The Promise Given on Ascension Day

Acts 1:4-9

And while they were gathered together,a He commanded them: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift the Father promised, which you have heard Me discuss. 5For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After He had said this, they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. (Berean Study Bible)

Today we have a writer appearing here for the first time. Shakeel Nurmahi. is an Anglican priest serving as Assistant Curate in the Oakham Team Ministry and also the host and producer for the Naujavan Podcast. His self-titled blog is subtitled Thoughts and Reflections from Ministry. Click the link which follows and read this where it first appeared.

Ascension Day: Waiting for the Holy Spirit

Today is Ascension Day. After we go through the lows and sadness of Good Friday we come to the elation of Easter Sunday. We then have this period of forty days when Jesus is alive and appears again and again to multiple people – speaking with them, teaching them, eating with them. At the end of this forty day period, Jesus blesses his disciples and he then ascends into the clouds and into heaven, just like in a fairy tale story. It’s like when the hero and the heroine defeat the bad guy and then sail away off into the sunset. Everything works out in the end. Happily ever after.

It sounds idyllic. Doesn’t it? We always love it in the story when the prince and princess can fall in love, get married and will then have their happily ever after. Like the story ends there. But there is something about this that doesn’t seem right. It can’t just all be ‘boom, save the day, married, happily ever after, and that’s the end.’ Are you telling me that the prince and princess went their whole honeymoon without a single fight…? Yeah right. There is more to the story.

You are probably thinking, Shakeel, what are you on about? What I want us to all to agree on is that happily ever after doesn’t cut it. There is more to the story. In the same way, there is more to the story of God after Jesus’ ascension. It some ways it’s the perfect ending. After Jesus dies, he comes back to life and ascends to heaven to return to sitting at the right hand of God the Father. It is the happily ever after. But there is more for the rest of the characters. Life carries on, and more importantly, the story of God and his people carries on.

Jesus tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait to be baptised with the Holy Spirit. Jesus says to them, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’^[1]

Jesus tells his disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit of God that after Jesus left came upon the first Christians at Pentecost and on all Christians ever since. It is the Spirit of God that now dwells in us as a result of what Jesus did on Easter Sunday.

Prior to Jesus, apart from a few prophets, God’s Spirit existed separately from the people in the temple. God’s Spirit dwelt in the Holy of Holies, this centre of the temple hidden away by a curtain from the people. It was this threshold that felt out of reach. It’s like how many people in church feel unable to go up to the high altar in a church. Some of you might feel that about approaching the high altar. Well, take that feeling and times it by a hundred. That is how distant the Spirit and presence of God felt from people. Yes, it was always there, but it was always distant and out of reach.

But that is no more. Jesus came to live among us as Emmanuel, God with us. Not God over there, sort of near us, but God with us. God in our hearts, God in our lives. And as Jesus returns to heaven, he says that this presence you have had of God being intimately close is going to continue. I am going to send the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to come and dwell in your hearts. Now get that straight for a second. The Spirit of God, which was always distant from the people, was now and forever going to be in the very people of God. God’s Spirit was no longer going to be distant from us, but it was going to be closer than the air we breathe. For all the followers of Jesus, for all the disciples of Jesus, God was now going to be living inside of you.

The coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples is incredible, but strictly speaking, that doesn’t happen on Ascension Day, but Pentecost, ten days later. On Ascension Day, the disciples are given the promise of the coming Holy Spirit and are told to wait for it. Obviously, today we have had that subsequent Pentecost happen and we are living as God’s Spirit-filled people. But I want us to consider what Ascension Day teaches us about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

First, on Ascension Day, Jesus told his disciples to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Wait for the Holy Spirit. Not just wait, as in watch the clock tick by, but wait as in wait with excitement and anticipation for God’s Spirit to come into your lives. This is the Ascension Day call to the first disciples, and it continues to us now. Are we waiting for the coming of God’s Holy Spirit with excitement and anticipation? To clarify, as Christians, we already have God’s Holy Spirit in us.

But my question is, are you excited about what the Holy Spirit is going to do in your life? Are you excited to hear God’s Spirit speak to you, to lead and guide you in life; to give you deeper faith and understanding of God? Are you trusting God’s Holy Spirit to fill you with the courage and words to share the good news of Jesus with those around you? This is what it looks like for us to wait expectantly for the coming of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Second, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will give us power. The Holy Spirit gives you power today. And it’s not reserved for those who you might deem ‘special’ or ‘holy’ but it’s for every Christian. But hold on, I don’t feel the Spidy-senses tingling or I can’t fly or run super-fast, or move stuff with my mind (telekinesis). So, what is this power and what is it for?

Jesus says to them, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’^[2] Jesus gives us the power to be his witnesses. A witness is someone who shares their story of what they have seen and heard. We are called to share our lives of faith, to share who God is and what God has done in our lives. I know this can feel scary, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed with fear about sharing your faith. It can be scary. What will people think? Will they treat me differently? But to our fears God gives us the power of his Holy Spirit to give us the courage and boldness to share our faith, and the right words to say.

