the
Father and God the Son to affect our lives according to their collective wills. but He is more than a person. he is part of that mysterious entity we call the Trinity...
discovering that the Holy Spirit was a 'He' rather than an 'it' was very disorienting for me. I didn't know exactly what to do with the new bit of theology. I was accustomed to talking to God and Jesus. I remember wondering whether or not I should talk to the HS. the first time I tried it I was really uncomfortable. it sounded funny. but I felt like it was something I needed to do.
I was embarrassed by the fact that i had been treating Him like an it. furthermore, I was convinced I owed Him an apology. after all, I had basically ignored Him for over 20 years. it took me awhile, but i finally grew comfortable addressing the HS as a person. I quit referring to Him as a ghost. He is not a ghost any more than God the Father and Son are ghosts. the Bible does not instruct us to pray to the HS. He has been a major part of my Christian experience ever since.
do you talk to the Holy Spirit? or have you been ignoring Him? He is a person just like Christ. the difference is that He never took on human form and He didn't die for your sin. But
*21 He has been sent by the Father to assist you in all the practical matters of Christian living.
He is your number one Helper. in light of that,
I would suggest you get to know Him.
talk to Him.
thank Him.
why is this so important? it goes back to what I said earlier. the Spirit-filled life is a life characterized by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit. it will be much easier to follow Him if we know Him, if we have a relationship with Him and if we can recognize his fingerprint in the daily affairs of our lives.
take a few moments to acquaint yourself with the Holy Spirit. if you feel uncomfortable talking to Him, tell Him so. after all, He already knows. if you feel a little embarrassed for ignoring Him all this time, tell Him your sorry.
take some time to look back over the verses I listed earlier. as you read each one, thank the Holy Spirit for fulfilling those responsibilities in your life. ask him to make you more sensitive to His promptings.
Chapter 3 - THE INDWELLING SPIRIT
Discipline comes easy for me.
I have always enjoyed getting up early in the morning.
I like to exercise.
I love to study.
I have been taking vitamins and eating right for years.
I have had high moral and ethical standards since I was 12.
All that is to say, Christianity suits me just fine.
I liked everything about it.
and judging from my public behavior, I was a great Christian.
Anna, y wife and I never fought.
It was easy for us to pray together.
everything was great -on the outside.
When people would come to me for counseling, I had the same answer for everybody. whether it was marital problems, moral problems, spiritual problems, it didn't matter; I had a cure-all answer:
'Just confess your sin and get with the program!
after all, what else is there to the Christian life? God has made His plan perfectly clear, hasn't He? now all we need to do is to get out there and make it happen. so I graduated from seminary in May of 1957 and charged out into the world to make things happen for god( I'm sure He was quite impressed and very grateful).
in Aug of 1956, several months prior to my graduation, I was invited to preach for two Sundays at Fruitland Baptist Church, just outside Hendersonville, North Carolina. Anna and I were vacationing in the area at the time. after the second Sunday a group from the church asked me if I would be interested in being their
*24 pastor. I graciously informed them that I had another year of seminary to complete. they didn't take no for an answer. the following December they contact me in Ft Worth, where I was in school. they told me they had prayed about it and I was the man for the job. the church was willing to wait for me to graduate.
I can't tell you how good it felt to know where i was going after graduation, especially that far in advance. Anna and i had peace that this was from God. we loved the area. we loved the church. it was perfect.
in april, one month before graduation, the director of the Fruitland Bible Institute called me. FBI was located directly across the street from the Fruitland Baptist Church where i was to pastor. the school was established as a training center for pastors.
'Charles, we are looking forward to having you in our area. the board of directors wanted me to call and see if you would be interested in teaching at the Bible Institute', he said.
I didn't know what to say. I hadn't even graduated from seminary yet and they wanted Me to teach? I knew enough about the school to know that it was full of men who had been pastoring and preaching for years. they hadn't had the opportunity to get much formal education, but their hears were pure as gold. most of them were in their 40s and 50s. several of them had been in the ministry longer than I had been alive! 'What in the world could I teach them? I wondered.
we need someone to teach preaching and evangelism starting this next fall, he explained.
PREACHING I thought. I HAVEN'T PREACHED BUT A HALF DOZEN SERMONS IN MY LIFE. THESE MEN HAVE BEEN PREACHING FOR YEARS. AND EVANGELISM. THEY PROBABLY KNOW MORE ABOUT EVANGELISM THAN I WILL EVER KNOW.
'we need to know as soon as possible, he said. think about it and give us a call as soon as you know something.
well, I already knew one thing. he was asking the wrong man. I didn't even want to pray about it for fear the God would say 'DO IT! Anna just smiled when I told her. 'It's a great opportunity, she said.
to make a long story short, I agreed to teach.
we arrived in Fruitland in June of 1957 and I went to work as pastor. I loved it. Anna and i would have been content to spend the rest of our lives ministering to those dear people. it was a great place to begin a ministry. I had to do everything: unlock the doors,
*25 clean the commodes, print the bulletin and take out the trash. but I didn't mind a bit.
the only thing that robbed me of my joy was knowing that fall was approaching. I felt totally inadequate. there wasn't a day that entire summer that i didn't want to walk over to the school and resign. the very thought of walking into the classroom and facing those men was nerve shattering. I was in over my head, totally out of my league.
in the back of my mind (and I mean way back) I knew that if teaching was really of God, He would give me the strength and insight I needed. my problem was that I HAD NO IDEA OF HOW TO TAP INTO HIS STRENGTH. I felt adequate to pastor but not to teach. i needed something more.
toward the end of the summer I picked up R.A. Torrey's book on the Holy Spirit. I had read it once before while I was in seminary. I remembered how frustrated it made me. when Torrey talked about being controlled an empowered by the HS, he made it sound so simple - too simple.
I was convinced I had to DO something to receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit. for the past couple of years I had done everything from fasting to begging. I knew there was something more. but I didn't know how to get it. i believed there was some sort of secret I needed to discover. up until then I had been casual in my pursuit of the HS. but I was desperate. it was August and September was approaching like a runaway train. so I devoured his book in hopes that somewhere in there I would find the secret. looking back, I know that god had clearly engineered my circumstances to bring me to a point of desperation it was time for another major lesson.
if you had asked me during that time whether I believed the Holy Spirit was God, I would have answered 'yes' without any hesitation. if you had asked me whether i believed the HS was living inside me, I would have said, 'yes' and I would have quoted you a verse to prove it:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the HS who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? I Cor. 6.19
*27 but if you had asked me what difference all of that was supposed to make on a daily basis, I would have been hard-pressed to give you a good answer. Oh, I would have come up with something but nothing very definitive.
there I was pastoring a church and the life-changing implications of those 2 truths still had not sunk in. The Holy Spirit Is God. The Holy spirit Lives In Me. in a period of about 2 weeks those 2 statements took on incredible significance in my life. i will tell you more about that later. for now, let's take a closer look at the 2 statements.
the idea of the Trinity has been a point of confusion for many people throughout church history. Scripture clearly teaches that there is but one God. yet, god is presented in the form of 3 distinct persons: God the Father , God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. the formula adopted by the early church is as follows: one essence, 3 persons.
for many people, that distinction may not be helpful in the least. that is all right as long as one's inability to understand the full extend of this wonderful truth does not impede the willingness to put faith in it.
'But wait, you say. 'How can I be expected to trust something i don't fully understand? is intellect the enemy of faith ? absolutely not! God has given ample information to support our faith. there are, however, a few things that will always remain a mystery to us this side of heaven. ICor. 13.12
we frequently put our faith in things we don't understand. every time I get on a jet I place my life in the hands of people I have never met and at the mercy of machinery I do not understand. that is not to imply that nobody understands it. simply because i don't have an explanation for how it works doesn't mean there isn't one. in the same way, just because the idea of the Trinity is confusing to us doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense. it only means that it doesn't make sense to us.
the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity. the first reference to this relationship is found in the story of creation:
*28 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. and the earth as formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. then god said, 'Let there be light' and there was light Genesis 1.1-3
notice how the author refers to God and the Spirit of God without making any distinction between the 2. no explanation is necessary; the 2 are 1! the God who created the heavens and the earth is the same as the Spirit who moved over the surface of the waters. if 2 different Gods or forces were at work, some sort of transition statement between verses 2 and 3 would have been in order. but no such transition appears. the author freely uses 'Spirit of God' and 'God' interchangeably.
the Holy Spirit's involvement in creation ties Him in with the second person in the Trinity as sell. in Colossians the apostle Paul referred to Christ as the creator of all things:
for He (God the Father) delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. and He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. for by Him (the Son) all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible... all things have been created by Him and for Him. Colossians 1.13-6
being one of the premier religious leaders of his day, Paul was very familiar with the Old Testament. more than likely he had memorized the creation story as a child. as a Christian, Paul continued in his belief that the Old Testament was from God. yet without any explanation he credited Christ with the work of creation. Paul had no problem accepting the idea of the Trinity. and he felt no need to explain it, either.
later in the creation story we find another reference to the Trinity:
*29 then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Genesis 1.26
who was God talking to ? who was 'Us'? whoever He was referring to was clearly part of the creation process: 'Let us make man'. the only other living beings at that point in history were animals and angels there is no indication from Scripture that either animals or angels were part of the creation process.
in the next verse God clarified exactly whose image He was referring to:
And God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1.27
Adam and Eve were not created in the image of animals or angels. they were created in the image of god. the 'Us' in Genesis 1.26 must refer to God alone: God the Father, God the son and God the Spirit.
there are many other examples where the Holy Spirit and God are referred to interchangeably. one is found in the fifth chapter of Acts:
but a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife's full knowledge and bringing a portion of it he laid it at the apostles' feet. but Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your hear to Lie to the HOLY SPIRIT, and to keep back some of the price of the land?....Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? you have not lied to men, but to GOD. Acts 5.1-4
peter saw God and the HOLY SPIRIT as equals. from his perspective, to lie to one was to lie to the other. each deserved equal reverence and respect. apparently, god thought so too for both Ananias and his wife,Sapphira, lost their lives as a result of their deceit.
the authors of both the Old and the New Testaments saw no problem with interchanging God and the Holy Spirit. to speak of one was to speak of the other. the actions and attributes of the other. they were seen as one
*30 in power, omniscience, wisdom and even eternalness (..Hebrews 9.14) no distinction is needed. now let's look at the second statement.
as I said earlier , for a long time the deity of the HOLY SPIRIT was nothing more to me than orthodox theology. that is, until I began to think about the fact that He indwells me.
there are several popular theories concerning the indwelling work of the HOLY SPIRIT. what makes it confusing is that the Bible is used to support every one of them. some say the HS indwells the believer at the moment of salvation. others teach that it happens sometime after salvation. a couple of groups believe the HS comes and goes; some days you have Him and some days you don't.
the confusion stems primarily from 2 sources. first is the coming of the HOLY SPIRIT in the book of Acts. many christians see this as the normative pattern for every generation. in Acts we find the HS coming to indwell men who had been believers for possibly 2 or 3 years. some see this as strong evidence for believing that the H S is not necessarily given at the moment a person is born again.
a second source of confusion originates with those who do not hold to the doctrine of eternal security 9once saved, always saved). christians who believe they can lose their salvation are forced to believe that the HOLY SPIRIT comes and goes as a man's or woman's salvation comes and goes. since I have written...Eternal Security (1990) ...I won't attempt to deal with this problem here.
as to the problems created by the book of acts, i have devoted an entire chapter to examining the peculiarities of that wonderful, but often misunderstood, book. for now I want to focus on the one thin we all agree on - the HS indwells the believer.
the authors of Scripture used several terms to describe the relationship between the believer and the HOLY SPIRIT. Jesus Himself
*31 explained it differently on different occasions. to the apostles, He said, 'Receive the HOLY SPIRIT (John 20.22) to the multitude who gathered with Him just before the ascension, He said, 'You shall receive power when the HS has Come Upon you (Acts 1.8).
the apostle John refers to the HS as being given To the believer (I John 3.24; I Thess. 4.8) Peter talks about the HS being In believers (I Pet. 1.11) paul says, ' God has sent forth the Spirit of His son into our hearts' (Galatians 4.6) in another place he speaks of the believer as the temple of the HS (I Cor. 3.16-7)
all of these terms lead us in the same direction. the HOLY SPIRIT resides In the believer. the verb used most often to describe this unique relationship comes for the Greek word oikeo. in the New American Standard Bible, it is translated 'dwell', 'indwell' and 'live'. in the New King James Version it is translated 'dwell'. Oikeo actually comes from the Greek word for house - oilos. it means 'to live in'', 'reside', or 'dwell'.
