Where Are the Testimonies? ***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  His voice speaks into the darkness of the early morning hours just before dawn.  And even more His voice is heard through the darkness of this age and the world events happening now just before the return of our King.

I hear Him ask the question, “Where are all the testimonies of my work in the lives of my people?”     

I ponder this question and understand it has merit. There is a sadness that over takes my heart as I think about how we can be so ungrateful or lacking in appreciation to and for the One who gave so much on the cross of His crucifixion and be so silent in our devotion. 

Despite the emotion I have when I remember and imagine the agony of His suffering, that is not where the Holy Spirit is taking me in our early morning “thought exchange.  I.E conversation.

“I died in the flesh so that you can live in the resurrection”.

As I hear His words spoken to my heart, my focus turns toward the resurrection and what it means in my life today.  Because of the outrageous rescue that His death provided, life for us is (or should be) a miraculous experience of Heavenly favor day after day even as we walk on this fallen turf we call earth. 

Jesus came and in life modelled for us all that we can do, now that He destroyed the power of Satan and the “works” of the devil that injure God’s creation and His beloved humanity. The chasm between us and our Creator that came with the fall of man, has been bridged by Jesus the Son, and that symbolic “ladder” to Heaven has been offered where we can access the storehouse of our Father and the good will of Heaven for our benefit and use in this temporal life we live here on earth. That “ladder” is also our exit from the earth realm into our reserved place in the Presence of the Trinity for eternity to come. 

The Lord’s question today, tells me what He desires from me.  Where are the testimonies of His works in my life and the evidence of His being and our relationship?  How and when am I sharing all that He has done for me? 

When we are in a relational “walk” with another person, there is a unity, there is intimacy in thoughts exchanged as conversation, there is knowing the other person, there is celebration and rejoicing in sharing life’s ups and downs and what we do for each other and there is a deep gratitude for the relationship that brings such pleasure (Blessing) to life.

In Luke 8:39 Jesus told the demoniac that He had delivered from horrific bondage to "return to your house and tell what great things God has done for you". But then in Luke 17:12, we are told about how He healed 10 lepers but only one came back to give Him thanks and to glorify God   Then came the big question, “Where are the other 9?”  Where is their testimony giving glory to God because of what Jesus did?  Our testimonies about Jesus' miraculous acts glorify our Father in Heaven. 

Jesus gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing to the demonized, sick and infirmed, and even to these ungrateful lepers. We read about these testimonies of His miracles in times past, but now is no different as He works in our lives today.  In the smallest details of our greatest needs, Jesus is intervening all the time.  His power is always and greater over the effects of the fall and the works of the devil: Blindness, deafness, lameness, sickness even deadness as Lazarus was physically resurrected,  are all conditions subject to His Power and Sovereign Authority

The Holy One has been reminding me that the greatest evangelistic tool we have is not a degree in theology, but a life of testimonies as to what the Lord has done and is doing for us who call upon His Name each and every day.  My Lord has healed me, (supernaturally and naturally) with and without medical intervention.  He has resolved countless difficulties and challenges.  He has walked with me through fearsome events and we have fought the unseen enemy together.  We have passed through days of dark waters and hopeless impossibilities and arrived on the other side of every trial with testimonies of His Sovereign mercies.

Day after day, His Presence provides those testimonies: miraculous events of the exact help at the exact time (His), and with surgical precision of what is needed to bring resolution to the things in life that trip me up and cause me pain.

His commission to His people has not changed since He gave it:  Go make disciples and baptize them in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.  Disciple making is not that hard if we have and then share personal testimonies of what the Lord Jesus has done and is doing in our lives each day.

As we journey with Jesus and walk in a personal relationship with our Lord, testimonies ultimately abound, joy ultimately effervesces and people ultimately get saved.  As a P.S. to those who are still in the “thicket of the Jordan” and your trial is not yet a testimony today, remember and share the one from yesterday since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow… forever and ever.  He delivered then and He will deliver now.

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?   

   

Am I A Friend of Jesus?***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  There is coming the season of shorter days.  And as we await the return of our King I see the important symbolism of "winter" here on earth.  There is a deadness creeping in.  But not for all.  The Lord is calling for His people to go deep and protect our roots from the chilling effects of a blanket of evil covering our lives and our land. 

His words bring a stark warning: "Dead branches will be removed from the Vine".

Lately a strong word has reached my mind and heart from out of the ancient book of Isaiah 26:20-21,

"Come My people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you.  Hide yourselves, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.  For behold the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitant of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood and no more cover her slain".