Have you ever had a time when you shared your faith with someone else? And when you shared your faith, you didn’t know what to do or what to say, yet somehow you found the right words to say? That is the power of the Holy Spirit leading and guiding you, helping you share your story of faith. It’s great because when we feel unable to talk about God, God’s Spirit in us is able to talk about God, and the Holy Spirit will share our faith and give us the right words to say.

This is great in so many ways because it takes the pressure off us, because it’s not about us, but about God speaking through us. It helps me a lot when I am preaching. When I am writing my sermon, I often feel that I don’t know what to say. But then I say to God, ‘God, I trust that your Holy Spirit is with me and will guide what I will say. The Holy Spirit will help me say the right things today.’

I often come away from a sermon thinking, ‘oh that wasn’t very good today,’ but then someone comes up to me afterwards and tells me that God spoke to them with what I said. Well, it definitely wasn’t because I had anything clever or profound to say. It must be the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was speaking and working through me. I share about my faith and witness to God not in my own strength, but in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. And God will speak through you whether you think he can or can’t. Our job is not to have the right things to say, but to simply let God speak through us.

Third, Ascension Day reminds us that Jesus calls us to share our faith with the whole world. Jesus wants everyone to know about him. He wants everyone to know that God loves them and that Jesus died and rose again so that God could live in our hearts. It is the great gift of life, the reason we were created: for God to dwell with us and in us. It’s the greatest story in all of history and we are called to share it with everyone we can.

Ascension Day calls us to wait expectantly for God to speak through us. It calls us to trust that God will give us power to share our story of faith with everyone whom we meet. It reminds us that we don’t do it in our own strength but by the strength of the Holy Spirit working in us and helping us. We don’t need to worry about our own abilities, skills or talents, because God helps us do everything that he calls us to do. So, this Ascension Day, let us wait expectantly for the move and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives for the great witness of Jesus Christ.

God will speak through you whether you think he can or can’t. Our job is not to have the right things to say, but to simply let God speak through us.

---

^[1] Acts 1:8 [NRSV].
^[2] Acts 1:8 [NRSV].

Reeds Blowing in the Wind

Today we have a new author to introduce to C201 readers. The author is, I think, Alex Oram; the site is James1Seventeen. (I had to see what that verse was! It’s, “Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” NLT). Click the title below to read this at source.

Reeds into Rocks

I heard it on the radio one morning. I wish I could have gotten the name of the host giving the sermon / encouragement. He said, “Jesus can turn a reed into a rock.” I don’t think the point was that Jesus called Peter a rock, etc., or any of the implications that come with that line of thinking or teaching. Side note, on that particular story, this is the best explanation I’ve read, coming from the book, “A God Named Josh” by Jared Brock:

“Yehoshua (Jesus) uses this Petros-Petra combo for
a tidy wordplay pun in Matthew 16:18, saying, “And I
tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.”

The joke isn’t any good in English, but it works in
Greek. “You are Petros and on this petra I will build
my church.” Sadly, billions of Christians have not only
missed the joke but also the meaning of the
sentence. In fact, it might be the most widely
misunderstood verse in the entire Bible. Read the text
and context in Matthew 16:13-17. Nearly all the
ancient greats from Augustine to Ambrose to
Chrysostom to Jerome agree: Yehoshua is not
building his eternal church on a hothead fisherman or
the hard ground of Caesarea Philippi, but on the
bedrock foundational truth that Peter has just
expressed: Yehoshua is indeed the Christ, the Son of
the living God.”
-Jared Brock

As far as turning reeds into rocks, I do like the analogy. The language of reeds is not something Jesus is unfamiliar with using. He used it in telling who John the Baptist was and was not:

“And the messengers of John having departed, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: What did you go out into the desert to gaze on? A reed shaken and swayed by the wind?”
‭‭—Luke‬ ‭7‬:‭24‬ ‭AMPC‬‬

And now in a more obscure passage, pointing back to a prophecy out of the Book of Isaiah:

“A battered reed He will not break, And a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, Until He leads justice to victory.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭20‬ ‭AMP‬‬

What’s wild is the fact that Jesus does not deny the reality of reeds being broken. In this day and age of “You Do You,” “Upgrading,” and the worship of Self, as if we are naturally “good” and simply need to become “better,” Jesus comes to us as a Realist, showing us we are not simply reeds, swaying in whatever direction the wind blows, but also battered, bent, and broken to the core. But not without hope. Made for more.

Battered by the prince of the power of the air (Satan), bent by sin, sin’s effects, and sin’s stain, and broken… often by the world’s demands.

What’s comforting is that Jesus encountered many a battered reeds. I like the rendering of this passage that the Amp Classic translation uses. “A battered reed He will not break.” Jesus didn’t come to kick a man down. But when he “saw a man down, he put a hand down,” as someone recently told me, and encouraged me to always do.

We see it in the Samaritan story Jesus tells. “See a man down, put a hand down.” And the part about the smoldering wick? This is fire. I’m a millennial, that’s what we sometimes say when referring to an amazing thing. He will not quench a smoldering wick. He will not come to douse our barely burning fire with water but to stir it up again, igniting it all over. So is the Spirit of God trying to get your attention today? I have never known Him to overstep His bounds.