Oikeo is used 4 times to describe the believer's relationship with the HOLY SPIRIT (Romans 8.9,ll; ICor. 2.16; II Tim. 1.14) the most descriptive of he 4 is found in Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth: 'Do you not know that you are a temple of God and than the Spirit of God dwells in you?
one writer summarized Paul's thoughts beautifully when he wrote,
Clearly, to Paul, to be indwelt by the HOLY SPIRIT is to be inhabited by God. by equating the phrase 'God's temple' with the phrase 'a temple of the Holy Spirit', Paul is clear: the Holy Spirit of God.
the significance of the term OIKEO is that it speaks of PERMANENCY. the idea is that the HOLY SPIRIT TAKES UP RESIDENCY IN BELIEVERS - FOREVER. HE DOESN'T JUST PASS THROUGH. HE MAKES US HIS HOME. HE COMES TO STAY.
Paul's reference to believers as temples underscores this point. having grown up a devout Jew. Paul had a great deal of respect for the temple. to the nation of Israel, it represented the presence of God among His people.
*32 when Christ was crucified, there was no longer any need for the temple. god no longer needed a building. He was free to take up residency in the heart of man. the barrier of sin had been removed. man's relationship with God had been removed. man's relationship with God had been restored. to symbolize the change, God tore the veil of the temple from top to bottom. (Mark 15.38) ...the fact that it was ripped from top to bottom signified that God, not man, had initiated the change.
by referring to believers as temples, paul was announcing that God had changed His residency for good. he had left the temple in Jerusalem and, through the person of the HOLY SPIRIT, had moved into the hearts of his people.
another role that the HOLY SPIRIT plays in our lives is further evidence of the permanency of His relocation. the Bible says that He has been given to us as a Pledge:
In Him (Christ), you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed , you were sealed in Him with the HOLY SPIRIT of promise, who is given as a Pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of god's own possession, to the praise of His glory. Eph. 1.13-4
when you became a Christian, you were sealed into Christ. the term Sealed is used in various ways throughout the New Testament. in Matthew we read that Jesus' tomb was Sealed (Matt. 27.66) in Revelation we are told that Satan will be sealed in the abyss for 1000 years (see Chapter 20) during the Tribulation, God will place a seal on 144,000 people from the tribes of Israel. (see Rev. 7)
in every case the term Sealed carried with it the ideas of protection and security. to seal something was to close it off from outside influences and interference. we use the term in a similar way today. we seal windows and doors to keep the wind out. we seal letters. we seal basements to keep water out. we even seal furniture to keep dust from getting into the wood.
in our culture we do not normally think of putting a seal on people. consequently, it is difficult for us to grasp the significance.
*33 of being sealed by God. fortunately, Scripture gives us a helpfu7l illustration.
during the Tribulation, God will place a seal on 144,000 Jews (Revelation 7.4-8) the seal will apparently be a visible mark on the forehead. as the Great Tribulation progresses, it becomes evident that the members of this group bearing god's seal have been granted supernatural protection from the chaos surrounding them. at the end of the Tribulation, the entire group reappears intact to welcome the King. (Rev. 14.1-5)
this future event sheds light on the ramifications of God's seal on the believer. the primary benefit of the seal is protection. the seal will protect the 144,000 during the most dangerous period of human history. nothing will be able to overcome the protecting power of that seal, not even the Antichrist himself.
unlike the 144,000, our seal is not visible - to us, that is. our seal is spiritual instead of receiving a mark on our foreheads, we were given the HOLY SPIRIT as a pledge of god's intent to preserve us to the day of Christ's appearing:
and do not grieve the HOLY SPIRIT of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Ephesians 4.30
when God looks at you, He sees the HOLY SPIRIT within you. the presence of the HS is a spiritual reminder of God's promise to finish what He has begun in you. it is a sign to the spirit world that you belong to the Rather, the HS will be there, living in you, signifying His ownership. when He moved in, he moved in to stay He's not going anywhere!
for the 2 weeks prior to D day (the first day of class), I meditated on the 2 thoughts: The HOLY SPIRIT Is God. the HS Lies in me - Permanently. I just knew that somewhere, hidden within the 2 ideas, was the answer I was looking for.
I remember thinking, Well, if You are in there, DO SOMETHING! I was convinced that if God -through the Spirit- indwelt me, I should have all kinds of new potential. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING HE CALLED ME TO DO. so I certainly shouldn't fear teaching a couple of
*34 classes. reading through Torrey's book, I ran across a passage that hit me right between the eyes. he described my dilemma perfectly.
"so it is clear that every regenerate man has the HOLY SPIRIT. but in many a believer the HS dwells away back in some hidden sanctuary of his person, away back of conscious experience. so just as it is one thing to have a guest in your house living in some remote corner of the house where you scarcely know that he is there and quite another thing to have the guest taking entire possession of the house, just so it is one thing to have the HS dwelling way back of consciousness in some hidden sanctuary of our being and quite another thing to have the HS taking entire possessing of the house. in other words, it is one thing to have the HS merely dwelling in us but we not conscious of His dwelling, and quite another thing to be filled or baptized, with the HS. so we may put it with perfect accuracy in this way: every regenerate person has the HS, but not every regenerate person has what the Bible calls 'the gift of the HS' or 'the baptism with the HS' or 'the Promise of the Father.'
whatever you call it, I didn't have it. I had the HOLY SPIRIT. but for some reason He wasn't making much difference. it was as if He was hibernating. like Torrey said, it was as if He was dwelling 'in some hidden sanctuary' in my being.
I was relieved to know that someone else understood my dilemma. but understanding it better didn't solve it. i wanted to know why nothing was changing. I wanted to know how to get the HOLY SPIRIT out of the 'hidden sanctuary' and into my daily activities. specifically, I wanted Him to empower me to teach those men. that approaching crisis ultimately paved the way for the next step in my journey. I didn't know it then, but I was just hours away from discovering how to be filled with the Spirit.
I know what you are thinking: Get on with it! that is exactly how I felt. but remember spiritual growth is a process. thee is an order. lessons must Be Learned before other lessons can be assimilated. I will not guarantee that reading the next few chapters of this book will result in your being filled by the HOLY SPIRIT. i
*35 certainty hope it will. but more than likely this book will only bring you one step closer to the final reality of the spirit-filled life.
I must have read 20 books on the subject before I recognized and experienced the filling of the Spirit. each one played a part in what god was doing, some more than others. much of what I read, I wasn't ready for at the time. sometimes it was on my second or third trip through a book that God spoke.
I don't know where you are in the process, but god does. He is engineering your circumstances with a definite result in mind.
PART OF HIS PLAN IS TO BRING YOU TO THE END OF YOURSELF,
TO A PLACE OF DESPERATION
WHERE YOU GET SO SICK OF YOUR SELF AND YOUR INABILITY TO CHANGE
THAT YOU THROW UP YOUR HANDS IN SURRENDER.
when that happens, you are closer than you have ever been to knowing the joy of the Spirit-filled life. so, RELAX.
THERE IS NO RUSH.
GOD IS IN CONTROL.
after all, He wants this for you more than you want it for yourself.
Chapter 4 - D DAY
*37 It was 4 o'clock Friday afternoon my first class was to begin the following Monday. I had done everything I knew to do. I had read, memorized, fasted, prayed, begged, bargained, pleaded and bordered on threatening a few times. nothing had changed. from my vantage point, stretched out on the floor in our den, I was just as far away from understanding the Spirit-filled life as I had ever been. but in reality, I was only moments away.
I had been praying for almost an hour. I was reading and meditating on 2 verses of in I John: 'and this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. and if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. I John 5.14-5
I was at the end of my emotional rope. I glanced at my watch and then buried by face in my hands. 'Lord, I prayed,
'You promised that if i ask anything according to Your will, You will hear me.
I know it's not Your will for me to be frustrated and overwhelmed with this feeling of inadequacy.
I believe it's Your will for e to experience the power of the HOLY SPIRIT.
I have done everything i know to do. and nothing has worked.
I know You don't want me to go in there unprepared on Monday. and
*38 You don't want me to quit.
so I'm just going to trust you because I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE TO DO.
immediately, I was overwhelmed with an amazing sense of confidence and assurance. it was a feeling. but it was in such stark contrast with what i had been feeling for the past 3 months that I knew something had happened. my fear was gone. it had vanished completely.
I didn't see stars or hear a voice. I didn't speak in tongues. in fact, that was the point. I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING - EXCEPT TRUST HIM. then it hit me. I had been consumed with a desire to Do something, to somehow win the Holy Spirit. I had been trying to convince God with my sincerity. furthermore, I had been seeking some kind of physical manifestation to confirm that He had done, or was doing, something. I wanted to see something.
as I sat there thinking all of this through, 2 verses ran through my mind: 'For we walk by faith, not by sight'. II Corinthians 5.7 and 'Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed'. John 20.29 the Spirit-filled life is a life of faith. I had missed the obvious. I had been looking all over for something that was right in front of me. I didn't need to beg. God wanted it for me more than I wanted it for myself. all I needed to do was believe and move out in faith.
I woke up early Monday morning. i couldn't wait for that first class to begin. as the men filed in, the devil whispered in my ear, 'Charles, what do you think you can teach these men? you are the youngest one in the room! I whispered back, 'Maybe so, but I'm filled with the Spirit of truth and He can handle anything these men throw at Him.
this first encounter with the Holy Spirit resulted primarily in a heightened sense of confidence. when feelings of insecurity and fear surfaced, I would remember that God - through the HS - was living in me. he was adequate for anything that came my way. I would find myself praying throughout the day, 'HS, I can't but You can. Fill me for the work You have called me to do'. and He did . it was evident in the classroom and in the pulpit. I preached with greater authority and boldness. as a pastor and faculty member, I led with a passion. the ironic thing was
*39 that I was more aware than ever of my inadequacy. but it was no longer a handicap. the HS more than compensated.
the Christian life is a life of faith . we usually don't have much trouble accepting that fact in connection with our salvation. but when it comes to our daily routine, faith is sometimes conspicuously missing we tend to take matters into our own hands and do the best we can. simply put, we walk by sight. if I don't see it or feel it, it must not be true. if i don't Feel God's presence, He must not be with me. if I don't See a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, He must not be around. in the weeks that followed my Enlightenment i was riveted to any passage of Scripture that said anything about the Holy Spirit. during that time, I discovered several things that revolutionized my perspective concerning what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
for years i believed that it was my responsibility to wait on the Holy Spirit to fill me. at some point I guess I grew tired of waiting and tried to win Him and talk Him into filling me. thus, all the praying and begging and fasting. but as Billy Graham stated so perfectly, 'This is the good news: we are no longer waiting for the HS - He is waiting for us. we are no longer living in a time of promise, but in the days of fulfillment.
looking back, I think my confusion stemmed from 2 things. First, I had attended churches where that idea was taught. at the end of a service or camp meeting people would come forward and have a pastor or elder lay hands on them and they would supposedly be filled with the Spirit. I say 'supposedly' because there is no doubt that something happened. but upon close examination of their life-styles, I don't think what happened had anything to do with the HS. more on that later.
sometimes those folds would go through a lengthy ordeal before the Holy Spirit finally 'fell'. others would return night after night, seeking the filling of the Spirit, before they received Him. the point is, for years the only people I heard talk about the HS talked in terms of receiving Him (or it) after a period of waiting and crying out for Him to fill them.
