Walking in the Holy Spirit part 2

Posted on June 17, 2009

Walking in the Holy Spirit part 2

This week: DIVINE RESTRAINT

Last week we discussed the principle of resonance and how it all works provided proximity is maintained; we work on the same frequency as the Holy Spirit as long as we stay close. I concluded that it is the Holy Spirit who is behind “God-incidences” that occur and they even increase when we learn how to walk in synch with Him.

Janis from Israel wrote and said: “I enjoyed your article very much, I have had so many God-incidences here in Israel and Jerusalem, and there is such an amazing peace that seems to pervade ones soul, it is truly the City of the Great King.” Obviously Janis is in a wonderful proximity to the Holy Spirit. I think most believers would find the environment of the Holy City conducive to a faith life; the alternative could range from nervous insecurity to terror! In the present Global circumstances it is wise to stay close to the Lord as Janis obviously is.

An issue with many traditional Christians is the suspicion that those who claim to be led by the Holy Spirit can exhibit few boundaries or restraints by using what could merely be a justification, “The Holy Spirit led me…” Reminds me of a comedian from years ago who used to quip “the Devil made me do it!”

When the people of Israel sent their leader Moses “up the mountain” in Exodus 19 to chat with God, it reflected their personal irresponsibility. They wanted Moses to bring back a set of rules in order to do their religion.  This meant that they saw Moses as a human mediator who would excuse their sinful human ways. God had a better idea, He sent Moses back with a set of rules, brilliantly designed to be so hard to obey that people would cry out for mercy and relationship instead.

Surely God must have anticipated the outcome; men came up with a neat system for making an appearance of righteous obedience to the rules, without having to meet the real standards. This system included many interpretive writings and the Talmud. We Christians have their modern equivalent in the many books and media that we would rather feed on than personally seek an answer from God. 

This doesn’t mean that God has given-up on rules. On the contrary, they are still the basic requirement of obedience for any person who would “draw near” to Him. I need to explain:

Fortunately for all, no-one has to actually fulfill all the rules given to Moses again to get close to God, because Jesus did it for us. When our life is His, we are home free in relation to the Law: Gal 3:13; “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us.”

All this begs the question; what are the rules for once we are in Christ? Do we still need God’s “Top Ten List” and all those other impossible requirements? Why did God leave them in our Bible if we don’t need them? We walk in the light of the Holy Spirit now… don’t we? What possible use are rules for sacrifices, diet or Leprosy in our modern society. They appear to have no relevance to a life of faith.

The Law produced an outward control to change behavior and produce righteousness. Sadly our human nature is to constantly test every rule. This problem is clearly demonstrated for us by those who seek to live only by the rules. They fall, they fail, they become more religious, but they never find grace and peace.

We Christians are seeking for inward control. We want to know; what are the keys to ruling our soul. What does it take to let the Holy Spirit be in command? If the Law won’t do it, what will?

We have been looking at the answer! We have exempted ourselves from the rule of Law, but not the PRINCIPLE! The same laws that failed to make men righteous, are powerful tools of righteousness for the soul; Romans 8:3?4; “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This means the Law is fulfilled in us WHILE we walk in the Spirit. We actually use the principles of the Law to help us walk in the Spirit!

Principles are designed to produce God-ward response and inward, (rather than outward,) control. This produces in us an environment for the Holy Spirit to be in control of our lives.

2 Tim 3:16?17; “All Scripture (not some!) Is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the servant of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” We are not exempted from the rules unless we fulfill the spirit and principle that they reveal. Too much principle is only philosophy, just as too many rules become heavy theology and dry legalism. Sometimes the Holy Spirit goads us on and at other times He nails us down.  Eccl 12:11.  Such balance is conducive to a Spirit controlled life.

Abraham Lincoln said “after age 40 you are responsible for your own face”.  We begin to look like what we are occupied with: Legalist’s look legal, fools look foolish and Godly people look Godly.  The key to this is inward control not outward, and inward control is over to God - if we’ll let Him.   

 

Posted on June 10, 2009

Walking in the Holy Spirit

Posted on June 10, 2009

DISCUSSION TOPIC:
Walking in the Holy Spirit
This week: DIVINE RESONANCE

There are many amazing coincidences associated with a face to face experience with the God who is real. You can find yourselves locked into a series of events that become your story and experience of Him. He is able to work in your life and circumstances in such a way that leads to your being captivated and connected to His love.