He pursues.

Those circumstances are not “coincidences.”

Jesus is the Name above every other Name.

Come to Him. He will not reject you!

 

---

Christianity 201 has no product to sell you, no Patreon to ask you to join, and collects no referral fees from other websites. It’s a free gift to you, and has been for 14 years. Enjoy!

What it Means to “Sow to the Spirit”

My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same. – Job 4:8 NLT

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! – Romans 6:21 NIV

Sometimes in the rush to translate scriptures into more reader-friendly forms, we can lose the context of what the writer is saying. When Paul talks about “sowing to the flesh” and “sowing to the spirit” we can try to make that understandable, but can forget that in the overall passage, the Apostle Paul is using agricultural imagery.

We have readers here who are new to Christianity, or new to the Bible, so here’s the contrasting image — sowing to the flesh — from the key verses below in two other translations:

Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. (verse 8a; NLT; notice the image of harvesting is preserved)

If you plant in the field of your natural desires, from it you will gather the harvest of death. (verse 8a, GNT; notice the use of planting instead of sowing)

Hope that helps. Now on to the devotional itself.

Today we are again highlighting the writing of Bernie Lyle who writes at Musings from an Idle Mind. Clicking the title which follows allows you to read this at its original site.

Sowing to the Spirit

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭7‬-‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The days are increasingly evil. The prevailing tendency of humanity is to sow to the flesh; performing deeds, not or the benefit of others, but advancement of self. There is little concern for the law of sowing and reaping, for many have long lost the ability to consider the ultimate spiritual consequences of our actions. The natural man sees only what gives him pleasure and personal gain.

The eternal being; one who has thoughtfulness regarding the longterm consequences of life; is aware of the cost and takes actions that serve to glorify the lord they know that. This is especially true of those who are in the household of faith. Christians know that they are a part of something far greater, for they are part of the household of faith, and all that is done in the body affects everyone. The air.

We are entering a time when the church of Jesus Christ will be dependent upon itself, for the world will turn away, becoming an adversary.

Even now there those who are struggling as the world that surrounds them reflects the prince and power of air. Yet it is crucial that all be like the early believers just beyond Pentecost.

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭2‬:‭42‬-‭45‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The world we live in consumed with the idea of sowing to self, laying aside the commandments and mission that the Lord has given us; instead seeking to created ones own comfort. The things that we allow to consume us that lend themselves to the flesh; ultimately become corrupted.

Brothers and sisters, we are not receiving that which is perishable, but that which is enduring and eternal. All that we did for the glory of God will not perish, and ultimately builds the body. Let us be mindful to do all that we do for the eternal, making sure we do good for all, for we are all called to the mission of sharing the gospel.

Let us also do good to those in the household of faith, for there will be no help from the world. Do not be weary in doing good, for the Lord has great blessings for many who meet the needs of the weak among us.

May we walk as those who are filled with the Spirit of God; demonstrating and abundance of fruit.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭22‬-‭26‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

 

The Gospel of Jesus Before the Resurrection

…and other topics!

After the arrest of John, Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. “The time is fulfilled,” He said, “and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!” – Mark 1:14-15 NIV

After a one-year break, we’re back again with author, and speaker Ethan Renoe and this time around, he’s taking questions from his readers. Treat each of these as a separate section, but there are some connections.

Can God Dwell Among Sin? (and other questions)

Question: Are we missing out on the fullness of the Gospel? If the irreducible minimum of the gospel is Christ’s crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension, what also is the Gospel that Jesus was preaching when He’s speaking in Mark 1:14-15 since none of those things have happened yet? How does the Kingdom of God and the personhood of Jesus factor into a potentially more robust view of the Good News?

Answer: I have had this exact question for a while, especially connected to the story a few chapters later, when Jesus tells the demon possessed man to go tell about Him in the Decapolis. Like, what is he supposed to tell? That he was demon possessed and now he’s not? That’s it? If nothing else, it’s a good imperative to share your own testimony, since that’s about all that dude had to share! He didn’t know about the crucifixion or resurrection yet. Maybe he would later? Or maybe the gospel can be just as simple as it needs to be, and God will use it.

After all, Jesus tells a lot of ‘seed’ parables, does He not? Maybe during this period we could also say that it was a unique moment where the presence of Jesus WAS the kingdom of God as well, so where He went, the kingdom went too. Part of His mission was also to tell people, in the words of N.T Wright, How God Became King. And the King is here.

Question: If God had to deal with sin on the cross through Jesus because He can’t be in the presence of it, how does that account for Jesus’ ability to exist among the presence of sin while being in humanity?

Answer: I know a lot of theologians would argue with the language here: It’s a misnomer that ‘God can’t be in the presence of sin.’ I think it’s more like, ‘sin can’t be in the presence of God.’ Think about God like a light and sin like a shadow. What is the shadow going to do? Fight back against the light? No, a shadow is instantly obliterated in the presence of light. It’s made up of non-substance.