*41 the other thing that led me to believe I had to wait for the Holy spirit to fill me was certain passages in the book of Acts. the big one was Acts 1.54. Jesus' disciples were clearly 'believers'. they would no doubt have gone to heaven had they died before the day of Pentecost. yet, they were not baptized with the Spirit until Jesus finished His earthly ministry and departed to be with His Father. Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem. so they returned to wait on the HS.
in Acts 19 we read about another group of men who were believers yet had not been filled with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 19.2). after paul laid his hands on them, however, we are told that the HS 'came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying'. Acts 19.6 once again, there was a gap between the experience of salvation and being filled with the Spirit. the men were forced to wait. it was as if there was an appointed time for them to receive the HS.
from those 2 passages in acts i incorrectly assumed that every believer is forced to wait for that special moment when the Holy Spirit decides to grace him or her with His presence. but nowhere is the Bible is such an idea stated or even implied.
lying there on my floor in Fruitland, North Carolina, I realized that I had made the Spirit-filled life much more complicated than it really is. like every other aspect of the Christian life, THE SPIRIT FILLED LIFE IS A LIFE OF FAITH. I had been approaching it as if it were a formula. but the Spirit-filled life is not a formula; IT IS A RELATIONSHIP, a relationship with a person - the HS.
as I mentioned earlier , my encounter with the Holy Spirit there on my floor in Fruitland left me with an unquenchable thirst to discover more. I began scanning the Scriptures for anything that had to do with the HS. I realized how ignorant I was. at the same time, something had definitely happened to me and i wanted an explanation.
my first discovery was probably my most shocking of all. the phrase 'filled with the Spirit' appears only 10 times in the entire New Testament: 3 times in Luke; 6 times in acts and once in Ephesians. it isn't even mentioned in 24 of the 27 books of the new Testament! how could that be? who could something of such consequence be so underemphasized?
*42 further study revealed some interesting facts about the filling of the Spirit - not the least of which was that there is a distinct difference between the use of the phrase 'filled with the Spirit' in Luke and Acts and its use in the book of Ephesians.
for 9 or 10 times the phrase 'filled with the Holy Spirit' or 'filled with the Spirit' is mentioned, the preposition With does not actually appear in the Greek. the English translators added it -and rightly so- because the form of the Greek noun Spirit expresses content and thus the addition of With. the English language is not as precise as Greek, so we are forced to use several words to express what they could say in one.
the meaning of these 9 verses is clear; the people in question were filled up with the Spirit. that is, the Holy spirit came to dwell inside them. the classic example is found in Acts 2 when the disciples were filled with the HS (see also Luke 1.41, 67). they entered the upper room without Him; they left the Upper Room full of Him.
of the 9 verses in question, 3 use the phrase 'filled with the Spirit' in a descriptive way. for example, Acts 4.8 records, 'Then Peter, fill with the Holy spirit, said to them....' the author of acts was simply stating that Peter was one of those who had been indwelt by the HS. He was not commenting on the control or the influence that the HS had in peter's life at that moment. He was characterized as a man who had been filled with the spirit or a Spirit -filled man (see Acts 13.9;52)
in studying the passages in ACTS that dealt specifically with the filling of the Spirit, I noticed a couple of things they all had in common. first, IN EVERY INSTANCE THE HOLY SPIRIT INITIATED THE FILLING. the recipient was always taken by surprise to some extent. even those in the Upper Room did not know exactly when the filling of the Spirit would take place. it just happened.
another good example of the same phenomenon is found in Acts 10.44 (see also Acts 19.1-7) Peter was preaching and suddenly, with no warning, the Holy Spirit interrupted the sermon and fell on those listening. the word Filled was not used, but Peter said it was just like what happened to him and the other apostles on the day of Pentecost. Acts 10.47 in each instance the Holy Spirit initiated the process.
*43 the second thing I noticed about the references to the filling of the Spirit in Acts was that they seemed to be permanent. there was no evidence after Pentecost of anyone's being unfilled in the sense of the Holy Spirit's departing. and there were no examples of anyone's being refilled With the Holy Spirit on the contrary Luke seemed to go out of his way to remind us that Peter and Paul were still filled after their initial filling.
Review let's put all of this information together before we go any further.
1. Jesus promised the coming of the Spirit. he said those who waited would be Baptized with the Holy Spirit.
2 when He (the Spirit) finally came, Luke said they were all 'filled with the Spirit'. that is, the Spirit came into them.
3. Paul was filled with the Spirit for the first time. Acts 9.17
4. a group in Cornelius's house was filled with the Spirit for the first time. Acts 10.44
5. a group of John the Baptist's disciples received the HS for the first time. Acts 19.6
from all of that I concluded that the filling of the Spirit as described in Acts refers to the unique arrival of the HS in the world after the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as in the life of certain believers. Jesus promised such an arrival Acts 1.8 and the remainder of the book of Acts uses the term Filled to describe that arrival.
now you are probably wondering, 'But what about when Paul commanded the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit?' we are getting to that. but i want you to see that the book of Acts uses this phrase consistently to refer to the fulfillment of Christ's promise - the arrival of a Helper who would indwell the believer John 16.7. now, on to Ephesians.
during my search for the Secret of the Spirit-filled life, I returned time and time again to Paul's familiar instruction to the believers in Ephesus.
*44 and do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Eph. 5.18
this verse irritated me. I said, 'OK, OK, but how? how do I do it: what do i do? where do i begin? my problem was not one of willingness. I just didn't know how to go about being filled. and unfortunately for all of us, paul didn't include a step-by-step plan.
as I took a closer look at this verse, several things stood out, things that set it apart from other verses about being filled with the Spirit. that distinction revolutionized my understanding of the Spirit-filled life. it was through the truth of Ephesisns 5.18 that i finally understood what happened to me that afternoon on my floor in Fruitland.
my confusion centered on paul's example of being drunk with wine. I had always understood him to be sayi9ng, 'Don't fill yourself up with wine and thus become drunk. but be filled up with the Holy Spirit instead'. I thought the parallel ideas were Wine and Spirit. consequently, I set about trying to figure out how to get the HS to fill me. I knew how a person would be filled with wine. but his illustration left me without a clue about how to be filled up with the H.S.
then I noticed an interesting thing about this verse. as you recall, I pointed out that in Acts there was no proposition preceding the word Spirit. translators added the word With because the Greek form of the Spirit necessitated it. With communicated the idea of content. believers were filled up with the Spirit.
in Ephesian 5.18, however, the word With does appear in the Greek. Paul inserted a preposition before the word Spirit. although the preposition is translated With in our English Bibles,this little preposition does not imply With in the sense of Content (what the believer is to be filled up with). it carries the idea of Agent - who is doing the filling. Paul was admonishing his audience to be filled By
the Spirit rather than With the Spirit.
imagine for a moment that someone asked you for cup of water. you would serve as the agent (the cup filler) and the water would serve as the content. Paul referred to the Spirit as the filler, in other words, 'let the Spirit fill you'. the obvious question
*45 would then be, 'Fill me with what? this is where the wine illustration is helpful.
The Filling of the Spirit in acts versus Ephesians
Acts Ephesians 5.18
-the apostles were instructed to wait. - believers are instructed to act.
-the Holy Spirit initiated the filling - believers are commanded to be filled
- the term Spirit is not preceded by a preposition; - the term Spirit is preceded by a preposition that
the noun form implies the idea of Content. implies Agent.
-filling is Permanent - the fact that it is a general command to a group
of people implies that this type of filling is
repeatable.
Paul used the term Fill in tandem with Drunk. to be drunk means more than to drink. it means more than to fill up. to be drunk is to be under the control of alcohol, to surrender one's body, mind, and spirit to its influence. To be filled with the Spirit -in this particular case - is to voluntarily put oneself under the influence of the Holy Spirit. J. Oswald sanders explained it this way:
from the contrasting commands, 'Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess' and 'Be filled with the Spirit', we would be justified in concluding that the person who is filled with the Spirit will be dominated and controlled by his intoxicating wine.
it is important to understand the distinction between this key verse and what was happening in the book of Acts. otherwise, like me, you may find yourself caught between Paul's command to do something and a phenomenon over which you have no control.
when paul said to be filled with the Spirit, he was not commanding us to sit around passively and wait for something to be
*46 poured into us. the Holy Spirit has already been poured in. if you are a believer, you have already been filled With the HS the way the men and women in Acts were filled. He has taken up permanent residence in your heart you have all of Him you are ever going to get. the question is , How much of you does He have?
that is Paul's point in Eph. 5.18. he was calling for total surrender to the gentle - yet firm - promptings of the HS. to be filled in this fashion is similar to being filled with fear or sorrow. when we are filled with fear or sorrow, the emotion takes such preeminence in our lives that all other thoughts and feelings are pushed into the background.
in 1971 I flew to Seattle, Washington, to preach a revival for friend. as we began our final approach, the captain informed us that they were having some trouble. the jet pulled back into a holding pattern and we were informed that the lock light on the front landing gear had not come on. that meant the cockpit crew had no way of knowing whether the front landing gear had locked into position. after several minutes the captain informed excess fuel and then attempt an emergency landing.
I could see emergency vehicles lining up along the airstrip below. we all leaned over - with head down in lap - as the captain counted the seconds to touchdown.
if we could have looked into the hearts and minds of the people on that flight, we would have found they were filled with an emotion that took such preeminence in their lives that nothing even came in a close second. they were controlled by whatever filled their hears in those anxious moments.
in the same way, we are to allow the Holy spirit to have complete control over our hearts and minds. to be filled with him is to allow His influence to invade every crack and crevice of our being - our thoughts, our motives, our relationships and our dreams.
in the heart of the believer who is filled with the Spirit,he reigns supreme over the will, the emotions, the intelligence, but with his full consent and cooperation. the word (filled)
*47 carries the idea of being filled to the point of saturation, a fullness that leaves nothing to be desired...so to be full of the HS means the habitual experience of having the HS in the free and unhindered exercise of all His attributes - knowledge, power, holiness, peace, joy - exercising His sway and dominion in every realm of life.
Oh, yeah, back to my story. the captain counted the seconds. everyone was dead silent. when the front landing gear touched down, it held.
in the days that followed my personal revival I began to analyze what had happened. I wanted to share my new treasure with others. but i wanted to make sure that what I shared was in keeping with what the Bible teaches. as i thought back on the process God had brought me through - and as I continued to pore over the verses concerning the ministries of the Holy Spirit - things finally began coming together.
as I see it, God used that entire series of events to accomplish 2 things in my life. these 2 things are essential to understanding and entering into the wonderful Spirit-filled life. simply put, God brought me to the place of Total Dependence and Total Surrender.