Thankfully, it doesn’t stop there. We learn as we grow that it is the Holy Spirit who is behind these awesome “God-incidences” that occur and they even increase when we learn how to walk in synch with Him.

Is it possible to order our lives in such a way that we keep “bumping” into these events orchestrated by the Holy Spirit? If we could understand the principles that enable His presence and activity, we would “see more” and “be more” effective in life.

The engineering principle of resonance works this way: If two similar objects are alongside each other and one is vibrating at a certain frequency, the other will begin to vibrate at the same frequency. This idea opens up a whole new field of possibilities!

I had a big old Ford car that picked up the resonance of certain trucks as they barreled down the Interstate in Texas. Their noisy differential made me think it was my car howling until the proximity was changed. This is resonance at work. So is your radio and much of the gadgetry we like.

First of all, resonance has to do with proximity:

Adam walked with God in a perfect environment. His proximity was such that he was working with the Creator on His projects and God was able to share complete dominion through Adam. When Adam exercised his own choice by eating the fruit of independent control, he still had dominion but no idea how to exercise it on his own. His proximity was changed.

We are subject to the very same problems of proximity for the very same reasons. Oh yes, we do have dominion over our problems but our proximity to the Holy Spirit will determine whether we can exercise that dominion.

Sometimes we require an answer from God to make a decision so we try to get within resonance range of the Holy Spirit in order to hear him. We position ourselves in an environment where we can hear Him. This may require getting closer to the action, turning up our level of Church involvement, Bible study or prayer. Sharing our experience of Jesus with someone else also increases our own spiritual awareness.

Obviously, we are aware of some things that work; Worship, prayer, availability and moral restraint all contribute. But we want to know more. Why is it that some earnest friends can cover all the bases such as those we have mentioned, yet never seem to see the Holy Spirit at work? They work hard at their faith but never have a sense that they are in sync’ with God. Others seem to breeze along, always experiencing supernatural events and provision yet they may live less than exemplary Christian lives. There is a paradox here.

My understanding is that we become insensitive to the Holy Spirit through inner conflicts and condemnation in our minds. We get distanced from the resonance proximity zone. Can we control this?

Jesus said in John 14:30 “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me.” He was not resonating with the Devils kingdom. He was not in sync’ with this World either. Jesus was in perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit. That’s why He could make such a statement.

What are we resonating with today?

Sometimes I get Steamed!

Posted on May 28, 2009

Sometimes I get steamed!

Wherever light boldly goes, darkness is there to meet it. Darkness is the default environment of the universe. Light has to be sent to change things but sometimes you need much more candlepower.

Medical researchers are using carbon nano tubes (microscopic) to manufacture new technical solutions. These things are the blackest black known to man. They are profoundly black and are constructed like tiny wells so they seem to absorb photons (light emitting particles) without any reflection. I think some folks brains are like this.

Try to emit light and truth and they will subsume what you are saying so that you have apparently said nothing!

This morning with the “breakfast flock” which is my Seagull description for morning coffee break at my office, I tried to emit a little light. I shared a brief revelation which emerged during my Church home meeting the night before. The response was at first momentarily “wow!” but old nano-tube brain spoke up: “That was all over the internet last year” he seemed to sneer. The moment and the magic were gone. The fog rolled in and conversation went off into the mundane.

The whole experience was compounded for me when I slunk back to my hole in wall office to find a forwarded email pointing out 5-6 typos in a website I am responsible for. The “pointer-outer” misspelled MY name but swallowing that back, I had to make things right. I did not originate the typos but I should have caught them. Mea-culpa. I was tempted to send spiky responses to the email but again I bit my tongue. What’s next? Oh yeah…the pointer-outer walked past my office door 20 minutes later 3 times! without the courage to speak personally with me. I’ve got him categorized in my “Rat file” now.

Today the world seems full of nit-picky mean minded mini-black-holes who are hell-bent on un-making the day. I will withdraw into my warm little shell and avoid eye contact.

Mine is the complaint of most who find themselves absorbed into the tyranny of relationships in the workplace. It’s why we have calendars with pictures of nice places we would rather be. It is why I like just working for myself, which is what all of us imagine we will be doing when we start any job or career. Trouble is it has people in it and people mean trouble.

OK I will admit I have bristles. I do get all steamed up but it leaks away as the day goes on. I have this anaesthetic pump called prayer. I am sometimes reluctant to crank it but I must IF YOU ALL WANT TO SURVIVE!!