But Jesus’ incarnation (the kenosis) is the self-emptying of His God-ness, probably so that He WOULDN’T obliterate sinful humans when He lived among them. Remember, He was fully human as well as fully God.

Question: Jesus as the New Moses – what are the parallels? How does the life of Moses prophetically point to the coming of Christ? How is Christ that fulfillment?

Answer: This is primarily focused on in Matthew, which is by a Jew, to Jews (Now why would that be…..?). Matthew highlights so many cool typological things in Jesus’ life that we see in Moses: Both were in Egypt as babies, both were born during an infanticide, Jesus was placed in a trough, Moses in a basket, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, Moses spent 40 years, Moses led 12 tribes, Jesus led 12 disciples, both were princes who left positions of power (political/divine).

I’m sure there are a lot more if we looked into it, those are just all the ones I remember on the top of my head! Among other things, it points to Jesus as the next prophet who ‘could speak to God face-to-face, as one speaks to a friend,’ and liberate people: Moses liberated the Israelites and Jesus liberates all humans.

Question: How and where do we see the Holy Spirit at work in the OT? What’s its presence as a thread from the beginning to the end of all scripture?

Answer: Well that’s another interesting one. We have to remember to refer to the Spirit in personal terms, not impersonal though. But of course, this is hard because Father and Son are more masculine pronouns, while the Spirit is compared to both genders (though maybe more feminine). The problem is, we don’t have a unisex singular pronoun.

Anyway, we see the Spirit in the second verse of the Bible (or the first, if you consider Genesis 1:1 just a title or introduction, which some scholars do.)

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:2 NIV

The Spirit is there, hovering over the waters, calling the unformed chaos to life. I did a whole sermon just on this verse because it’s so fascinating, which you can watch here.

The first person in the Bible filled with the Spirit is the crafter of the Tabernacle (Bezalel, I think? Going from memory here haha). This shows that the Spirit loves and encourages creativity, and friends of YHWH should be creative.

Several others are filled with the Spirit all throughout the Old Testament, but this filling is always temporary–a big change that comes in the New Testament.

The NT also describes Scripture as being written as men were carried along by the Spirit. Of course, the ‘scripture’ referred to at that time was just the OT, since that’s all the scripture they had until the NT was ratified a few centuries later.

The NT describes many ways the Spirit moves, or functions He serves: Connecting us to Christ and the Father, acting as a deposit until the resurrection, speaking through us, leading us, guiding us, etc.

And in the future, there is this cool image we see in Revelation 21, of the Spirit proceeding as a river from the throne of God. This is the word most often used to positionally describe the Spirit in the Trinity. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son, in this image of water. What does water do? It sustains and nurtures and cleans and is our source of life. The first image of the Spirit involves water, and so does the last one.

Insensitivity and Over-Sensitivity

We’re back again with Mark DuPré who is an associate pastor, a film professor, a writer and a musician. He lives in Rochester, New York. Like us, he posts daily and if you’re looking for some consistent new scriptural input, this is a blog to check out. For today’s article where it first appeared, click the in the title which follows.

“Don’t Be So Sensitive”

Psalm 119:165 Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble [or shall offend them–KJV].

I Corinthians 13:4-5 Love suffers long and is kind….does not seek its own, is not provoked, [emphasis mine], thinks no evil….

Proverbs 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.

Ephesians 4:2-3 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

To a sensitive person, to hear the words of the title of today’s devotional can be frustrating beyond words. To tell someone not to be sensitive is too general, and is like telling a person not to be themselves. A sensitive person will likely always be sensitive. And that’s not the issue. The issue is what they are sensitive to.

If they are overly sensitive to slights, that’s a problem. The answer, however, is not to develop a thicker skin. That only temporarily protects a person against pain while stopping the Spirit of God from working to change a person. The question is why the person finds certain things so painful. Perhaps they have a wound from the past that needs healing. That may need prayer and counseling. Perhaps they have a pride problem that prevents them from receiving correction, even when it comes to them in a good spirit. In these cases, the sensitivity is similar to a physical sensitivity to pain, and it needs attention and healing in the same way.

What ultimately needs to happen with sensitivity is transformation and redirection. Instead of being focused on what people do or on words that hurt, we need to move our focus and our sensitivities to the words that God speaks, to what His Spirit is saying to us, and to God Himself. We need to become increasingly sensitive to His wonderful Person and His amazing promises. Our sensitivities should permit us to receive more fully of His grace, and to luxuriate more deeply in the wonders of His love. It’s OK to be sensitive to other issues as long as our sensitivity to God is greater.

Sensitivity is a gift from God. It’s painful at times, especially in the early stages when we feel slights and pains so deeply. But God’s goal is never to rob us of our sensitivity. It’s to rob us of our tendency to take offense, or to take things so personally. His goal is not to cover over or deny our sensitivity. It’s to open it more fully to every aspect of God and His word that we can receive.

We should never think of sensitivity itself as a negative. It can start that way, but God intends it as a positive trait that eventually causes us to see Him in ways we might never have imagined.