This is a picture of the Sovereignty of our Creator God, who is patient with all of us, but One Who will ultimately call an end to the evil acts of fallen humanity AND discipline the ungodly acts of His people who are living in surrender to their flesh rebellion of His Holy One within. 

We can deny the Truth thinking these words were written for a different time and people but I heed the warning and take it as a command for believers in Christ Jesus . The words call to mind a picture of the Passover when the death angel passed through all of Egypt and struck every household that did not have the Blood of the Lamb on it's doorpost. Or when Noah entered into the ark and survived the Lord's judgment by water.  God spoke and there are those who listened. 

The Word of God is applicable for every generation and every person regardless of the age or time we have our feet on planet earth.  The Creator has communicated with His created since the very beginning, but the created have personally chosen to ignore His voice, His Word and His Son who came to earth as the exact replica of His Being.

Out of the New Testament we have an updated exhortation.  John 15:8, speaks of our relationship to Jesus as our being branches in the Vine.  It suggests a deep abiding relationship as Jesus IS the Vine and life-giver of the branch.  The Vine provides for the life of each branch.  A branch that is alive produces fruit that can be enjoyed.  The branch gets pruned as part of the care so more luscious fruit will come forth and the things that might destroy it are removed.

The lesson imparts wisdom:

We are to abide (dwell, stay, settle in, sink deep) in the Vine

Without Jesus (the Vine) we can do nothing (of permanent Spiritual value)

Any who do not abide in Jesus, he is cast out as a branch (loss of fellowship) and is withered  (loss of vitality)  and thrown into the fire (Thus indicating spiritual disaster).



However:

"If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask what you desire and it shall be done for you".  By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so that you will be My disciples."

Putting it all together, could it be that the Lord is calling His people into a private chamber to speak to His people about personal private things He wants us to know and implement into our lives...with the short time we have left on earth? 

The question is, "Will we go?"

Will we make the time and set the place for that vital abiding connection with Jesus?  At the end of the day, Jesus is asking us to be His friend, "You are MY FRIENDS if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what His Master is doing. ...."

An amazing promise-filled life awaits the "friends" of Jesus.  Not only will we see the Divine hand upon our circumstances but we will also be given to understand the Master's reason for what He is doing....

Time for all of us to give careful thought to our "ways".  Are we abiding or neglecting?  Are we available to the Lord in relationship or making excuses for our absence?  If the horn blows at midnight and life here is over, where will you be in the end? 

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?









  
        
     

  

Lord, Help Me in My Unbelief ***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  He whispers His counsel into my ear as my mind comes to conscious attention.

 “Bring every thought into the captivity of Christ”.

The Holy Spirit knows my deepest wrestles and there is no point in trying to be “righteous” and deny the mental assault by evil.  Almost before my feet hit the floor, He takes me back to a day when Jesus was asked by a distraught father to help his demonized son. The disciples were powerless to deliver this young boy and the matter ended up at the feet of Jesus.

Upon deeper assessment of the situation, Jesus addressed the father and asked if he believed that his son could be delivered.  The father replied, “Yes, I believe, help me in my unbelief”.   Mark 9:23

This situation is one we will all experience one time or another in our earthly journey with Jesus.  There will always be situations that call for faith beyond what we have at the moment of a crisis.  And, most of us who are Christians, will say, “Yes, I believe”, but then realize our weakness and come to confess, “Help me in my unbelief”.

The wisdom of God in creation is greater than we could ever attain with our finite minds.  We never arrive at the place where we know all things or where we can completely control anything.  The Holy Spirit reminds me yet again the words of Jesus, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” and that applies even to the condition of our faith.

Jesus made it clear that His departure from planet earth was the best thing that could happen to humanity once He died for our sin.  By departing He would then send the Holy Spirit to supernaturally indwell all who would come to believe and acknowledge that He, Jesus, is God.

The 3^rd Person of the Triune Godhead was sent to dwell within us to complete our design.  The Holy Spirit is the final element to the human being that completes us and makes us whole.  We are not perfect nor flawless but with Him we are complete in our design according to the work of the Divine craftsman; Creator of all.  We are all born with that God ordained and God shaped hole (void) that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit of Christ Himself.

The father of the demonized boy had a physical encounter with God in flesh form and had to wrap his brain around that fact and then choose to believe.  Since the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit has been unleashed into the world and for those of us who believe, we have the Holy One within.  His strength and His power, His wisdom even His faith is always available to us 24/7.

