The Wind of the Spirit

The Wind of the Spirit

John 3:8

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

               There are many things in life that we can’t see or don’t fully understand: the wind, electricity, love, spiritual influences of good and evil.  There are many mysteries in life and yet often we accept things by faith that we don’t understand and use them accordingly.  We know that they yield expected results when we do.  We may not understand heating and air conditioning, but we believe they exist and adjust a thermostat in faith that they will.  We flip a light switch and expect electricity to power a light bulb and produce light.  We expect that when we turn the key in our car it will start, run and take us where we want to go.  How some huge chunk of metal can fly may well be above our understanding of the aerodynamics and yet we buy a ticket, take a seat and expect it to fly us where we have destined to go.  The Holy Spirit is no less real, but more so, the difference is we don’t harness and control Him.  He is the one that desires to control us.  God chose to give man a will to choose and make decisions for himself.  Sometimes that is probably more of a curse than a blessing, because we often don’t make wise choices.  Nevertheless, God has given us some power over our destiny through the freedom of choice. 

               Many of us have the illusion that we are fully in control of our lives. The truth is we only have the power to choose whose control and dominion we want to be under.  As the Holy Spirit is the  one controlling force that leads us in the ways of truth, life and godliness, there is another spirit that blows and an atmosphere we have become so accustomed too that we often take it for granted.  It is the spirit of this world, the prince of the air as he is described in Ephesians 2:2, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”  Just as we breathe air, spiritual forces influence us, forces that are unseen, yet nevertheless real and influential in our lives.  We are born into a world of sin and from the time of our birth are under its influence.  While we are free in regards to righteousness, we are under the bondage of sin whose end is death.  Romans 6:16-18 reveals our state of being before and then after we come into the saving knowledge and acceptance of Christ: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.   But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”  We came to the understanding that there are two primary spiritual forces at work in our lives.  The spirit of darkness, that operates under the law of sin and death, leaves us free to live according to the dictates of our flesh and in that place many of us have lived for a time.  What we came to realize was that in that place of supposed freedom to live as our lust and desires dictated we were missing key elements in life.  We were missing peace, true joy, and unconditional love, hope and purpose for living and existing beyond this current life.   We were missing comfort, guidance, direction and the help from something or someone greater than ourselves.  While we momentarily enjoyed our pleasures, they left us empty, unfulfilled, feeling unclean, lonely and alienated from life and hope and peace.  Somewhere along our path we felt the breeze of a different wind blow upon us.  It was in total contrast to all we had ever known or embraced in our past.  When we breathed it in, somehow, we sensed that this was what had been missing out of our lives.  This was the hope, the peace and the destiny to which we were born for.  This was the way that would lead us to a life that had meaning and purpose, not just in this life, but in the life to come.  The wind of the Holy Spirit had blown upon our spirit and carried us up by faith through His grace into the atmosphere of heaven.  In the face of Jesus we saw a Savior and Redeemer who laid down His life that through His death we might have life eternal, not just mortal life, but God life.  And while our feet still walk in an atmosphere of sin and death, we have the assurance that this is no longer our home.  We are simply travelers in a foreign country, sharing with others in this place the wonderful benefits and the good news of the kingdom and city to which we now belong.  As the Holy Spirit blew someone across our path that shared that good news with us, we in turn, are the influences of God.  As the Holy Spirit blows through us to touch someone else’s life with the truth of the life and hope that God has for all of us through Christ. 

               Romans 6:20-23 tells us of the fruit of the decision that we have made to follow Christ and give our lives to Him, through the will and choice that He gave us, “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things [is] death But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Blessings,

#kent

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Revealed

Revealed

1 Corinthians 2:9-16

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

 

As God’s people we know more than we think we know.  Just as I don’t know what I am about to write right now, the Spirit of God within me does.  Many times as He has led me to write in an area or on a subject, I have protested saying, “God, I don’t know about that or what to write about that. ”  He would simply ignore my protest and wait for me to begin to write.  Today is another of these days.  Often God doesn’t reveal but the initial portion we need to get started.  Further revelation comes as we step out in faith and act on what we have, rather than on what we don’t have.  If we are God’s vessels, filled with His Spirit and possessing the mind of Christ, as the last verse of our scripture for today says we do, then we have to realize that we have a power to move beyond our natural ability and limitations.  I know my limitations and they are many, but I also know that in my weakness God’s strength is revealed.  