Prayer for the Sensitive Soul: Father, transform my sensitivity from one that sees the negative and takes offense to one that is poised to see Your grace, love and truth.

Prayer for the Non-sensitive Soul: Father, help me not to judge the sensitive, but to appreciate what You’ve given them. Use me to help them use this gift for their blessing and edification.

---

Bonus link: Check out another article by Mark, The Challenge of the Familiar.

Don’t Extinguish the Holy Spirit’s Fire

1 Thess 5:19

• Do not quench the Spirit.  NIV
  
• Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.  NLT
  
• Do not extinguish the Spirit.   BSB
  
• Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.  ISV
  

Today we return again to the blog By Leaps and Bounds which is an outreach of Arise Ministries, which is based in West Virginia. The author of today’s thoughts is Toney Cox who is a pastor in West Virginia.

Spirit Extinguishers

Fire extinguishers are popular tools. In fact, did you know that the most popular type of fire extinguisher sold by the industry today is the Class A extinguisher, which accounts for 41.8% of total sales; in total volume, more than 18.8 million Class A fire extinguishers are sold globally each year (Safety Now, 2021)? Closely related, did you know that 147,000 fires within commercial structures are handled through the use of a fire extinguisher annually without the fire department being notified (Safety Now, 2021)? It is safe to say that the modern fire extinguisher is readily available to be both handy and helpful in most facilities of American life.

The concept of a fire extinguisher is a simplistic one; inside the extinguisher is either air-compressed water, foam, dry chemicals, or various combinations of fire suppressants designed to be released with the expressed purpose of extinguishing a fire. While the design and technique of use can be more adequately detailed by a fire professional, the purpose of the product is purely to extinguish a fire.

While fire extinguishers are helpful and undeniably handy in our society, not all fires are intended to be extinguished. For instance, a person would not desire their campfire to be extinguished as he or she is about to roast marshmallows. Likewise, if a person works hard to chop wood and then build a relaxing fire in the fireplace preparing for a cozy winter evening, he or she would not welcome the extinguishing efforts of the fire extinguisher. The point is pronounced; not all fires are intended to be extinguished.

Understandably, there is a relatable concept of this imagery within scripture; the apostle Paul exhorts believers to avoid extinguishing the Spirit as he says, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Talking in context about the moving of the Spirit in the community gathering of the believers, Paul advises that Christians must avoid putting out the moving of God. This can be truthfully interpreted as the Greek word for quench in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 is defined as, extinguish. In other words, Paul says do not extinguish the Spirit.

The moving of the Holy Spirit is most assuredly a fire that God does not intend to be extinguished. This is a reoccurring theme for Paul; he proceeds forward in the following verse saying do not despise prophecies (1 Thessalonians 5:20), he says to the Corinthians to not forbid speaking in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:39), and he encourages all believers to eagerly desire spiritual gifts especially prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:1). Paul straightforwardly says do not extinguish the Spirit; rather, welcome and allow the Spirit to move.

Yet, there remains much phobia in the church world concerning the gifts of the Spirit, the moving of God in display and power, dynamic worship, as well as God performing miracles in faith and prayer. There is much, as it has been coined by others, charisphobia, in the church world. Many believers grab the Spirit extinguishers and quickly extinguish any resemblance of a fire. However, this is opposite of what God tells us through the apostle Paul.

It is unfortunately true that many extinguish the Spirit; many believers quickly run to grab the Spirit extinguisher based upon fear, ignorance, church tradition, a lack of love, or even a lack of invitation; it is something that is not taught in the traditional denominations, so many who have traditional church in their history or family are fearful of what they do not understand.

Others grab the Spirit extinguisher over a misunderstanding of scripture; many incorrectly assume that the gifts of the Spirit have ceased on the earth. Some cling to a misappropriation of scripture claiming that Paul teaches that the gifts would cease or that the gifts cause chaos (1 Corinthians 13:10; 1 Corinthians 14:40).

However, the contextual point from Paul in Corinthians is not anathematizing or avoiding the gifts in Corinth; Paul is teaching that they must be manifested out of love, sincerity, control, order, honor, and with the desire to minister to other people. Further, 1 Corinthians 13:10 teaches that the gifts will cease when the church is collectively in heaven with Christ, not on the Earth.

Yes, it is true that the gifts are to be controlled in a positive manner by the human agent; however, they are not to be extinguished. There are, in fact, guidelines taught by Paul in which the gifts should be limited. Yet, in a simultaneous fashion Paul encourages the desire and usage of the gifts. On this poignant point Author Ben Witherington states, “Paul is correcting abuses of various gifts, but to correct abuse of a gift is not to rule out its proper use” (Witherington, 1995).

Order, structure, love, and ministry-centric mentalities are the instructions in 1 Corinthians on how to manifest the gifts of the Spirit. Gifts of the Spirit are manifested, in order to bless the body of Christ, and to bring hope to a world in need! The gifts were being abused in Corinth, and Paul pushed back against those abuses. Tongues were out of order, and everyone had a prophecy. People were, apparently, over running each other with his or her moment in the church charismatic spotlight. To this Paul firmly replies, stop it. Yet, he never says to extinguish the Spirit.

