Tag: Holy Spirit

Making Pain Work for You, [Trials]

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“Then they went back to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia. 22They encouraged the followers and begged them to remain faithful. They told them, “We have to suffer a lot before we can get into God’s kingdom.”

Acts 14:21-22, CEV

Paul and Barnabas, together are perhaps the most gifted men ever to minister the Gospel.  They have an amazing love for the Church.  They operate out of great difficulty, but the deep work they do, proceeds out of encouragement.  I looked at a dozen or so translations of the Bible–all of them translate this, “encouraged.”  Every single one!

Earlier in chapter 14, we can read about the brutality and ugliness they had to walk through.  It was very bad, beyond belief.  But these two never ever lose their love for the Lord, and for His people.  Their ministry continued to be full of optimism and comfort.  They simply can’t be poisoned by the nastiness and bitterness just days before.

They understand something.  What they have to say (as they minister that comfort) kind of boggles everyone’s thinking.

They said, “We must suffer many things to enter God’s kingdom.”

Comforting and strengthening, isn’t it?  Sometimes when I read this passage I can’t believe what they are saying!  It doesn’t make any sense at all.   I believe there are three things we must process to fully understand these verses.

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1)  What comforts us is not always comfortable.

 I’m slowly coming to the place of accepting pain and sickness as my personal doorway into the Lord’s kingdom.  I know my mental illness has opened an entrance into something wonderful.  My months of being institutionalized in different hospitals has seemed to have filled me with grace, gentleness and love–in other words, the kingdom. At least that is what I think.

2)  What we think is the best way often is not.

No one chooses one’s particular path.  If we could we would all be driving a BMW and our homes would be palaces, we would win the lottery on a regular basis.  Our children would be little angels.  We would never be sick, or have a chronic illness.  But–we can’t enter His kingdom, unless there are trials.  They have to be there, they must.  Somewhere it says,  if we suffer, we will reign.

3)  What we need from our elders and pastors is the truth.

 Often the leadership of the Church keeps this one in the closet.  They communicate very well other subjects that are enjoyable.  And we pressure them to do this, gently and subliminally of course.  And everyone wonders why we don’t mature in our faith.  Paul and Barnabas are tremendous leaders, but they don’t roll things in sugar, and their ministry carries on the sufferings of Jesus.

Often it seems, when God chooses to bless a man or a woman greatly, He will send a trial to prepare them deeply.

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The Gift of Sight, [Our Blindness]

“Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then, spitting on the man’s eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, “Can you see anything now?”

Mark 8:23

What an amazing and gentle thing for Jesus to do.  He offers his hand in order to guide this one to a better environment for that which he is about to do.  Jesus really is quite considerate, and very aware of the “circus” he causes in the town.

In many ways, we are so like this blind man.  We have no spiritual sight, we stumble and bumble through life.  We are doomed to live this way, blind to anything of significance.  But along comes Jesus, he takes us by our hand.  We walk through the streets, with him leading us.  Little do we know, that in just a moment we are going to see.

This blind man is being led by a stranger, who is leading him down dusty streets to an undisclosed location.  Yet, for some reason, he trusts Jesus, and allows himself to be led.  As he walked holding the hand of Jesus, his faith grows.  By the time they arrive at the spot outside the walls, we just know what is going to happen next.

Jesus spits!  Right into each eye. He puts his thumbs into them and brings a complete reconstruction of each eye.  Jesus is standing right in front of him. He asks, “Now can you see?”  I can see him blinking, and rolling his eyes, squinting and trying very hard to see.  And he does– but only limitedly.  Things are still blurry.

Jesus doesn’t berate the man, or belittle him for not getting a complete healing.  He just repeats this process, and within a minute the blind man now sees the world that before he only staggered through a moment ago..

If you must know, I am that blind man, I walked in spiritual darkness.  Things have not ever been easy.  I have stumbled and tripped through life.  I have been the butt of schoolboy pranks, and I have begged for crusts.  I have gone hungry a lot of the time.

But this man, Jesus found me.  He healed me. And my ugly, pathetic life was changed.  I am now a witness to what he can do–and does!  I added nothing to my healing, it was a miracle. I just opened my eyes.

“Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.”

–Helen Keller

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Feeding the Dogs, [Choosing Holiness]

A toy I grew up with, they were magnetized pushing against each other.

There is a story of a Native American elder who once described his own inner struggles to understand the Bible and Christianity.

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One is black, and the other is white. The black dog is mean and tries to talk me into making the wrong choices. The white dog is good and encourages me to make the right choices. The black dog fights the white dog all day.” When asked by the friend which dog wins, the elder reflected for a moment and replied;

“The one I feed the most.”

White Dog: As a believing Christian, there is a part of us that is Christ-spirited, compassionate, trusting, open, abundant and focused on helping others. We pray and are being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Black Dog: The other part is our flesh. We can be proud, evil, self-centered, greedy, manipulative, sullen, promiscuous, drunken, and only wants to he served by others.

“An analogy is made between the good white dog, our new nature in Christ, and the bad black dog, our old fallen nature. While we cannot eliminate the old nature, we can choose to feed the white dog.”

(From “The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in our Life,” by Billy Graham 1978.)
 

howlingwolf3-300x281The main key for us to remember is that these two parts are in constant struggle.

Two Scriptures to help: One– “If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.”   Rom. 8:13, NCV

Two– “Our sinful selves want what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit wants what is against our sinful selves. The two are against each other, so you cannot do just what you please.”   Gal. 5:17

In thinking this through this analogy might help.  I’m inclined to think that holiness is not so much like an “on and off” switch.  But I think it’s more like a “dimmer” switch is turned to brighten or darken a room.  I actually think there are times when we should make a deliberate decision for God.  And yet other times we just need to turn up the dimmer from 30% to 80%. Maybe all the way?

I’m just thinking out loud here.

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On Complete Surrender, by A.W. Tozer

“He that taketh not his cross . . . is not worthy of me.”  

Matt. 10:38

 by A.W. Tozer

Many of the great evangelists who have touched the world for God, including such men as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, have declared that the church is being betrayed by those who insist on Christianity being made just a little bit “too easy.”

Jesus, Himself laid down the terms of Christian discipleship, and yet there are some among us who criticize: “Those words of Jesus sound harsh and cruel.”

But this is where we stand: Receiving Jesus Christ into your life means that you have made an attachment to the Person of Christ that is revolutionary, in that it reverses the life and transforms it completely! It is complete in that it leaves no part of the life unaffected. It exempts no area of the life of the total man and does demand nothing but all.

By faith and through grace, you have now formed an exclusive relationship with your Savior, Jesus Christ. All of your other relationships are now conditioned and determined by your one relationship to your Savior.  He must be preeminent.

To receive Jesus Christ, then, is to attach ourselves in faith to His holy person, to live or die, forever! He must be first and last and all!

A very basic prayer that you might simply offer,

“Lord, Your call upon my life is total. But there are times when I feel pulled in other directions that may not be pleasing to You. Give me grace and strength to keep You in first place in my life.  Amen.”

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From the “Mornings with Tozer,” by A. W. Tozer. For devotionals like this one for your iPhone, visit the 43rdElement.com. Broken Believers also posts Tozer’s Daily Devotions everyday in the right column of our front page. You’ll find Rev. Tozer will build your faith and give you a more certain assurance.
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