The enemy of our soul is ancient and always present in this fallen world.  His weapon of choice is the same he has used since confronting Eve in the garden and his strategy never changes:  He is a liar and his field of battle is our mind.

As the days draw down and we get closer to the return of our Lord Jesus, the King of Kings, the battle will get more intense and the lies more convincing.   The Holy Spirit reminds me that in order to stay out of the grip of the serial liar, I must bring every thought and make it captive to Jesus.

 

This is a tall order and I am not sure how to manage it given my analytical brain, so, like the father of the demonized boy I say, “I will to obey, help me in my weakness”.  I need the Holy One to discern the truth from the lie and then I need Him to empower me to reject the lie.

More and more I realize that my helpless cry is music to my Lord’s ears.  The very thing He is and plans to be, is my strength in weakness.  What a wonderful God we serve.  He never leaves us to face life and its challenges on our own. 

Relief surges as I know His Presence and Counsel will ultimately resolve all the wrestles.  With the Holy Spirit I am whole, complete and one with the Trinity by Divine design.  Now, what about those thoughts?

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

    

  

The Witching Hour***

The Holy One calls to me this morning. After a deep wrestle in what I call the “witching hour” of the night, the Holy Spirit calls for an important meeting. The “witching hour” is my title and description of the hour(s) on the clock where every sane person should be deep asleep but instead the enemy starts peddling his trashy lies and the carnal mind seems to be defenseless and most vulnerable.

The Holy One speaks a command I have heard before, “Don’t believe Satan’s lies or even your own eyes, believe only in My Word”. 

The devil is a consummate liar. But even more, the devil can orchestrate signs and wonders to support the lies he spews into our lives to challenge and destroy our faith. God’s word says that:

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders….” 2 Thess 2:8.

This condition is part of the great apostasy and the rise of the Anti-Christ in the world. The apostasy is the falling away or turning away from Truth and should serve as a warning for the Church to beware of progressive ideas that contradict the ancient Scriptures that are the basis of our faith.

My question of the Holy Spirit as I seek His wisdom is “I see that some things in the Word are circular like “without faith it is impossible to please you”, but then I know also from Your Word that apart from You I can do nothing”. Faith is the act of believing in a sense, so where does the truth lie?” Or rather, “what is the expectation of me in regard to faith?”

The Holy Spirit was sent to Glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and to lead us into all truth. He has always been gracious for my deep questions and today is no exception. Because I am dull in my ability to grasp Divine perspective at times, I ask Him to paint pictures that convey the lesson or directive He wants me to understand. Today it is a picture He has given that helps me in my wrestle.

The lie the enemy posed this morning deals with an ongoing trial of deep emotional heartache and my faith in the midst of it. While God’s word speaks of victory, circumstances are stacked up in opposition. The enemy delivers a thought arrow that my faith (or lack thereof) is the reason the victory is out of my grasp. The Lord’s mercy provides a very powerful picture that relieves the confusion the enemy tries to cause:

The Divine structure of God’s authority and my life appeared like a circle. God, at the top of the circle, always initiates. God sent His Son to pay the price for sin and open the way back to a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father. God also sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us and He is the One who provides for unity with the Trinity. I call that Trinity Unity. The Holy Spirit makes us complete in that circle. Jesus said we will come to see that: “I am in the Father, and you in Me and I in you” John 14:20. This makes up that circle of unity. Faith is a gift that flows in a circle from the Father to the Son through His Holy Spirit to me and I give it back to the Father.

The same can be said of the desires of our heart and the prayers we have been given to pray. The lies of the enemy are an effort to destroy our unity with the Trinity.

As I apply the truth, the picture reveals that God will supply the faith that I need to please Him. Just like He supplied His Son to pay the price for humanity’s sin and then supplied the Holy Spirit to be our strength in flesh weakness. My requirement in all of this is to remain in conscious Unity with the Trinity through surrender to the Holy Spirit and obedience to the Word of God. Simply speaking, I ask Him to supply the faith I need to please Him. As I pray for wisdom, the Word says, I have it and I am not to doubt. So the picture of the circle is truth.

There is no enemy within my circle of “life”. Whatever comes to me has been filtered through fingers of love. I may not always understand the plan, but the God ordained purpose is for my best: whether for this moment or for tomorrow or even further for my eternal future. The enemy and all his nonsense is merely a tool in the hands of the Master to hone the vessel. In that I can trust.

It is apparent to me that while the enemy was having me focus on the circumstances, his real target was my faith.