Remaining in the contextual facts of 1 Corinthians and not deviating into the realm of opinion or doctrine, believers today who practice the gifts of the Spirit are to follow the clear ambitions of Paul when he instructs to control the gifts in such a fashion where people can receive good from them. Gifts of the Spirit should never be used to hurt people or cause harm in the church. True. However, do not extinguish the Spirit.

Contrary to traditional church teaching, the gifts are available to all believers who believe and desire when a study of 1 Corinthians is performed in an unbiased format. The grace of the Holy Spirit operates his gifts through human vessels of high or low social status, in order to heal, deliver, set free, and in order to uplift others! Stop extinguishing the Spirit, and allow God to heal people, give direction, speak to the church, give prophecies, operate in the discerning of spirits, and set people free!

Tracy Hartman states concerning the gifts and the moving of the Spirit, “I love how God chose to gift us as believers. God knew that we would need a variety of gifts to accomplish God’s mission” (Hartman, 2017). This comment dives straightway to the heart of the matter; the gifts taught by Paul are to expand God’s mission by ministering to people! The Spirit is all about ministry in the grace of Christ. Believers must let the Spirit work! Allow the Holy Spirit to work through you as a vessel of grace! Paul would say to the church today, put away the Spirit extinguishers as the fire of the Spirit was never intended by God to be put out.

How do we avoid the Spirit extinguishers and allow him to move?

1.     Ask and desire to be used as a vessel. Invite. Humility. (1 Cor 14:1; 1 Cor 12:31).

2.     Refuse to despise prophecy (1 Thess 5:20).

3.     Read the Bible in proper context and put aside traditional views (2 Tim 2:15).

4.     Reject tradition. Tradition extinguishes the moving of the Spirit (Mark 7:13).

5.     Keep order and use the gifts of the Spirit for edification (1 Cor 14:40; 1 Cor 14:12).

6.     Use discernment and ensure that it is the Holy Spirit in operation (1 Thess 5:21-22).

7.     Operate in love toward others. A lack of love will extinguish the Spirit (1 Cor 13:1).

---

Hartman, T. (2017). “A sermon for Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12,” Review & 

Expositor, 114 no 2. http://0-eds.b.ebscohost.com.library.acaweb.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&sid=656af19b-1107-46d3-b3e1-0dda90c8b92f%40sessionmgr

Safety Now ILT. (2021). Fire extinguisher – Stats and facts. https://ilt.safetynow.com/fire-

extinguisher-stats-and-facts/Witherington, B. (1995). Conflict and community in Corinth: A socio-rhetorical commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. W. B. Erdmans Publishing Co.,

Fresh Content

In my files I have handwritten sermon outlines from a lifetime spent in church. Sometimes the value of saving those notes for years or decades is evident, but other times, as I read through a couple of pages written on the backs of church bulletins, I have no idea what it was about that message that captivated me so much and caused me to write such copious notes.

Fortunately that doesn’t happen here as often, though there are times I look at old blog posts and ask myself, ‘What was I thinking?’

Having grown up in the age of television, where summer means mysteries and sitcoms are on ‘repeats’ and the best series will live on in ‘syndication,’ I have no doubt that some things are worth repeating, either for the purpose of watching twice, or allowing those who missed them the first time to watch for the first time. Today, ‘streaming’ and ‘binge-watching’ is now part of our vocabulary as means whereby you can enjoy content that has already aired somewhere previously.

What’s God’s opinion on repeats?

If you’ve ever been in church when a pastor has dusted off an older sermon, you can sometimes tell it wasn’t written with the previous week in view. You just know. Although the message is scriptural, and the principles are timeless, it doesn’t address the current cultural moment. It has a certain staleness to it.

When we repeat articles here, even the best ones might see assorted edits here and there as I attempt to bring the ideas I had at first into the current iteration.

Lamentations 3:22-23 reads,

The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. (NLT)

Each day is a fresh start with what some call “new morning mercies.” The God who invites us to sing a new song to him invites us to declare his works in a new way to anyone who will listen, and to experience his power in the same way.

An older worship chorus begins, “Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.” It’s a request for God’s spirit to meet us in new ways, new places, at new times, in new ways. It is sometimes termed, “a fresh wind of the spirit.”

Sometimes you will hear a testimony, and it’s clear the person is describing an encounter with God that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far away. There’s nothing immediate about the narrative. I think there should be a rule that a verbal testimony has to include some indication of what God has been doing in your life in the past few days, weeks and months. How that first experience of salvation — as important as it was — manifests itself in your daily life today.

For those of us who write or distribute content online, or through an in-person teaching ministry, we have to understand that it’s the fresh manna that nourishes. In the event that someone reading this doesn’t know what I would call the manna principle, here’s the reference:

. . . in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.’ ” The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less.

But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed. And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.”

Exodus 16:13-19 (NRSV)

The manna didn’t keep. One needed to gather fresh manna the next day.