Email to a Friend

Posted on May 26, 2009

Email to a friend

All of us get into significant discussion online from time to time even if we think it’s only an email of a minor personal nature; there are elements that can bless others. I want to share a recent discussion (somewhat edited) with you to offer some encouragement in hard times.

Me to a friend in the USA: It was refreshing to talk with you on the phone. I know that you guys like us were among the first to suffer from this economic debacle since we were both in the Home Building business. I am confident you and I will be among the first to find a way to recover!
Like you I also had a great day at Church Yesterday. During the Sunday night service our associate pastor (just completed his doctorate at Duke USA) spoke on the subject of suicide: He pointed out that New Zealand is # 2 in the World for suicides. Ouch! In my opinion, this is probably due to being a Western culture in a small environment that creates unrealistic expectations when there are limited prospects. TV compounds this by creating false expectations about a false lifestyle (and false news also).
Anyway, among the excellent things he said was “stay in the game! Don’t leave the game until the end because you don’t know how it will end”. I remember NBA games we enjoyed in the USA often had a completely different result at the last moment while many had already left to escape the parking traffic. They missed the best!

Friend to me:
I hope you are right about our recovery. I want even more to recover my hope in God. I have realized that I have developed a deep cynicism wondering if it pays to seek God. I know this is the enemy talking to me but I am at the end of my hope. I can see how people, even believers, get so discouraged that they decide to commit suicide. That is a way out but it is the most damaging to others. It is the most selfish act a person can commit. Believe me I have thought about it. The mind can get into an abyss of discouragement and hopelessness that seems overwhelming and then the lie that everyone else would be better off without you. I believe the enemy is very much involved in suicide. He is a murderer, liar and a thief.
We will probably see a lot more suicide as we go further into this recession. Don’t worry, I am not going to take this route but, I understand how people get there because I think I have been very close to it. The grace and love of God has kept me, but more than anything is the thought of what it would do to my wife and kids.
Just now I heard on the news that N. Korea just completed an underground nuclear test. Obama is up to his eyeballs in Alligators.
I never thought I would be at the place I am now. It could be that I am at the point of a great deliverance. Times like these bring out and expose the unbelief that I have. Lord, help my unbelief.
Onward through the fog.

Friend to me again before I can reply:
I need to add to what I just said in my previous email.
I am guilty of charging God with wrong. I was praying moments ago and realized I was basically blaming God for the hard things I am experiencing. What a lie. I have rejected the love of God and believed the enemies lies which have opened the door for his torment.
How can I reject what Christ died for and has been offered to me. I’m not talking about salvation itself, I am talking about what the prodigal son had to accept from his father when he returned from his rebellion. He had to accept what he did not deserve and in humility accept the fathers love. Pride would have rejected it.
I am at that place. How could I spit in the face of God and reject the sacrifice He and His Son made and their willingness to offer themselves to undeserving sinners. God is good.
We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony!

Me to Friend:
I was just as blessed by your first email also. If we can’t communicate our true selves to somebody human, we are truly lost. Most of us have who have been deeply affected by the recession “been there” in recent times including me but I do like and agree with your thinking on the subject.
They ran a little film clip before the message preached on Sunday night that showed a lone antelope being brought down by a leopard. Nearby was a flock of Flamingos walking in such a tight bunch they looked like a huge pink animal with many legs. It was very funny to watch but the message was eloquent; we need each other.
USA moves only yesterday to subsidize US Dairy products are likely to have a devastating effect our economy here in NZ. It seems there is fresh bad news every day. In any case we are called to be the people with the answers.
New Zealand was profoundly influenced and developed through the Gold Rush of the 1800’s. The early gold hunters were called “Diggers”. These rough adventurers were eager to escape the bondage of employment in the factories and sweatshops of the industrial revolution. They took the easy gold near the surface and changed much of the landscape of our country. As the gold dwindled, cooperatives of diggers began to go deeper and eventually extract gold from the quartz by using stamping (crushing) machines driven by steam. By now they were no longer independent diggers but now wage earning “Miners” and unions were formed and the cycle was complete. The freedom was over and it was back to being employees again; some of the smarter ones formed the mining companies and became the new rich class.
You and I have been “Diggers”! It’s now the time we formed our Mining companies and hired some Miners. We need to see the potential of what is under our feet that others think is too hard to get. We need to innovate and manage and raise the capital to build our enterprise. Let’s take the absence of easy gold as our cue and get busy building the next great enterprise.

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