With this confidence, I reject the lies that tormented me in the “witching hour” of the night and declare (in faith) that I have been redeemed out of the hands of the devil by the Blood of Jesus and not he nor his lies have any authority over me or power within me. I stand in unity with the Trinity and know that the victory promised in God’s Word is certain, no matter how long it takes to manifest here on earth.

This morning I see that the challenge the enemy made to my faith was the very thing I needed to declare my faith. Interesting how that worked….

The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?

The Curse On The Fruitless Fig Tree***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  I am thankful to be reminded that as a Christian we never arrive at a place of perfection in and of ourselves.  The pressure would be too great because failure in our flesh is inevitable.   I am thankful that I know the Lord and understand His rebukes as “loving training for reigning” at some future time.

When pride rears its ugly head, I can count on Him to let all the air out and bring me back to reality.  Today is one of those days. Rebuke may be a hard word for some but it conveys a sharp reprimand, or charge or admonishment and as a current day disciple of Christ, He has all authority as Master and Lord to rebuke, admonish, charge or reprimand me as He surveys my reaction to life challenges.

His words today bring conviction, “The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them”.

The back drop of this conversation has been a personal study on the account of the fig tree that withered in Matt 21:18-22 NKJV:

 “Now the morning as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves and said to it "Let no fruit grow on you ever again” Immediately the fig tree withered. .  And when the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither away so soon?"

So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to that fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea' , it will be done".  And whatever you ask in prayer believing you will receive."

 At the first pass through, this is such a powerful promise for answered prayer.  The question we all have is how can we have such confidence in our prayers?  When we read about the life of Christ, we learn He spend long hours in prayer.  I believe He was always asking the Father how to handle whatever crossed his path in any given day.  That is quite different than we pray most of the time.

He said that He only did what He saw the Father do and He only said what He heard the Father say.  I believe that their unity of purpose and method was the power behind the miraculous acts The Son of God executed while on earth.

With the Word telling us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but Divine, I see that this situation with the withered fig tree may be an example of that Divine weapon and is one of a spoken word.  Words can be and do bring blessing and also can be and do bring curses. This should open our eyes to the fact that Jesus called this fruitless fig to wither and then used it as a lesson on the power we possess.

My thoughts go running to all the evil around us.  Much can be gleaned from this account and lesson.  There are many things in life that this fruitless fig tree symbolically represents.  I think about the evil we are up against.  I think about all the "fruitless fig trees" there are.  Systems and organizations and people who look like it/they should offer nourishment or provide an expectation that betray the trust or fail to provide for the expectation they represent. We are facing off with dangerous deceptions as well as those things providing false hope.    

I believe that part of what grieves the heart of God is when His people see these "fruitless figs" and allow them to continue to flourish.  Jesus stopped his journey and cursed this tree that looked like it should provide an answer to a hunger.  He found it was nothing but good looking leaves when its function was to provide fruit to satisfy that hunger.

I begin making a mental list of all the fruitless figs I should and can call to wither.  But His rebuke stops me from saddling up my warrior horse and riding into the field of battle today.   More and deeper thoughts must be undertaken and shared with my Heavenly Counselor before I take up this Divine weapon in the battle.  

I take note that what stands in the way called "doubt" is also a word that means desert, withdraw, waver, hesitate and oppose.   It is an imperative that we move and operate under the ruling authority of the Holy Spirit when we undertake to “curse” what we interpret/discern to be a “fruitless fig tree”.

All our thoughts and actions as a Christian must be those of a servant of the Most High God.  We must never undertake a calling or action that contradicts the eternal purpose of our Lord and Savior.   

The Holy One has taken me to His Word and the Lord’s rebuke of the disciples when they asked if they should bring down fire upon those who rejected Him in Luke 9:55.  “But He turned and rebuked them and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  To discern we must have the counsel of the Holy One within.  Our only way of discerning the real difference between good and evil is to surrender our thoughts and feelings to the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth.

We are never to undertake the use of so powerful a weapon without the directive of the Lord.  He alone has the knowledge of how and when it is to be applied in the proper way.  And yes, I have seen some fruitless fig trees wither.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? 

  

   

For Such A Time As This?***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  We as a nation are in the lead up to another election of our President and legislative leaders.  We are placed at a crossroad and again being offered 2 choices each of which represents a world view, and a set of values upon which the candidates stand and promise to accordingly rule this nation. 

Professing Christians have an obligation and privilege to lend their vote in each and every great contest and yet fear or apathy seems to immobilize them. 