Similarly, those who preach, teach, write, etc. cannot distribute yesterday’s manna. There are some great resources here that are worth a second look, but most days, unless I have been kept from doing so by an unexpected delay, copy-and-paste won’t do.

I have to ask what the passage or principle has to say to us today, with the unique challenges of our times; our generation. If I decide it was simply really, really good and needs to be said again, I will provide a different introduction or a reflection on why I feel that the message needs to be said again.

Peter’s Pentecost Preaching

Our title is similar to the author’s title, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration.

Today we’re flashing back a few days to Pentecost Sunday. Last year at this time we introduced you to Andy Brown, who lives in the  UK, and has been a lay preacher at a church there for over a decade. You may read this on his blog, at andy-brown.org by clicking the link in the title below. (Note WEB refers to the World English Bible, one of the many English translations at Bible Gateway.)

Peter Preaches

[Sunday] was Pentecost Sunday and I shared some thoughts on Acts 2 and the coming of the Holy Spirit. You can read that post here or even watch the video version on my Facebook page – Andy Brown on Facebook .

Acts 2 is a fairly lengthy chapter, so I won’t include the entire text in this post. Today I want to focus on Peter’s sermon which he gave to the crowd after they saw the results of the coming of the Holy Spirit. You can find the full text of Peter’s message here – Acts 2:14-41.

The Sermon

Seeing the Apostles so moved by the Holy Spirit, and hearing them speak in all manner of different languages, the crowd accuse them of drunkenness. It would be quite some drink that allowed them all to speak in various languages, but let’s not get distracted!

Peter stands up and begins to speak. It is a powerful word with conviction of the Holy Spirit behind it. What does he say?

Peter points out that what they are seeing is nothing to do with alcohol, especially given the time of the morning, but instead goes straight to the Old Testament Scriptures.

But this is what has been spoken through the prophet Joel:

Acts 2:16 (WEB)

This is interesting to me, as my expectation might have been to use the Hebrew Scriptures to a primarily Jewish audience. We know from the same passage though that there were many different nations and tongues present on the day of Pentecost. In our evangelism, we might choose not to be too Bible-heavy, quoting Scriptures and pointing our biblical texts, thinking those outside of the church may not respond to it. This is a mistake! People are saved by hearing the Word of truth!

having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever.

1 Peter 1:23 (WEB)

So we see Peter is right to quote the Scripture, and we should too.

Peter shows them that what they are seeing is the fulfillment of prophecies given long ago in the Old Testament. Joel speaks of the “last days” that God would pour out His Spirit freely, and various spiritual gifts would be displayed. What this audience is seeing in the disciples behaviour, is the release of that promise. We will read later that those who came to Christ as a result were also in receipt of the Holy Spirit and too displayed these gifts.

May I also point out that if those were the “last days,” then we, two thousand years later, live in even later days. Christ is coming, sooner or later, He will return. Every one of us must be ready for that hour.

Peter then goes on and sets out the truth of the Gospel of Christ.

Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know,

Acts 2:22 (WEB)

He tells them that they know of Jesus, what wonders and miracles He did among them, and yet was delivered up to be crucified. Peter shows them that this was the plan from the beginning, yet those who did this wicked thing were lawless men. He tells them that death was not able to hold Him in the grave, and that He rose to newness of life.

Peter again draws on the Old Testament, and particularly cites Scriptures of King David. He explains to his hearers that David could not have been speaking of himself, because they knew precisely where David’s tomb was in that very day. Peter shows them that David was a prophet, and was pointing to the Christ who would come after him, and that was Jesus.

Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Acts 2:36 (WEB)

The Response

How do they respond to this sermon preached at Pentecost?

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:37-38 (WEB)

Peter’s words are wonderful, but only the conviction of the Holy Spirit can bring about such a response.

They immediately know that what Peter has said is true. They knew of Jesus, and the miracles He worked among them, and yet they knew that He had been executed without cause. What can we do! They cry out in fear, knowing they hold some part of the guilt.

Peter tells them to repent, to change their ways and their minds and to be baptized in he Name of Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. They must submit to Jesus, giving their lives over to Him and receiving the forgiveness that His death brought about. If they do, then they too will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit just as the disciples have done.

In closing, we read:

With many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”

Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls.

Acts 2:40-41 (WEB)

With many other words Peter convinced them, and I do wonder what those words might have been. What we do know though is that many turned to Christ that day. Verse 41 says that three thousand were added to their number! Amazing!

And this was just the beginning…

Pentecost Sunday: The Comforter Has Come

“Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.) – John 7:39

In Churches around the world, today was Pentecost Sunday. It was already a feast given by God through Moses. In the Second Covenant it took on new meaning.

We often associate Pentecost Sunday with the passage in I Corinthians which speaks of spiritual gifts; the passage in Acts which speaks about the giving of the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Spirit, and today’s topic, the Holy Spirit as advocate or counselor.

by Ruth Wilkinson

This has not been a great week where we live.

First, there was a devastating fire that shut down the only grocery store in a small town. The residents and government of Colborne have been scrambling to make arrangements to get groceries to people who have no transportation to another municipality.

