The Holy One calls to me this morning. I have set my mind to inquire of my Holy Counselor. Sometimes I get answers in the blink of an eye, but other questions seem to get swallowed up by a black hole and when I accept that the answer is no answer then the answer comes. I guess that is part of the “Be Still and know that I AM God” and waiting means be still but not to give up on the answer coming in God’s time.
The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. His role in part is to lead us, Christ
followers, into all truth. The truth is
sometimes hard to take and I find I have to press in to convince both of us
that I am willing to listen and with His help, respond appropriately, which means I have to be willing to change if
the truth calls for it.
I am a member of the big Body of Christ and in a fellowship of spirit filled believers. Not just a member of an organization but a part (member) of a living
organism. I have been asking the Lord to
help me understand why so many fellowships within the Body of Christ are so powerless and in essence failing in our assignment?
The Lord our God is the
same, yesterday, today and tomorrow, so there is no use in blaming Him for why
we are not doing the greater things that Jesus said we would do after He left
planet earth.
Today He speaks a convicting word to my heart, “Many
are those who seek the power without the Person”.
Riddles are sometimes the way the Lord calls me to go
deep. Superficial conversations give me
a pass and that is not the way He chooses to lead me into all truth. He begins with a curious statement for
personal evaluation. First question I
must ask is “Lord, are you referring to me?”
“Am I among the many?”
First lesson in truth applies, “Take the beam out of
our own eye before you dare try to take the splinter out of someone else’s”.
With that ice breaker, conversation starter, I
surrender to what He wants to teach me.
The courses in the school of the Holy Spirit are never ending. I am convinced that there is so much to learn
that I will never graduate from that institution of higher education and that
is fine by me. Learning about my Lord
and God is an eternal blessing and I will never ever know all there is to
know.
Small pieces of His majesty are all I can process but
even small pieces are sometimes beyond all my comprehension. My salvation being one of those
things. I know that at the moment of my
salvation I received the Holy Spirit of Christ as my indwelling Comforter,
Counselor and “power” over flesh. The
understanding of His nearness takes some getting used to. The reality that I am “possessed” by another
creates a power struggle with my flesh.
But once I begin to realize and co-operate with the
perfect plan and unity with the Trinity provided by the Lord through His death
and resurrection, life takes on a whole new perspective. We come to a sense of power and authority yet
are adolescent in the understanding of how it works (or doesn’t). Training for reigning is life-long since it
is a fundamental transformation of our soul AKA our character, our
persona.
Which brings me to the lesson from the Holy One today:
“Power without the Person”. I have been
shown that the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit is actually the character
virtues and qualities of Jesus. I may
possess these things by nature but not to the depth and degree of what the Holy
Spirit will bear as His fruit once He takes up residency in my heart which is
the place and core of my being.
Jesus said, “You did not choose me but I chose you and
appointed you to go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that
whatever you ask of My Father in My name, He may give you”. John 14:16. The supernatural intervention
and provision for what we ask of our Heavenly Father is promised but not
without conditions.
Jesus chose and appointed us to bear fruit that will
remain. When all else burns or corrupts
over time, character remains. The fruit
we are to bear, is the virtue and character qualities of Gal 5:22-23, which we
are told is the “fruit of the Spirit”.
Christ’s Spirit, bearing Christ’s character, in and through us is called
fruit.
In the sequence of the promise,
we are chosen and appointed to first bear fruit. First we must allow the Holy One within to
manifest the character (identity/name) of Christ in our unique person. Emulating Jesus’s character as His
disciple/representative to the world around us is key.
While we are in the ongoing process of this
transformation, our unity with the Holy Spirit and co-operation in the process,
(sanctification and fruit bearing) brings us to the manifestations of His
gifts through which miracles are brought from Heaven and the Father’s Hand.
Asking for something in the name of another, to me,
means that I am so closely identified with that person in the knowledge of His
character, His motives, His desire to act, that I know my petition would be
like His. Asking for something “in
Jesus Name” is not just words to be slapped on the end of our own willful
agenda.
I truly believe our Heaven
Father is looking deep at the fruit (Character) we are bearing as He sends
answers to our petitions. In the delays of the answers, we might need to look
at our “fruit bearing” to see if the Holy Spirit is pruning off dead branches
on our end even as preparing others for the answers to come.
As this message relates to the church as His Body, I
am aware that in many fellowships and denominations the Presence of the Holy Spirit is rarely discussed or sought
after. Yet by the Holy Spirit we are
transformed into the likeness of Christ and apart from Christ we are reminded
that we can do nothing.
We cannot bear
His fruit in and of ourselves. We cannot
draw anyone to Christ in and of ourselves.
We cannot do the greater things Jesus promised in and of ourselves. There
is no Power without the Person of Christ.
Can we do good deeds in our flesh?
Of course. But the question is: “can
we heal the sick, and raise the dead”?
If the church is to reclaim her authority, she must
reinstate the Holy Spirit as her head. He will glorify the Person of Jesus in, to,
and through us and then we will be able to wield the power of our Lord. To neglect this important link between who we
are and what we can do makes for a powerless life as a Christian and a
powerless Church in the world.
The Body of Christ is comprised of many members and
many pieces to the puzzle that we individually hold and must lay down collectively if we are
to complete the picture. I will say that this is my piece and you may
have another one that relates to the failures within. But the failures need to be addressed for the
health of the whole.
Unless we share
what we are shown that needs prayer, any action that needs repentance and ultimately correction, we will stall in a place of powerlessness and no one will see
Jesus in our lives or His Church.
The Holy Spirit is calling.
Can you hear Him?