Politics is government and God has His eyes on the government of nations…all of them.  If God is interested in who governs His people shouldn’t we be interested as well?  He sees behind the scenes and has exposed much for us to consider in these epic and historical elections.  Even if we cannot know the "heart" of the candidate we can absolutely know the platform upon which they stand and intend to govern. 

History in governing shows us the truth about where the two parties stand and how each might go about enacting their agenda.  Day to day the political waters may get muddied, but the platform of each party does not change:  Law and order or chaos in the streets.  Protect the sanctity of life or support infanticide at any point in the development of a human.  The list goes on and the differences are clear cut.

Buyer beware of those who want to fundamentally change our nation and overturn and upend the foundation upon which our nation has stood for all these years. We are a democratic republic and one nation under God.  We are a different nation than any who have come and gone before. We are a blessed nation and must look to the One who has blessed us and then fight for what we have and how our founders under Divine guidance established the form of government that has protected it's citizens over the course of history and time.       

Sometimes the best way to assess and process where we are in our life and nation today, is to take a look back in scripture to learn how God made a way for Israel to survive and prosper even in their land of exile. The Holy Spirit takes me to the account and life of Esther who was elevated through interesting circumstance to become Queen of Persia.   

Queen Esther was living the life of royalty not by her own desire but by God’s Design.  In her position, she was not necessarily subject to the threat that had been leveled against her people, (the Jews) living in Persia, their land of exile, but she was given a huge role to play in their ultimate survival.   

Mordecai, Esther’s beloved uncle became aware of the threat and brought it to the Queen.  For sake of the symbolism and application of the lesson for our days and time, I will share it in today’s terms:   

An executive order written by an enemy of the God’s chosen people went out to all the states that they (God’s people) were to be destroyed, killed, annihilated: all of God’s chosen, both young and old, little children and women…and in one day to plunder their possessions….I.E. take their bank accounts, businesses, homes, properties ….The executive order was published and sent to all the provinces for execution of the order and for all the people in all the provinces to be ready for that day.

Confusion entered the faith community, for they had lived in peace with their neighbors and provided no reason for the genocide executive order.  There was great mourning among God’s people with fasting and weeping and wailing. 

I cannot speak for God in the matter of these elections, but I hear Him say to me: “For such a time as this”.   

When the Holy One speaks to my heart, there are times when He starts a sentence He wants me to finish and this is one of those times.  The book of Esther is recorded in the Old testament.  This is a testimony of God’s deliverance of His people orchestrated through the natural circumstances they were facing at the time. Esther was in a strategic position in history to influence the survival of the nation of Israel.  

To understand the character of our God, it is important to realize that He is a God of Precedents.  Precedents are revealed as His acts in the Old Testament days and through the Biblical history of Israel, that He will enact in like kind today.  Even the miracles that Jesus executed in the New Testament are available and act as precedents for us to ask for and even prayerfully expect in our lives today. 

Our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow…He never changes so things He did in days gone by, He can and will repeat in our days.

Back to the account of Esther and God’s people set up for destruction.  Esther fasted for 3 days along with the rest of her people in a petition for Divine favor from the King.    

Since the genocide executive order was sealed by the authority of the King, it could not be revoked or rescinded.  Favor came to Esther as the wicked plot was revealed to the King, and the King who loved Esther, offered the opportunity to write a new executive order whereby God’s people could defend themselves. 

The 2^nd edict (executive order) permitted Gods people to gather together and protect their lives thereby empowering them to fight against all who would assault them.  The “battle” ensued and the day that the enemies of God’s people had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred in that Gods people overpowered those who hated them….

We may ask ourselves why we have come to this in our nation?  In God’s economy, maybe it is to rally the troops and unify the Body against the threats that would silence our voices for years and years to come.  Perhaps this is a day like for Esther but as a citizen with a vote to cast and a stand to make.  Maybe we are here with feet on planet earth “for such a time as this”.   

I pray this is a precedent the Lord has provided us and intends to repeat in this our One Nation Under God "elections".  I pray this is our time to defeat the evil plot against us in the land.  I pray we will all gather together to defend ourselves and crush those whose agenda is for the destruction of our faith and our traditional Biblical values. 

I pray we might all see the great influence our vote may have on the survival of the church in America.  And I pray that we stand together in unity as “One nation under God”.  All for the glory of our Kingdom and our King.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? 

The Failing Church***

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. 

   

In the Character and Name of Jesus, authority has been delegated to us, not to the end of our glory but His.  I believe the Church can rebound if we will stop seeking “the power without the Person” and yield authority back to the Holy Spirit of Christ.

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?