1. Total dependence
the Spirit filled life begins once we are absolutely and thoroughly convinced that we can do nothing apart from the indwelling strength of the Holy spirit. notice I didn't say it begins when we Say we are convinced. it begins when we Are convinced. and some of us are harder to convince that others.
The Spirit-filled (or Spirit-controlled) life begins with an overwhelming realization that we are absolutely helpless and hopeless apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. until that one simple truth grips us at the core of our being, we will never experience the full-blown power of the HS. Why? because we will always be out there doing thing For God in our strength. and when we fail, we will promise to do better next time.
without meaning to, many Christians live independently of the Holy Spirit every day. they never give Him a second thought. He
*48 is nothing more than a theological category. they have their assignments. you know, love your neighbor, don't steal, don't commit adultery and so on. they go about their business committed to doing the best The can do.
as i have shared my experience through the years, I have found that a great number of people have similar stories o tell. some call it brokenness. some, utter desperation. when the process is complete, what's left is a man or woman who understands the need of God.
as I have shared my experience through the years, I have found that a great number of people have similar stories to tell. some call it brokenness. some, utter desperation. when the process is complete, what's left is a man of woman who understands the need of God.
the mental, physical and emotional valleys often hold the most fertile soil when it comes to spiritual growth. more people discover the wonderful Spirit-filled life in the valley than in any other place. God uses sickness, financial pressure, appetites, habits, children, work, whatever it takes. because once he finally has our attention, he knows the best is yet to come.
God is an expert at engineering circumstances so that we find ourselves with nowhere to turn by to Him. he knows how to bring us to the point where we feel out of control. in His wisdom he knows that some of us must be pushed to the brink of disaster before we come to the place mentally, emotionally and spiritually where we throw in the towel and entrust ourselves fully to the God who created us.
2. Total Surrender
the second thing God accomplished through the teaching scenario was that he brought me to a point of total surrender. i didn't realize what was happening at the time. but by being placed in a position where I was obligated to do something that i felt totally unprepared to do, I was willing to do anything if he would only come through for me. he engineered by circumstances in such a way as to back me into a corner. it was do or die. either he was going to do something, or i was dead! there was no way out. i was going to have to face those men whether I was ready or not.
I was desperate. and when we are desperate, we can't do a thing - but we are willing to do anything. and that is exactly where God wanted me. it's where God wants you as well.
dependence and surrender go hand in hand . we can't fully surrender our wills until we are convinced we are in a hopeless situation. as long as we see a way out, we will generally opt for it.
in water safety courses a cardinal rule is never to swim out to a
*49 drowning man and try to help him as long as he is thrashing about. to do so is to commit suicide. as long as a drowning man thinks he can help himself, he is dangerous to anyone who tries to help him. his tendency is to grab the one trying to aid him and take them both down in the process. the correct procedure is to stay just far enough away so that he can't grab you. then you wait. and when he finally gives up, you make your move. at that point the one drowning is pliable. he won't work against you. He will let you help.
the length of time it takes to catch on to this relationship depends on us - not God. the more willing we are to confess our inadequacy, the easier it is for us to fully surrender to His will for our lives let's face it. all of us have made overarching commitments from time to time. with the right combination of music and preaching we can be persuaded to promise God just about anything. that is not what i am talking about here. in fact, that is just the opposite of what i am saying.
this isn't about rededication. rededication usually amounts to our telling God to our tell9ing God how much better We are going to Do next time. part of the reason these types of commitments are so short-lived is that they are not preceded by brokenness. they are no couched in the context of the realization that apart from Him, we can do absolutely nothing. surrender and rededication are 2 completely different things. you can only rededicate yourself to do something that you are capable of doing to begin with. surrender is the acknowledgment that you can't do something and that you need help.
during the Gulf War, we were given a fresh look at surrender. do you remember the faces of the Iraqi soldiers who surrendered in the fist few days of fighting? they didn't come out of their foxholes and trenches in the spirit of rededication. they didn't march out promising the Americans what they were and were not
+50 going to do. they simply surrendered. their raised hands signified their willingness to do whatever they were instructed to do.
in her classic work The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith gives an excellent illustration of what it means to be surrendered or, in her terminology, consecrated:
I was once trying to explain to a physician who had charge of a large hospital the necessity and meaning of consecration, but he seemed unable to understand. at last I sad to him, 'Suppose in going your rounds among your patients, you should meet with one man who entreated you earnestly to lake his case under your especial care in order to cure him, but who should at the same time refuse to tell you all his symptoms to take all your prescribed remedies and should say to you, 'i am quite willing to follow your directions at to certain things, because they commend themselves to my mind as good, but in other matters i prefer judging for myself and following my own directions'. what would you do in such a case? I asked. 'Do!, he replied with indignation - 'Lo! I would soon leave such a man as that to his own care. for, of course, he added, 'I could do nothing for him unless he would put his whole case into my hands without any reserves and would obey my directions implicitly'. 'It is necessary then', I said, for doctors to be obeyed if they are to have any chance to cure their patient?' 'Implicitly obeyed!" was his emphatic reply. and that is consecration, i continued. 'God must have the whole case put into His hands without any reserves, and his directions must be implicitly followed'.
surrender is essential because the Spirit-filled life is a relationship. it is not a military mission where we are handed an assignment and expected to carry it out. the Spirit-filled life is a moment-by-moment relationship characterized by dependency on the Holy Spirit. and surrender is the foundation upon which that unique relationship is built and maintained.
like salvation, the Spirit-filled life is available to anyone. but the way is narrow. and there are no shortcuts. every husband would enjoy a Spirit-filled marriage characterized by joy and peace and love. but there is a price to pay, a price so high that
*51 many work to imitate those things that characterize a genuine Spirit-controlled life.
in an attempt to have the best of both worlds (control and the benefits of a surrendered life), they try to produce the fruit of the Spirit through self-effort. the result is a cheap, short-lived imitation. after years of struggle, many Christians draw the conclusion that there is nothing to the Christian life: 'I tried it and it just didn't work for me'.
timing is so important. and if you are like me, your timetable is a little different from God's. you cannot rush this lesson. it's not purely academic. it's not just a matter of understanding a few verses and praying a magic prayer. the whole thing hinges on where each of us is in our pilgrimage with Christ.
some people will read this book and get so much out of it that they will go out and buy a dozen to give away as gifts. on the other hand, there will be those who won't make it past the first few chapters.
as you think about your life and experience as a Christian, where do you stand in all of this? so you feel as if you've hit bottom and there's no place to look but up? does the idea of total surrender scare you? are you like the drowning man who is still doing his best to keep his head above water?
I'm not asking these questions because i can't think of a better way to end this chapter. your answer - your position on this spiritual continuum - determines how meaningful and helpful the rest of this book will be for you.
the remarkable things God did publicly in my classroom in Fruitland, North Carolina, could not have taken place apart from what God did privately in my heart. I really didn't know what was going on at the time. I felt abandoned. but all the time God was moving me to a place of Total Dependence. from there it was an easy transition to becoming Totally Surrendered.
I thought I needed to do something or receive something. God knew better and gently brought me to the end of my self-effort. it was then that i saw the big picture. the work was done. I didn't need any more ability. I needed to move out in faith that he who had begun a good work in me would finish it through me as i went about my daily responsibilities.
*52 the incident in Fruitland was not the last time I was in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. several years later i found myself backed into another corner. there i learned another wonderful lesson about the Spirit-filled life. in the next chapter i'll share it with you in detail.
Chapter 5 - MY LIFE AS A BRANCH
*54 I emerged from my ordeal in Fruitland with a new sense of confidence and boldness. the changes hat took place in me were most apparent in my public ministry. but there is more to life than ministry. and so God started getting me ready for my next big lesson.
we left North Carolina in 1959 and moved to Fairborn, Ohio. after pastoring there for 4 years, I accepted a call to the First Baptist Church of Miami. I thought i had died and gone to heaven - especially after those cold Ohio winters.
things went well at the church. people were joining and being baptized. everybody seemed to like me. my family adjusted quickly to the change. but early in the spring of 1964 i saw a trend in our worship services that disturbed me.
a group of church members made repeated trips down the aisle during the invitation. each time they came they would confess the same sins. we would pray at the altar together and i would send them back to their seats. but in a few weeks they would be right back down front with the same problems. the situation really bothered me. I remember thinking, Am I Not Helping These Folks? Is There Something I'm Not Telling Them?
eventually, it occurred to me that i was struggling with some of the things they were struggling with. and i didn't have solutions. the irony was that i continued to sense the Holy Spirit's presence
*55 in my preparation and public presentations. but He was conspicuously missing in my private life.
I believed that the Holy spirit was to play an important role in every facet of my life. but i couldn't make the connection. i didn't know how to make it work for me.
for a long time I had a hunch something was missing in my life. but i couldn't put my finger on it. i had a nagging suspicion that there was more to the Christian life than i was experiencing. but I didn't know where to turn for the answer.
for a long time i had a hunch something was missing in my life. but I couldn't put my finger on it. I had a nagging suspicion that there was more to the Christian life than I was experiencing. but I didn't know where to turn for the answer.
for the most part I was doing all the things and doing my best to live a good life. but it was as if I was serving a distant King. God was way out there somewhere. Watching. taking notes perhaps. there was no warmth or intimacy in my relationship with Him.
What really got my attention, however, were several secret sins in my life. things that no one knew about. nothing out of the ordinary. but things i knew were displeasing to God. I did everything I knew to do to change.but I experienced no consistent victory. I would retreat to that age-old excuse, 'well, Charles nobody is perfect'. I knew in my heart that didn't cut it with God. then I would feel even more guilty. I would promise and pray and at times even fast. but there was no change. I concluded that either the Bible didn't have a message adequate for my personal life or I was missing something. looking back, I can see that God was setting e up for another wonderful lesson.
at the same time I was wrestling with all this, I was preaching through the book of Galatians on Sunday nights. it was going well. our people were taking notes and inviting their neighbors. you could feel the excitement in our services as we mad our way verse by verse through the book.
there was only one problem. as I looked agreed to Chapter 5, I realized that in a few weeks I would arrive at the passage that described the fruit of the Spirit. How can I preach on the fruit of the Spirit when I don't see much in my own life? I thought. to compound the problem, there were those verses just before it that discussed walking by the Spirit - one more thing I knew nothing about.
once again my back was against the wall. it would be a little strange to skip the fifth chapter. and my conscience wouldn't let
*57 me get up there and pretend to know something I didn't. so i started praying urgently: 'Lord, please open my eyes to the truth of what Paul is saying in these verses'.
granted, my motivation was somewhat selfish - I didn't want to look like a fool. but at the same time I knew that i desperately (there's that word again) needed a change in my life. and I felt sure that the truth I needed was there in the fifth chapter of Galatians. if the Holy Spirit could produce patience, gentleness and self-control. i wanted in on all that.
one saturday afternoon, June 6 to be exact, I was headed out our back door toward my study in the backyard. on the dining room table beside the back door was a book my wife had purchased weeks earlier to read during a train trip. she had mentioned to me on several occasions that I should read it. but for some reason i had not even picked it up to look at it.
without thinking. I picked the book up and headed out to study. it was 2 weeks before i was to begin Gal 5. I remember how discouraged i was. here is my personal journal entry for that day:
DIARY June 6, 1964
for months I have had one experience after the other where my heart yearned for a deeper walk with God. there have been moments of victory, but more defeats. my private communion with Jesus has been inconsistent.
there are spurts of inspiration which soon dwindle into insignificance. I have prayed, begged, pleaded, striven, worked, done everything in my power to receive victory in my personal devotions. Satan has defeated me continually.
there is something I do not have which i must have. my present experience with is not real, it is only words. my heart is aching to the breaking point. Oh God please i beg you give me victory tonight. You have said in Your , 'How much more shall the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him'.
