As the Spirit Moves

John 3:5-8
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

As the Spirit Moves

We live in a world of natural and spiritual. The natural things we perceive and understand through our senses. They are based on taste, touch, seeing, hearing and smell. We have experienced a natural birth. The water broke and we came forth from the womb. Just as we have a natural birth we must have a spiritual birth because they are not one in the same. Jesus is making a comparison. Natural begets natural, but Spirit begets spiritual. Our natural birth brings us into this world, but our spiritual birth brings us into the heavenlies and the dimension of the kingdom of God. We have been born from beneath and now we must be born from above if we are to enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus compares it to the wind. It is often hard for us as natural beings to quantify, analyze and rationalize the spirit realm and that part of us. Jesus says it is much like the wind. It doesn’t move under our control, but it blows where it will and wherever it pleases. We can’t see air or wind, but the wind shows itself as it is manifested through natural things. The wind will pick up dirt and leaves and give a visible sense of its presence as these are moved, not through there own initiative, but through the power and the force of the wind. It is much as the Sprit moves in and through us. Sometimes He is very still and we don’t feel his presence at all and yet we know He is there because He is the spiritual air we breathe.
I think of how the Lord came to Elijah when he had fled to Horeb, the mountain of God, discouraged, fearful and ready to give up. There, in 1 Kings 19:11-13, the Lord showed Elijah how to discern between the natural and the spiritual. “The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
You see Elijah, like most of us, had allowed his eyes to view things in the natural and not in the Spirit. God was not in all of those natural calamities and forces of nature, He was in the still small voice that spoke to the inner man. Be careful about judging things from the outward circumstances. It is God who rules and is upon the throne. Here, God showed the wind of His presence was in the still small voice that spoke to him in his spirit. We may see God move as a gentle breeze, blowing across His people with His presence and anointing. Sometimes He is a forceful wind to be reckoned with. However the Lord is blowing upon our lives we want to bend in His direction and be sensitive to His movement. We are the manifestation of His presence. We are the natural elements that are moved by Him as He blows upon our lives. Just as you can never tell about the wind, where it will blow or where it will go, so we never know when we will be moved by the Spirit of God in this direction or that situation. We do want to hear His still small voice within us assuring us that His work is not finished, but that this is the way of the Lord now be faithful to walk in it.
The Lord may be asking us what we are doing before Him in our fears, doubts and unbelief. We must remember whom we have been birthed into, who we are in Christ Jesus and that we are called according to His purpose and design. Now allow His still small voice and His breeze, not the natural elements of circumstance to move you wheresoever He will.

Blessings,
#kent

Advertisement

If I have to live this way, just shoot me!

If I have to live this way, just shoot me!
1 Kings 19:4
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I [am] not better than my fathers.

Have you ever felt that way? You came to a point in life, maybe more than once, where life was just too painful, too hopeless and a dark cloud of depression and despondency covered your soul. Maybe it was from physical pain, emotional heartbreak or pressures around you that were just too much to bear. Thoughts of suicide were contemplated and maybe even attempted. Voices were in your head telling you, “just to end it, get it over with. Once you’re dead your pain is over. Besides, who really cares? Everybody will probably be better off without you.” Do any of these thoughts sound familiar? If they do then you have wrestled the enemy of depression and despair. If you have been in this place, don’t feel condemned or weak, even the most spiritual of men have had there bouts with these demons. Our scripture today is speaking of Elijah, the mighty prophet of God and it came just after one of the greatest spiritual victories of that time. He should have felt invincible, but here we find him weak, frightened, fearful, despondent and despairing of his own life. Isn’t it wonderful how God shows us the great spiritual men of the Bible in their weakness as well as there strength? That in itself gives us hope. If they are so spiritual and yet they went through these things, then maybe there is hope for me and you.
Beloved, some of you have endured great pain, suffering, persecution and affliction, beyond what one should have to bear. Even if you have tried to fight the good fight and be faithful, you can grow weary in the battle. Mental, physical and spiritual exhaustion can overcome you until thoughts and reasonings can come in that have no place being in your head. These are like the testing experiences of Christ in the wilderness when He was at His weakest point. The enemy tries to come in for the kill. He would tell us, “God is a lie, that He is not faithful, He has forsaken you, He doesn’t care about you, and there probably isn’t even a God.”
His strategy is to disconnect us from our unity, oneness and identification in Christ, who is our strength and our life, because that is our power. If He can rob Christ from us then what do we have? What strength can we stand in?
Some of you are thinking, “yeah, but if God loves me so much, why would He allow me to have to go through so much pain?” Sometimes it is the deep inner working of pain and suffering in our lives that brings us to terms with areas that we would just as soon keep buried forever. There may be root causes for these pains and afflictions in our lives that can’t be healed and delivered until they are brought into the light and dealt with. If Christ learned obedience through the things He suffered as it tells us in Hebrews 5:8, are we then greater than He?
It is not God’s will that we are in continual suffering and pain, but these are often the tools brought to bear upon us by the enemy, but God turns and uses them to do an inner surgery upon our character and our heart. One thing we have to come to terms with is, “God is faithful all the time”, but you won’t always outwardly see that faithfulness. Quite the contrary, everything in the natural can be speaking and demonstrating against the faithfulness of God. 2 Corinthians 4:18 tells us a secret, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen [are] temporal; but the things which are not seen [are] eternal.” What does Hebrews 11:1 tell us about faith? “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” As hard as it is, our trust can not be placed in the outward circumstances that surround us.
God loves you and is with you even in your weakest, darkest moments. He has not abandoned or forsaken you. What you are living with or going through may be the valley of the shadow of death, but David says, “I will not fear, for thou art with me. Thy rod (authority of the Word) and thy staff (salvation) they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” While the enemy is doing everything in its power to defeat and destroy you God is setting the table of blessing and mercy right in the face of the enemy. You are the anointed of God. He is pouring the anointing of His Spirit and power over you that you may be more than a conqueror through Christ who has loved you and gave Himself for you. See with your spiritual eyes, embrace with all the faith of your spiritual man the love and goodness God has for you, even in the midst of such darkness and despair. Don’t give up, keeping on trusting Him. The race isn’t to the swift and strong, but to the faithful.

Blessings,
#kent