How does God want to reveal Himself in you and through you?  Will you, like myself, protest of your inability and weaknesses, or will you like Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8 say, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me.”  When God sends us, He will equip us and He will provide for us a way.  Faith is the precursor to all that He gives to us.  Rarely is everything laid out on the table and we know the whole plan and have all our provisions.  Faith reveals the will and provision of God as we walk in it and believe that He is and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  You have a vast, immeasurable reservoir of Spirit Life within you.  You have not began to sound the depths of what God’s Spirit can and will do through you.  Our God is an ever increasing light revealing Himself more and more unto the perfect day when as 2 Peter 1:19 declares, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” God’s people are the revelation of His truth and the proclamation of His glory.  Before you see the fullness of this truth you will see the revelation of all that hold the truth in unrighteousness for the man of sin will reveal it in his day.  Matthew 12:24 says, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”  2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 warns us, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and [by] our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”  All that is seen in the world proclaiming Christianity is not the Church.  The true Church is the remnant whose hearts and lives belong to the Lord, not just in outward profession.  The day will reveal His own.  

As God is revealing the dross in us, He is also revealing Himself in us.  Beneath the dross lies the gold and silver, the nature and character of God and His redemption.  Though we are often discouraged and mourn over the sin that still wants to cling to us, we must not let that become the identification of who we are.  God is at work in us, perfecting that which concerns Him, that His Son may be revealed through us.  2 Corinthians 7:1 tells us, “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 

God has a plan.  Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” A body is prepared for Christ, the head, to rest upon and fill with the fullness of all that He is.  Are we prepared to have revealed in us all that He is?   Let us move out in faith and be that revelation of God’s glory and truth. 

 

 

Blessings,

#Kent

The Hidden Things

 

The Hidden Things

Psalms 18:11

He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters [and] thick clouds of the skies.

 It is hard to conceive of God in all of His light, glory and splendor being able to go where darkness would not be dispelled before Him.  I began the think about the workings of God and how they are so often shrouded in the darkness of our understanding.  Spiritually there are so many things that we don’t understand and to the natural man many of the ways of God are foolishness and myth to his way of thinking.  

How many dynamics and workings of God are taking place in our lives, even today that we are totally unaware of?  If we are trying to grasp and understand God with our natural mind, then He is hidden to us.  Does that mean that we can’t grasp and understand the personal workings of God in our lives?  We can’t comprehend with the natural mind, but we have another mind that can comprehend the mysteries of God.  1 Corinthians 2:9-12 tells us, “9However, as it is written: 

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.”  It is the mind of the Spirit of God within us that unveils to our understanding the mysteries of the kingdom.  It is He that brings the dark things of God to the light of our understanding.  

There are many, even Christians, that struggle with what they see as what God has allowed.   If there is truly a God then why does He allow so many bad things in the world and why does He allow them to touch you and me personally?   Our lack of understanding often haunts us, because our natural mind often can’t rationalize it.  

It is imperative to us that we all abide in a place of submission and obedience to the Lord.  It is necessary that we maintain a relationship and fellowship with the Lord whereby we can hear and discern His voice, but the truth is, there are many things the Lord is silent to us about.   When we don’t hear, when we don’t comprehend, we must trust.  Sometimes God requires us to trust Him in the face of much pain and hurt.  Sometimes we want to say, “God you failed us, You let us down.”  We are sometimes left in the dark about why things are as they are.  In these times we have to have enough faith and confidence in the nature and character of God to know that He is working all things to the good of those that love Him and that are called according to His purpose.  When we don’t understand the workings of His hand then we must trust His heart.  

Yes, God often does dwell in the secret place of darkness when it comes to our understanding of all of His ways, but we are His.  A soldier is expected to carry out an order rather he understands the reasons or not.  We must walk in faith and obey the Lord rather we always understand His ways.

It is in that special place of trust and obedience where perhaps our faith is tested and tried, but our faithfulness brings us to find that in living in the secret place of the most High we abide under the shadow of His wings.

 

Blessings,

kent