I do not feel I can pray or preach publicly again till I get victory. i need continuous victory, consistent victory. I beg of you to search my heart, lay it bare, reveal to me my every sin.
*58 reveal Thyself to me tonight. I believe the human heart has no desire which you cannot satisfy. Oh God out of my heart let the rivers of living water flow.
at some point in the afternoon I opened my wife's little book and began to read. the title of the book is They Found the Secret, by V. Raymond Edman. the work is composed of 20 short biographical sketches of great men of God. the author's goal was to chronicle the time in each man's life when he entered into what he called THE EXCHANGED LIFE.
God used the first chapter in that book to revolutionize my life. it was on Hudson Taylor. after the first paragraph, I was hooked. here was a man who knew exactly what i was going through. writing to his mother, he described my situation perfectly:
My own position becomes continually more and more responsible. and my need greater of special grace to fill it, but I have continually to mourn that i follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious Master. I cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by temptation. I never knew how bad a heart I had. yet I do know that i love God and love his work and desire to serve Him only in all things.
God used a man named John McCarthy to show Taylor the way into the Spirit-filled life. John, a missionary himself, heard of his struggles and wrote a letter that transformed Taylor's life. as I read McCarthy's letter and the comments that followed, it was like a light switch was turned on in my heart. it was so clear, so simple. I don't know how i could have missed it.
the central theme of Taylor's testimony is ABIDING. the Christian life is a life of abiding in Christ.
How does the branch bear fruit? not by incessant effort for sunshine and air; not be vain struggles for those vivifying influences which give beauty to the blossom and verdure to the leaf: it simply abides in the vine, in silent and undisturbed union and blossoms and fruit appear as of spontaneous growth.
how, then, shall a Christian bear fruit? by efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation and on dangers? no: there must be a full concentration of the
*59 thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to Him; a constant looking to Him for grace. Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed go on calmly as the infant borne in the arms of its mother.
it dawned on me that I had been like a branch straining to produce fruit on its own. no wonder there was so little fruit in my life. branches were not designed to produce fruit - they were designed to have fruit produced through them!
I had been going about the whole thing backward. in Galatians Paul contrasts the Deeds of the flesh with the Fruit of the Spirit. my approach had been to try to do Deeds of the Spirit. How foolish!
When I finished the section on Hudson Taylor, I dropped to my knees there on that cold concrete floor and began to cry. i was so happy. I kept thinking, That's it. it's the vine that does the work. the fruit is a product of the sap that runs from the vine into the branch. I couldn't get over the fact that the Holy Spirit was willing and able to produce through me the very fruit I had been trying so hard to produce on my own.
I was on my knees for almost 3 hours just crying and thanking God for opening my eyes to this wonderful truth. when I got up, I was a new man. my whole perspective on the Christian life was different. the verse that kept running through my mind was one I had preached on just a few weeks earlier:
I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me. Galatians 2.20
the part i clung to for the next several weeks was, 'It is no longer II who live, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live y faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me. Galatians 2.20
the part I clung to for the next several weeks was, 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me'. it was no longer I who was expected to produce patience, self-control and love in my life. that was a job for the Holy Spirit. it was no longer I who was expected to produce joy in the midst of stress. that, too, was the Holy spirit's responsibility. it was no longer i who was expected to produce anything in the way of character. it was Christ, working through the Holy Spirit, producing character in me. what a
*60 relief! a huge burden was off my shoulders that afternoon. and i walked out of my study a free man.
I went into the house and told Anna that something wonderful had happened to me. when she asked me what, I didn't know what to tell her. I fumbled around for a few minutes, doing my best to explain it. then I had an idea. I went over to the bookshelf in our den, pulled out an old Bible and opened it to Galatians 2.20. 'This is it, i said. 'it's no longer I, but Christ through me'.
my only concern at the time was losing my new treasure. mountaintop experiences were nothing new to me; however, they always faded in time. somehow i knew this was different. but i wanted to make sure. I read and reread the section on Hudson Taylor in Edman's little book. i went to bed each night meditating on any verse i could find that dealt with abiding or the Holy Spirit.
a portion of John McCarthy's letter to Hudson Taylor ministered to me in a special way:
abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him, trusting Him for present power; trusting Him to subdue all inward corruption; resting in the love of an almighty God.
my initial fears were unfounded. a profound change took place in my life. whereas my experience in Fruitland affected my ministry, what happened in my study that Sat afternoon touched every facet of my life.
I knew it was for real when I overheard my wife explaining to a friend on the phone the change that had taken place in my life. she said, 'Something wonderful has happened to my husband. it's like I'm living with a different man. another close friend of ours was overheard saying, I don't know what it is, but something has sure happened to our pastor.
2 weeks later I made the following entry in my journal:
June 23. 1964
these past 2 weeks have been 2 of the greatest spiritually. the night I made the above entry (June 6) I began to
*61 abide in Christ. the miraculous and incomparable truth of John 15.1-8 became a living reality in my heart.
for 7 years I have searched for the truth, the secret of the victorious life. now I have found it - abiding in Christ. the vine is Christ, I am the branch. the Holy Spirit is the sap that runs from the vine into the branch. the branch lives, grows, bears fruit not by struggles and effort but simply by abiding.
there has been a peace, a tranquility, a calmness, a serenity about my life that outweighs anything I have known. by faith i have accepted the relationship of abiding. the sap that runs in the vine flows through the branch.
I am abiding in Christ and His Spirit is filling my heart, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, meekness, faith, self-control, Christ has begun to live it through me.
Christ has become more real to me as i understand Him to be within. the Word of God has become more precious to me. Scriptures such as Romans 7 and 8 have suddenly become alive and paul's statement in Galatians: 'i am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I , but Christ lives in me and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God'.
To abide by faith is simply to live in Christ - from Him every need is supplied. how i wish I had learned this years ago.
Lord Jesus I come this morning abiding in Thee, asking for the forgiveness of my every sin and to ask that the fruit of the Spirit today may be made manifest in my life.
Father make me continually aware that if I live in the Spirit this does not mean that life will be easy, but life far easier and at least with peace and tranquility in the soul.
in the midst of confusion and strife make me like a rock. enable me to stand firm. may the Spirit of Jesus be revealed without question through my life.
Thy Word says, 'Love never faileth'. let that be the principle by which I live. teach me to be able to love those that love me and those that do not. help me not to court the favor of anyone but Jesus.
Lord Jesus that I might be like the Apostle Paul - to count all things but loss for the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Lord I want to know You. I love You and want Your Spirit to fill me and to
*62 overflow. let nothing be so important as loving You, spending time with You.
may the patience and willingness to wait upon the Father be as real in my life as yours.
Oh Lord I pray to be emptied of all that I am and to be filled with Jesus overflowing daily with Thy precious love and truth. may every person sense something in my life they have never sensed before
- love for Jesus and man, a firmness of spiritual conviction, a heart that is compassionate for the needs of man.
Lord let me be diligent in the seeking of the will and when I have found it live by it in faith.
Thank You for the statement of Chambers i read Sun night, 'THE MAIN JOB OF THE CHRISTIAN IS INTERCESSORY PRAYER'.
oh Lord I have so many to pray for. as i abide today in the Lord may i continually be in prayer for those who need my prayers.
Lord Jesus may I today speak only in love and only of my Lord, only in truth, only for the good of that one whose name i call. may my speech always magnify Christ Jesus.
Lord make my life a stepping stone to Thee for others who are longing for You.
Lord Jesus, live through me your precious life today.
in the following weeks I continued to gain great insight and encouragement from Jesus' illustration of the vine and branch.
the disciples must have known from the tone of Jesus' voice that something big was about to happen. He repeatedly alluded to His departure (see John 14.2-3, 25, 28) up until that time they had drawn their strength and security from His presence. the thought of carrying on without Him must have been depressing. after all, even when He was there, they were prone to being sidetracked.
Jesus knew their fears. he knew how dependent on Him they were for direction and perspective. so as He moved toward His final hours, he explained the way things would work after He was gone:
*63 I am the vine and My Father is the vinedresser. every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit... Abide in me and I in you. as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Mr and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15.1-5
i don't fully understand a great deal about this passage. but 2 things are clear. first, Christ expected his followers then and now to bear fruit. notice he did not expect them to Produce fruit, just Bear it. and not just Some fruit but Much fruit. the amount of fruit we bear correlates with ho apparent it is to others that we are believers (see John 15.8) our faith is known to others through the good deeds that overflow from our character (see Matt. 5.16) or the fruit we bear.
you know as well as i do that for others to be impressed with our life-styles or good deeds, they must be consistent. unbelievers are very sensitive to our inconsistencies. often times they look for them. so if we are to bear the kind of fruit Jesus is talking about the kind that draws others to our way of believing - there must be a regular harvest.
the second thing that is clear from these verses is that what Jesus calls us to do is impossible. it's not merely difficult. it's not simply a struggle. it's not just hard, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! 'for apart from Me you can do NOTHING'.
this should come as good news. If you are like I was for so long, you may wonder whether something is wrong with you, whether everybody else knows something you don't. that's not the case at all. you struggle like you do because you are attempting the impossible. no one can live the Christian life apart from Christ - at least not with the consistency necessary to accomplish what Jesus has called us to accomplish.
*64 in essence, He was saying to His followers, 'Men, if you think you are dependent on Me now, wait until I'm gone! he knew that their tendency would be to do exactly what we do. after He was gone, they would be to do exactly what we do after He was gone, they would conduct themselves as soldiers who had been given orders. they would strike out to fulfill their mission of righteousness.
he wanted them to understand that though He was not going to be with them physically, He still expected them to depend on Him. and the same holds true for us today.
to put it in more practical terms, if you do not learn to abide in Christ, you will never have a marriage characterized by love, joy and peace. you will never have the self-control necessary to consistently overcome temptation. and you will always be an emotional hostage of your circumstances. Why? because apart from abiding in Christ, you can do nothing.
Jesus makes a clear delineation between the vine and the branch. the 2 are not the same. he is the vine; We are the branches. the 2 are joined but not one,. the common denominator in nature is the sap. the sap is the life of the vine and its branches. cut off the flow of sap to the branch, and it slowly withers and dies.
as the branch draws its life from the vine, so we draw life from Christ. To Abide In Christ Is To Draw Upon His Life. His life is made available through the presence of the Holy spirit in our live. the abiding presence of the HS is the life of Christ in us. that is why paul could use these phrases interchangeably in his letter to the Romans:
However, you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God Dwells in you. but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And If Christ is In You, thought the body is dead because of sin,yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. romans 8.9-10
Jesus Christ dwells in us through the person of the Holy spirit. to have the Spirit is to have he life of Christ within. so paul was accurate when he wrote,
*65 'When Christ, Who Is Our Life, is revealed,then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Col. 3.4
Jack Taylor, in his wonderful little book, After the Spirit Comes, declares, 'It may be said then, without being irreverent, that the Holy Spirit is for us the presence of Jesus Christ, the spiritual presence of Jesus Himself....We are indwelt of the Spirit of god who is the living Essence of Jesus in us.
Christ IS our life. when the Holy Spirit takes up residency in us. , he brings with Him an inexhaustible source of life. after all, he is life. while conversing with the woman at the well, Jesus described it as a 'well of water springing up to eternal life'. John 4.1 Peter described it as becoming 'partakers of the divine nature. II pet. 1.4
the practical outworking of all this is twofold: 1. personal victory over sin and 2. spirit-energized service. God never Intended for His Children To Live Defeated Lives. did you get that? god never, never, never intended for his children -that includes you - to live a life characterized by defeat. He doesn't expect you to live with defeat in your thought life, your emotions,your attitudes, your self-control, or your faith. he paid much too high a price to allow you into His family just to watch you fail in your attempts to function as a full-blown family member.
God's plan of salvation includes a provision for saving you from yourself. and the key player in that part of His plan is - you guessed it - the Holy spirit. the HS is God's answer to the problem of righteous living. he is the abiding presence of Christ
's life in you. that is why paul could say with confidence, 'it is no longer i who live, but Christ lives in me' Gal. 2.20 he understood that upon receiving the Holy Spirit, he was endowed with a source of power and strength that could bring his character into line with god's righteous standard. paul knew, as we must come to know, that he never had to say, 'well, I'd like to change, but that's just the way I am'.
as a Spirit-indwelt child of God, Paul understood his potential for change. he understood that change was contingent not upon him but upon the new life that flowed through him.
*66 the life of Christ in you has the potential to produce all kinds of change in your life. 'Wait, you say, I've tried to change and can't. Exactly! you are not equipped to produce change - only bear it. your new life produces change. you are simply the vehicle through which it is expressed, as a branch is the vehicle through which the fruit-producing life of the vine is expressed. you are a bearer, not a producer. branches are totally dependent on the vine for fruit. and we are totally dependent of the Holy Spirit.
the Holy Spirit is a change agent. change is what He is all about. he took a man who made his living destroying churches and changed him into the greatest church planter of all time! he took a group of uneducated fishermen and changed him into world-class evangelists and pastors. through the years he has indwelt men and women with every imaginable habit, reputation and persuasion and changed them into people of excellence. and he will do the same for you.
I know. because when I was 35 years of age, in my third pastorate, after I thought i knew all there was to know about how to live the Christian life, he changed me. some things changed overnight. other arias changed over a period of time. and the work continues. but what a wonderful work it is! I am simply the recipient of the life-producing - change-rendering- work of the Holy spirit. He produces; I bear;
for it is God who is at work in you (and me) both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Phil. 2.13
who is at work? God - through the Holy Spirit.
radical change is possible. we have everything we need to become all he wants us to become (see 2 pet. 1.3) by abiding in Him and Him in us, we have the potential to produce a consistent harvest of fruit, the kind that makes even the most skeptical unbeliever sit up and take notice.
our part is simply to plug into the new life that indwells us. we are to draw upon His life in us. How? By faith. but we will get to that in the next chapter.
*67 through the years, I have met dozens of believers who have a testimony similar to mine. like me, they entered into the Spirit-filled life years after their salvation. they, too, went through a period of struggle and defeat, which eventually led them to the point of desperation. in their own way, each of them threw up the white flag of surrender. their yieldedness and brokenness cleared he way for the Holy Spirit to take control.
there is a tendency on the part of some to label this experience. some call it the second blessing. others call it the baptism of the Holy spirit or the second baptism of the HS. I have heard it called other things as sell. since the bible doesn't label or title this experience, we shouldn't either. doing so only confuses things.
my observation has been that labeling this blessed experience crates 2 categories of Christians - the haves and the have-nots, those who have had the experience and those who have not. the Bible does not teach that a crises experience is necessary for entering into the Spirit-filled life. it is a common experience - but not a necessary one.
i have sen genuine spirit-controlled believers alienated from certain christian circles because they did not have a testimony that fit a particular pattern. as we will see in a later chapter, THE SIGN OF A SPIRIT-FILLED BELIEVER IS FRUIT, NOT A PARTICULAR EXPERIENCE. some point to paul's experience described in Romans 7 as the struggle of a Christian just before entering into the Spirit-filled life. this may be the case. but nowhere does paul say that his experience is a pattern for all believers.
God leads different people in different ways: some through crisis, others through watching and learning from someone else's crisis. i share my story in the hopes that you can learn from it - not repeat it.
PART TWO - LOOKING WITHIN The ministries of the Holy Spirit in the believer.
'And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5.18
Chapter 6 - THE FAITH FACTOR
*71 there is a big difference between looking at a picture of a place and actually being there. a picture may evoke in you a desire to go, but only the place itself can satisfy that desire. thus far, i have only painted a picture. I have not attempted to take you anywhere. so why the delay?
much like a physical journey, our spiritual pilgrimage is undertaken first by way of acknowledgement, then by application. before you make plans to go somewhere, you must first believe that such a place really exists and that you can get there.
in our pursuit of the spirit-filled life we begin by accepting that there is such a life; that we can experience it and that the Spirit who indwells us has the power and desire to bring about great change in our character and perspective.
we begin by accepting what is true as true. only then Can we act upon it. only then Will we act upon it. remember , we are transformed in the truest sense by the renewing of our minds, not our wills (see Rom. 12.1-2) Jesus said that freedom comes through Knowing the truth, before doing anything (see John 8.32) the Spirit-filled life is a life of faith. faith, as opposed to hope, always has truth as its object. faith does not create truth. WHAT IS TRUE IS TRUE, WHETHER WE EVER ACCEPT IT OR NOT. the truth that serves as the object and foundation of the Spirit-filled life is
1. the Holy Spirit indwells you
2. He is the life of Christ in you and
3. He is willing and able to produce the character of Christ through you.
these and possibly more, are the objects of your faith.
*72 Believe them.
Cling to them.
They are true. .
and as they become part of your thinking, you will be transformed.
in some ways, this book has thus far been a brochure advertising a place i am convinced you ought to visit. I hope that my experiences have whet your appetite. if you are convinced that this life I have described is what you have been looking for and if you sense a need in your life, read on. beginning here, i will attempt to lead you beyond the picture and into the reality of the Spirit-filled life.
as a child, I had no problem understanding and accepting the concept of salvation by faith. there was nothing i could do to save myself, so i simply trusted Christ's death on the cross as the payment for my sin. by placing my trust in that fact or truth, i was born again. faith is the way we enter into salvation. it is the means b which we accept God's free gift. (see Eph. 2.8-9)
for some strange reason, after entering into this wonderful relationship by faith, i began conducting it by works. it was as if I said to God, 'thanks for the gift. I'll take it from here'. I wrongly assumed that it was My responsibility to produce righteousness, that God had left it up to me to change myself and become a better person.
How absurd! if i could produce righteousness on my won, why did Christ need to die for me? the truth is, on my own I can't produce one ounce of righteousness, neither before nor after salvation. as believers, or potential for righteous living is in direct proportion to our willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to produce His fruit through us. before June 6, 1964,I thought my p0otential for holy living was contingent upon y self-effort. so when i failed, what did I do? I promised to try harder next time around. i was convinced that i had a dedication problem. so i was continually rededicating.
if you think about it, that whole approach doesn't make any sense at all. imagine a woman who has no musical ability whatsoever auditioning for the lead singing part in a musical. by no musical ability, I mean she is completely tone-deaf. after the audition,
*73 the director calls her over and says, 'i'm sorry, but you really aren't qualified for this part. Music isn't your strong suit. perhaps you---'
'Oh, please, begs the woman as she drops to her knees. 'I'll work so hard. I'll practice every day. i'll be so dedicated. i know I can do it. never mercy. it means so much to me. i know i don't deserve the part, but please let me have it anyway.
obviously, the would-be soloist isn't getting the message. allowing her to have the part will not change the fact that she can't sing. whether she gets the part or not, somebody else will have o do the singing if he musical is to be a success.
the same holds true in relation to our righteousness's. we failed the righteousness audition:
there is none righteous, not even one. romans 3.10
For All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God rom 3.23
God, however, because of His amazing love, gave us the part anyway. he did so by applying the righteousness of Christ to our account:
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Cor. 5.21
by putting our sin of Christ and placing Christ's righteous standing on us, god allowed us entry into His family, a family where only the righteous are allowed. keep in mind, it's not our righteousness. it's Christ's. notice the last 2 words in the verse quoted above: In Him. our righteousness stems from the fact that we are in Christ.
God's motive was His unconditional love. it was not because. he thought it would in any way increase our potential for living righteous lives. He knew better. simply letting us into His family did nothing to reverse our inability to produce righteousness. unfortunately, most of us expend a great deal of energy acting as if it had. what results is the frustration of knowing we have adopted a standard for our live that we cannot maintain. so we lean, with reservations, toward adopting as our motto Nobody's Perfect - Besides, God Understands.
*75 Our problem/ we have a tendency to leave faith at the front door.
trying to produce righteousness ourselves is like trying to grow apples on a grapevine. the 2 just aren't compatible they weren't made for each other. in the same way, our unredeemed, selfish, sinful flesh is not tooled to produce good fruit. far from it. it is programmed to do bad deeds (see Gal. 5.190 and it does an excellent job, I might add.
when we take on the responsibility of producing the fruit of the Spirit ourselves, we are attempting to improve our flesh.and i've got some news for you. in my 47 years as a Christian,my flesh has not improved one bit. there has been absolutely NO progress.
'so, you ask, what about all this new potential I have? who does all this potential power that now indwells me interface with my behavior? what brings together my inadequacy with His adequacy? how do I get His power involved with my weakness?
before I answer, let me ask you a question. what allowed you to hook up with God to begin with? what was the means by which you - a sinner - entered into a relationship with a holy God?
what brought the 2 of you together?
was it dedication on your part?
was it a result of your unceasing effort? Of course not. you entered in by faith and nothing has changed.
are you so foolish? having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Gal. 3.3
as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your Faith, just as you were instructed. Colossians 2.6-7
and the life which I now live in the flesh i live by Faith in the Son of God. Gal. 2.20
these verses attest to the fact that we are not the first generation of Christians who have tried to take matters into our own hands. the early church had the same problem.it's par of fallen human
*76 nature to want to maintain control, to do things ourselves. but when it comes to righteousness -whether for salvation or for living - we must allow God to do the work. producing righteousness falls outside our job description.
THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE IS A LIFE OF FAITH. it started by faith and it runs on faith. it is faith from start to finish.
Then we believed that Jesus was our Savior from the guilt of sin and according to our faith it was unto us;
Now we must believe that He is our Savior from the power of sin and according to our faith it shall be unto us.
Then we trusted Him for forgiveness and it became ours;
Now we must trust Him for righteousness and it shall become ours also.
Then we took Him as a Savior in the future from the penalties of our sins;
Now we must take Him as a a Savior in the present from the bondage of our sins.
The He lifted us out of a Pit ;
Now He is to seat us in heavenly places with Himself.
the Bible never makes a distinction between the faith that Saved us from the penalty of sin once and for all and the faith that Saves us from the power of sin daily. it is all the same.
Faith is Believing that God Will Do As He Has Promised. faith is not a power, it's not something we are supposed to drum up inside ourselves. faith is trusting that god will honor His promises. that is all there is to it.
our part in the faith process is fairly simple. we are to go about our lives - making decisions, handling crises, raising our families and so on - as if God is really going to do what HE SAID he would do. that is what it means to walk by faith.
one of the best examples of how this woks is also one of the most familiar stories in the Old Testament - the story of David and Goliath. the armies of Israel were lined up on one side of the valley and the Philistines were on the other side. every day Goliath would walk down into the valley and taunt the armies off Israel.
*77 then young David arrived on the scene with a fresh outlook on the situation. notice what he said when he heard Goliath's threats:
Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should aunt the armies of the living god? I Samuel 17.26
David didn't see Goliath as merely the enemy of Israel. he was coming against the armies of god! he was God's enemy. and David knew that God could take goliath out of the picture with no problem. so David acted on his faith.
there were hundreds - maybe even thousands - of trained israelite soldiers who were much more qualified o do battle with goliath.but their response to his threats was paralyzing fear. Stress. Frustration. Get the point ?
David, on the other hand, didn't seem to be upset at all. Why? because it was God's battle, not his. apart from the Lord, he knew he didn't stand a chance. but with the help of the Lord, he was confident that everything would turn out all right.
do you see the contrast? neither party had the ability to do battle with the giant. but while one party focused on its inability and panicked, the other party, David, focused on God's provision. the only difference was focus, or what each was trusting in.
so what did David do? Exactly What He Knew How To Do - While Trusting God To Do The Rest. that is what living by faith boils down to, living as if God is really faithful to keep His word. David gathered a few stones...walked down into the valley...carried on a short but rather heated exchange with Goliath... loaded and fired. those actions were not out of the ordinary for David. but once that stone left the sling, God stepped in to do what only he could do. and Goliath went down.
Faith Is The Holy Spirit's Signal To Go Into Action. David activated his faith before he activated his will. before he began his walk into the valley, he exercised his faith in the Lord. remember his dialogue with King Saul just before the big battle. ?
'and David said to Saul, 'Let no man's heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine....Your servant was tending his father's sheep. when a lion or a bear
*78 came and took a lamb from the flock. I went out after him and attacked him and rescued it from his mouth....the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine' I Samuel 17.32-7
David walked into the valley in response to what he believed God would do. His activity flowed from his faith. he did what he knew to do while trusting God to keep His word. David didn't react to his circumstances. he responded with faith in the promises of God.
when you are under pressure, are you a Reactor or a Responder? when you are face-to-face with the giant of lust or jealousy - when your emotions are redlined - do you find yourself thinking, Oh, God, I know what i should do. I know what I ought to do. I know I should just walk away. but i don't know if i can do it? if pressure or temptation automatically pushes you into the reaction mode, you are destined for failure most of the time. why? it's a sure sign that you are trying to produce righteousness on your own.
a responder activates his faith before he activates his will. he believes before he behaves. granted, David had the luxury of several hours to prepare mentally and spiritually for his battle. often we have milliseconds!
your wife casually mentions that she forgot to pick up the cleaning (for the third day in a row) and wonders if you could get it on the way to work tomorrow. instantly, you are overcome with a desire to remind her of how little you ask her to do and how busy your schedule is.
you are in the middle of your third attempt to explain to your husband the importance of spending time with the kids. without so much as a nod, he reaches for the remote control and pushes 'on'. you want to scream.
you are making your way down concourse A - determined not to even look toward the newsstands. you make it to your gate. as you sit down to wait for the plane, you notice a men's magazine lying face down in the seat next to you. without thinking, you reach down and pick it up - and that old familiar battle flares up all over again. everything in you screams, 'Open it up'.
*79 you may be tempted to argue that there is no time to exercise faith before exercising will. not in the real world anyway. things happen too fast. we are usually taken off guard. there is no way to get a jump on temptation and rejection and jealously. more times than not, we are taken by surprise.
but I beg to differ. we Can get a jump on it; we Can make the first move. let me ask you a question. how many days a week, on the average, are you tempted?
how many days a week are you forced to deal with some inordinate emotion that has the potential of doing serious damage to your reputation and relationships if expressed?
for me, it averages out to 7 days a week. and I imagine the same is true for you we know it's coming. therefore the wisest thing to do is to begin every day by exercising our faith against the anticipated onslaughts.
we don't need to wait until we are in the thick of the battle to claim the promises of God. by that time it's too late. certainly, there is time to express faith in the Holy Spirit when you see before the struggle begins. and when it does, you will think, 'I've already dealt with this.
remember, David claimed victory long before the battle began. and we have the opportunity to do the same. isn't it true that we fight the same giants every day? we just can't time our battles the way David did. but God knows. they never catch Him off guard.
the Holy Spirit dwells in you and is ready to go to work producing the character of Christ through you. all He needs is your faith. His green light is your willingness to say, 'Holy Spirit, I cannot handle this. I'm not even going to try. Respond through me.Give me Your perspective on all of this. I trust You.
at that point you do what you know to do and trust Him to fill in the gaps. that is the essence of the wonderful Spirit-filled life. it is a life of taking God at His word and acting on it.
WHY NOT BEGIN RIGHT NOW? think for a moment.
what giants are you more than likely going to face in the next few hours?
what emotions will you battle?
if today is like most days, what temptations will you face?
*80 begin claiming victory right now. activate your faith. pray,
Lord, I claim victory right now over the giant of ----. I recognize that this giant is coming against the Christ in me. just as You defeated this giant when You walked on this earth, You can defeat it through me now, for You are my life. I trust You to produce peace and self control through me.
I cannot handle what is to come.
But You can.
Respond through me.
when the pressure comes, remind me that the battle is Yours. Amen
If you will begin every day with a declaration of victory over the specific giants in your life, you will experience victory. begin tomorrow morning on your knees. think through the temptations you will face, the pressure you will feel and the rejection you are likely to encounter. item by item, thank God for the victory. remind Him that at the cross Christ paid the price not only for your sin but for your victory.
by doing so, you activate your faith before activating your will to resist on your own. when the temptation or pressure does come, tell the Holy Spirit, 'Christ has already dealt with this and I have already claimed His power, so handle it through me. I am simply a branch. produce your good fruit through me.
*81 THINK ABOUT IT
* first and foremost, have you by faith accepted Christ's death on the cross as the total payment for your sin debt?
*are there times when you realize that you are trying to produce righteousness on your own?
*have you come to grips with the fact that this is impossible apart from the work of the Holy Spirit?
*are you able to accept the fact that the Spirit-filled life is a life of faith - from start to finish?
*in difficult situations, are you able to do what you know to do and trust God with the outcome?
*(Will you) commit to begin every day with a declaration of victory over the specific giants in you..?
Chapter 7 - KEEPING IN STEP
when our kinds were growing up, Anna and I felt it was important for them to have some responsibility around the house. as is the case in most families, it started with small things, such as keeping their rooms clean and taking their dishes to the sink. as they grew older, the size and significance of their chores increased.
I will never forget the first time I asked Andy to help me with the yard work. he was so excited. I was a little surprised. boys usually hate yard work. I know I always did. but Andy was really looking forward to getting out and working in the yard - or so it seemed.
things went great at first. I started out by showing him how to weed. we both got down on our hands and knees and began working our way down the side of the house. we talked about all kinds of things as we worked.
after about an hour, he seemed to have the hang of it, so I said, 'I tell you what. you keep weeding until you get down to the corner of the house. I'll get the lawn mower and start cutting the grass.
I got up and went around to the backyard to get the mower out of our tool shed. I had been in there about 2 minutes when I heard something behind me. I turned around and there was Andy. 'Did you already finish? I asked.
'Yes sir, he said.
well, I knew he hadn't finished. 'Let's go take a look.
'Wait, he said. 'what are you doing in here?
*83 'I'm getting the lawn mower ready.
'can I help? he asked.
just as I was about to tell him to get back to his weeding,it hit me. Andy wasn't excited about doing yard work. he was excited about being with me. until that time, all of his and Becky's chores were things they did alone. it wasn't pulling the weeds he disliked; it was working alone. needless to ay, we didn't get a lot of yard work done that day. but we sure spent some valuable time together.
the Spirit-filled life is a life of working in harmony with the Holy Spirit. it is not a life of struggling alone to please a distant King. there are no solo chores. there are no marching orders. the Spirit-filled life is a relationship wherein 2 work as 1. immediately following the arrival of the Spirit, this unique relationship takes center stage in the New Testament's description of the ministry of the HS. in this chapter we will trace that transition.
If you recall, I said that the phrases 'filled with the Holy Spirit' and 'Spirit filled' in every cause but one (see Ephesians 5.18) refer to the initial entry of the Holy Spirit into a person's life. Jesus promised the coming of the HS. when He arrived, Luke records that the people in the Upper Room were 'filled with the HS'. the HS came to indwell them.
after the book of Acts, the filling of the Holy Spirit is not mentioned again except for the one instance in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. there, however, his grammar and word order indicate that He has something in mind other than the indwelling ministry of the HS. as pointed out, he is taking about surrendering to the influence of the Spirit.
now all of this raises 2 questions. first, why aren't there any more references to the filling of the Spirit in the New Testament? surely in application-oriented books such as Romans and James,there should be some mention of the believer's responsibility to be filled with the Spirit! but there isn't. after the book of Acts, the whole concept of being filled with the Spirit drops out of sight except for once in Ephesians.
in light of that, the second question that begs to be asked is, What does the remainder of the New Testament have to say about
*85 the believer's relationship with the Holy Spirit? if being filled with the HS is not emphasized, what is?
these are 2 very important questions. much confusion has stemmed from people's refusal to deal with the implications of the biblical data or their ignorance of that data. but there is no cause for confusion.
when the Holy Spirit arrived on the day of Pentecost, there was tremendous excitement. keep in mind, the focus of that excitement was His arrival and the manifestations of His presence through those He had come to indwell. the first manifestations were not Character oriented. they were Sign oriented. the Bible doesn't say that after being filled with the Holy Spirit, those in the upper room went out with great patience, kindness, gentleness and so on. it says they immediately began talking in other tongues. in that way, the unbelievers in the city knew that something supernatural had taken
place.
initially, it appeared that He came to indwell only those gathered in the Upper Room (see Acts 2.3-4). soon, however, other believers were filled with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 4.31; 9.17) everybody was not filled with the HS at the same time. it happened in stages. some have described it as a wave that slowly swept over the Christian community. during that time, some had Him and some didn't. that is why the author of Acts described some people as full of the HS (see Acts 7.55) he wasn't talking about their yielding to the Spirit. how would he know that ? he was taking about the fact that the HS had definitely come to dwell in them.
at some point, not too long after the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to indwell ALL believers. 2 things lead us to this conclusion.
1. there are no other recorded instances of individuals being filled with or receiving the Holy Spirit - apart from salvation - after Acts 19.
paul encountered some believers who had never heard of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 19.2) he asked them, 'Did you receive the HS when you believed? why did he ask them that? because
*86 apparently by that time the Holy Spirit was filling people when they believed. the waiting was over.
when the fellows informed Paul that they didn't know anything about the HS, paul was a little confused. the men were clearly an exception to what had become the rule by that time he asked, 'Into what then were you baptized? it was his way of saying, 'How in the world could you Not know there was a HS?
the men had come to faith under the teaching of John the Baptist. after John was taken off the scene, those faithful men continued preaching his message: The Messiah Is Coming! don't you know they were amazed to hear all that had transpired in their absence?
the book of Acts continues for 9 more chapters. but there are no other recorded instances of people being filled with the Spirit within a few years following the day of Pentecost, the HS had swept through the world, filling those who had put their faith.
2. the New Testament authors specifically state that all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
in an open letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote,
'for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. I Cor 12.13
paul felt free to use the term All because he believed every believer had by that time been indwelt or filled by the Holy Spirit. he used 2 figures of speech to describe the filling of the Spirit. we have all be Baptized into the body by the Spirit, and we have all been made to Drink of the Spirit.
in an open letter to Christians everywhere, the apostle John wrote,
by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. I John 4.13
like paul, john believed that believers everywhere were filled with the Spirit. the presence of the HS is a source of
*87 assurance. we know we belong to Christ because His Spirit dwells in us. without Him, there is no assurance.
as the filling of the Holy Spirit became more and more something that occurred at salvation, the focus shifted away from His coming to His ministry in the believer. undoubtedly, some were asking, 'Now that we have Him, what do we do with Him? or 'Now that He's in us, what can we expect?
Paul began discussing the believer's relationship with the Holy Spirit in terms of a Walk. we are not sure why He departed from the filling terminology. perhaps he thought it would be confusing to use the same word picture to describe 2 different concepts - indwelling and influencing. we can only speculate. the point is, other than Eph. 5.18, Paul never used the filling model again to describe the believer's ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. he spoke instead of walking by the Spirit:
but I say, Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5.16
two verses later he described what he meant by the term Walk:
but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 5.18
to Walk By the Spirit is to be led by the Holy Spirit. we are to take our curs from Him. by sending the HS to indwell us, God provided each of us with a personal guide, a moral compass, Someone to show us the way.
Paul did not say we are Directed by the Holy Spirit. that would have presented an inaccurate picture altogether. the HS is not out there somewhere directing us like a police officer directs traffic. we are not to envision Him as a controller in a tower telling jets where to land. these examples do not take into consideration the personal aspect of being led by the Spirit.
have you ever been in an unfamiliar building and stopped someone to ask for directions? have you noticed how comforting it is when the person says, 'Follow me and I'll show you where you need to go? there is all the difference in the world between
*88 that and someone saying, 'OK, what you do is, take these stairs to the third floor, turn left at the second door, go down the hall to the water fountain...'
that is the difference between being led and being directed. the Holy Spirit is a leader. He is our guide. He is always with us. He is constantly tuned in to both our emotional state and our surrounding circumstances. he is always with us. He is constantly tuned in to both our emotional state and our surrounding circumstances. He is always sensitive to both. He leads at the perfect pace. he always takes our weaknesses and strengths into consideration.
being led by someone assumes a continuing relationship. it implies fellowship. it brings to mind cooperation, sensitivity and common goals. when someone is following another, there must be trust, even to the point of dependency. all of these describe the believer's relationship with the Holy Spirit as the person allows Him to be the guide. To Walk By The Spirit Is To Live With Moment-by Moment Dependency on and sensitivity to the initial promptings of the Holy Spirit.
I learned a long time ago that one sure way to get a crowd is to announce you are going to speak on the topic 'How to Find the Will of God'. people want 3 easy steps to know God's will for their lives - His personal will, that is. on the other hand, announce that your topic will be 'God's Plan for Holy Living' and you will be lucky if anybody shows.
as we will see a little later, the Holy Spirit does aid the believer in discovering God's personal will. but His primary role as a leader and guide is to lead the believer into holiness. God's ultimate will for our lives is Christlikeness (see Rom, 8.29) or Christlike character and behavior. therefor, we should not be to surprised to discover that the HS's primary goal as a guide is to lead us into Christlikeness. J.I. Packard writes,
twice Paul speaks of being 'led' by the Spirit (Romans 8.14; Gal. 5.18) both times the reference is to resisting one's own sinful impulses as the flip side of one's practice of righteousness...Leads is rightly taken to mean 'guides', but the guidance in view here is not a revealing to the mind of divine directives hitherto unknown; is is, rather, an impelling of our wills to pursue and practice and hold fast that sanctity whose terms we know already.
*89 the Holy Spirit's primary goal is to lead us down the path of righteousness. take a close look at what's being contrasted in this verse:
but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5.16
the immediate result of walking by the Spirit is not discovering which job to take, which person to marry or which car to buy. the immediate result is that you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. to do one is not to do the other. Paul does more than command us not to fulfill the desires of the flesh. the command is to live in dependency on and sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. saying no to the desires of the flesh will be the natural outcome of walking in the Spirit.
a few verses later we find another reference to walking in the Spirit. this time, however, paul uses a different and more descriptive Greek word for walk: 'If we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit' (Gal, 5.25). this word means to 'be in line with' or 'agree with'. in the New International Version this verse reads, 'Since we live by the spirit, let us deep in step with the Spirit'. the idea here is to walk in such a way as to avoid the morel land mines buried all around us.
this is such a fresh approach. it's such a positive approach. instead of being told what Not to do, we are given positive direction that will result in avoiding those things we have no business involving ourselves in.
let's face it. our tendency is to think about all the things we are not allowed to do. consequently, they become our focus. what we focus on we drift toward. no wonder we don't make any progress. the Spirit-filled life is not a life of DON'TS, it is a life of DO'S. Do walk in the Spirit, and you will avoid fufilling your sinful desires.
*90 walking in the Spirit is not an automatic thing. we have a part in the process. our part, however, is made possible by what happened at the cross.
when Christ died on the cross, he changed our relationship to sin. before our salvation, we were slaves to sin (see Rom. 6.20). it was as if Satan had a big collar around our necks with a leash on it. whenever he pulled our leash, we followed. we might have fought back at times to show our independence, but eventually he had his way. practically speaking, we were slaves to certain of our natural desires.
when we trusted Christ as our Savior, we were placed into Christ. at that point in time we were set free from slavery to sin. Rom. 6.22 the leash was cut. we no longer had to give in to the temptations of Satan or the desires of our sinful flesh. but nobody told us! so when a temptation came along, what did we do? what we had done- WE GAVE IN. but we felt guilty because the Holy Spirit was living in us. and He was grieved.
to wqalk in the Spirit, you must come to grips with the fact that you are free from sin. onterwise, you will assume tht the tug of flesh is a tug you cannot resist. your inclination will be to follow your flesh. after all, that's the way you've always done it. and besides, nobody's perfect.
you cannot follow 2 masters. you will follow either the lead of the Spirit or the desires of the flesh. bu you can't have it both ways. I believe many Christians follow their flesh because they really don't believe they have any choice. they have lost the same battles so many times that they have given up. the least little temptation sends them scurrying after their flesh.
satan can call to you. he can stir up your natural appetites. he can do anything he wants - from the sidelines. but he can't touch you. his power over you is broken. you are a free agent:
'even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts...for sin shall not be master over you. Rom. 6.11-4
you may feel the way you have always felt. you may desire the things you have always desired. but the fact is, you are free. begin
*91 now renewing your mind to this transformational truth, for you will never wlk in the Spirit until you are convinced of your freedom.
there is an important relationship between our thinking and our ability to follow the spirit. paul described it this way:
for those who are (walking ) according to the flesh set their Minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are (walking) according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. for Mind set on the flesh is death, but the Mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
where we set our minds determines who we follow and what we do. to walk in the Spirit, we must set our minds on the things of the Spirit. by that, I don't mean we are to walk around in some sort of hypnotic state. far from it. in fact, there is nothing mystical about setting our minds on the Spirit.
paul's point is that we are to set our minds on the things pertaining to the Spirit - not on the Spirit Himself. the same holds true for the mind set on the flesh. it's not thoughts about the flesh itself that lead us astray. it's thoughts about the Things pertaining to the flesh that get us into trouble.
Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth ( John 16.13) one of the HS's primary roles as a leader is to lead us into truth. therefore, the mind set on the Spirit is a mind filled with and focused on truth.
every sinful act is committed twice: once in our heads and once in our behavior. to win the behavior battle, we must first win the battle that takes place in our minds.
for years I was defeated in this area. part of the reason was that I focused almost exclusively on not Doing wrong things. my idea of walking in the Spirit was allowing the Holy Spirit to direct my actions. I was preoccupied with good behavior. but no matter how committed I was, at best I was inconsistent.
not too long after my life-changing encounter with the Holy
*92 Spirit, I saw what my problem was. I wasn't taking part in the battle before the battle. walking in the Spirit requires a mind -set, a preoccupation with truth. the battle begins not with the temptation to do something but with the temptation to dwell on anything that conflicts with what is true. this is the battle before the battle.
once I became awae of this, a number of verses took on new significance:
'therefore, gird your Minds for action, keep sober in spirit I peter 1.13
'Set your Mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Colossians 3.2
'and do not be comformed to this world, but e transformed by the renewing of your Mind. Rom. 12.2
finally, brethern, whateer is true
whatever is honorable,
whatever is right,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely.
whatever is of good repute,,
if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your Mind dwell on these things. Phillipians 4.8
no wonder there is so much emphasis on the mind. as the mind goes, so goes the body. when we refuse to get involved in the battle before the battle, there is no hope for change at the behavior level. by then it's too late.
walking in the Spirit requires that we become hypersensitive to any thought that conflicts with truth. anything that clashes with what is true is not of the Spirit. anything that is not of the Spirit only gets in the way of our ability to follow the lead of the Spirit. therefore, to walk in the Spirit, we must get serious about guarding our minds.
like so many people, i wasn't always careful with what i allowed myself to think about. when I got serious about setting my mind on the things of the Spirit, I realized just how polluted my mind really was. god used one verse in particular to help me get on and stay on, track in this area:
*93 we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raise up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. II Corithinas 10.5
to speculate about something is to develop a mental sceno=rio about it. it is to daydream or fantasize about it/ speculations begin with thougts like,
*I wonder what would happen if...
*I wonder what it would be like if...
*if I had only...
*If she hadn't....
the ability to imagine is a gift from God. the world's great inventions were created first in someone's mind. they began as speculations, dreams, ideas. everything is constructed mentally before it becomes a physical reality. the fact that god spoke the world into being is evidence that our universe was at one time just a thought in the mind of the Creator.
but like almost all of god's gifts to man, the ability to imagine has been corrupted by sin. our ability to speculate is often the very thing that interrupts our fellowship with the Holy spirit. there is no legitimate place in the mind of the believer for ideas, notions, dreams or fantasies that have as part of all their content things that are contrary to the truth of god. to entertain such thoughts for even a moment is to set our minds on the flesh and therefore walk after the flesh.
to imagine yourself being happy and fulfilled in a relationship with another man's wife is to dwell on a lie. to envision yourself telling someone off and winning the respect of others in doing so is to deceive yourself. to rehearse in your mind imaginary conversations in which you emotional slam-dunk another person is to meditate on sin. to mentally devise a scheme where you are benefited at the expense of someone else is to walk after the flesh. these are speculations.
look again at the standard by which we are to judge our thoughts.
*94 *is it true?
*honorable?
*right?
*pure?
*admirable?
*excellent?
*praiseworthy?
these are stiff criteria. they may seem somewhat unrealistic. but Paul was no hermit. on the contrary, one trip through the book of Acts is enough to convince anyone that he lived right on the cutting edge - and sometimes beyond! no doubt his experience in the real world moved him to lay out such strict mental parameters. he knew how important it is to stay in touch with the Holy spirit. I believe he saw it as a matter of survival.
note the aggressive language he uses in talking about this whole issue: 'And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor. 10.5 this is spiritual warfare at its most fundamental level. to win the battle here is to eliminate dozens of potential battles later on. if nothing else, this statement assures us that we do have control over what we think. we are not victims. the power of sin has been broken. when any decietful, lustful, self-destructive thought pops into our minds, Paul says, 'Destroy it! recongnize it for
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