Second, we heard of the tragic accident that took the life of a local child in Baltimore, Ontario. Those families and neighbours are struggling to deal with what has happened, to process the loss, and to try to see what tomorrow even looks like.

Plus (and maybe this is just me, so take it for what it’s worth) right now our own downtown is ‘dressed’ as the set and scenery for a Stephen King movie being filmed here. And every time I walk those blocks, seeing the (albeit fictional) “missing child” posters plastered all over the place–those posters speak to me of darkness, because we do live in a world where children suffer.

This Sunday we call Pentecost Sunday. It’s the day each year when churches around the world celebrate the fulfillment of Jesus promise that, when he had been taken from sight, he would send to the apostles an Advocate, a Comforter, a Counselor–the Holy Spirit. Most often, we focus on the passage in the book of Acts that describes the Spirit’s arrival–the experience of Jesus’ followers who received the Spirit that would empower them to carry Christ’s message into the earth.

But with the way this week has gone, I find I’m drawn to a different passage that connects to Pentecost. In John’s gospel, chapter 14 verses 16-18, at his final meal with his followers Jesus says,

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter to be with you forever–the Spirit of truth. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you… The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you.”

When Jesus speaks of comfort, he’s not talking about the warm-and-fuzzy hugs kind of comfort, although that is sometimes exactly what we need for a time. He’s speaking, rather, of the comfort that comes from hearing the truth and knowing that it’s spoken by one who loves us and has things in hand.

Truth spoken to us about ourselves and our worth. Truth spoken to us about the One who made us and who died to give us full life in his re-created world. Truth about what he is doing, and the part we have the opportunity to play.

Truth spoken by the Holy Spirit who, for every believer in and follower of Christ, is the indwelling voice and power that reminds us of who we are and whose we are.

---

Ruth Wilkinson is a pastor in Ontario and is married to Paul Wilkinson who edits Christianity 201. As a result, she appears here frequently.

Don’t Quench the Spirit’s Candle

Today we’re featuring a website for the first time. It’s title is GazeUp Arts: Messages of Hope. According to their About page, “Gaze up arts is a prophetic arts ministry focused on speaking the heart of God through artistic creations to encourage and guide people around the world.” Encourage the authors by clicking the titles which follow to read these devotionals where they first appeared.

Do not quench the Spirit

Prov.20.27 – The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

We are reminded that we all have a “candle” (our spirit man) that we carry around with us. That candle is the potential we have in us to receive the light and warmth of the Lord. It carries our faith and our hope. When we stay in faith, we allow ourselves to experience the Lord’s light: His guidance and His joy. In times like this, we keep aware that the Lord is there to be our teacher, to enlighten us.

The image of God gives us confidence. On this battlefield of life, we serve under a brilliant Military Strategist who does not see us as expendable but who wants to keep us protected. Meanwhile, He is helping us to advance, to move forward.

We remain confident in God for His directions towards the path to His Light.

We mustn’t keep our faith and hope in God to ourselves but rather we must share with those whose “candles” (spirits) have been put off by the kingdom of darkness. That is, these people’s spirits have no flame on them.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”~Matt.18.20

We are edified when we move in the company of Spirit-filled people.

The Word of God gives life to man and causes us to see and deal properly with those dark areas of our hearts.

Through salvation, the Life and Light of Christ flood our hearts by grace, through our faith in Him, we become His hands to help, His feet to go, His heart to love, and His Light to shine forth His Life in our human frame.

Job.32.8 – But there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

Beloved, let your spirit be lit up with the Flame (The Holy Spirit) of the Lord.

Ps.18.28 – For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

Your spirit has no flame to keep it burning until you’ve received the Holy Spirit.

In all you do, as long as you live, let the Spirit of God be the flame of your spirit.

No matter the number of trials and tribulations you face, let the Holy Spirit be your spirit’s flame.

Of course, the devil will want to mess with you, but never blow out the Flame of your spirit with your words or actions.

The Bible says, “Quench not the Spirit”. 1Thess.5.19

Just like a candle stick, till you take your last breath, let the Spirit of God be your Flame!

---

Second Helping: From the same website… You may have noticed that using a visual arts perspective, the image of quenching a candle fits perfectly the closing verse from 1 Thessalonians. In today’s bonus link, the writers visualize trusting God as taking hold of his hand. There are illustrations that go with these two articles so make sure you click through.

Why you need to take hold of God’s hands

Beloved,

As a child of God and the apple of His eyes, You need to know that you’re not alone in that ”storm”.

Jesus has been with you from the start but you’ve never noticed.

You’re not at peace with yourself because you think you can conquer that battle all by yourself with your feeble strength.

He’s waiting patiently for you to take hold of His outstretched hands.

Take hold of His hand and with His divine leadership, you will get to the other side as a conqueror.

In Romans 12:12, the apostle Paul describes ways of living above our circumstances, no matter what we may be facing. He says: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

As followers of Christ, we are never without hope. We know that even if our circumstances seem negative now, brighter days are up ahead for us. Why? Because God is a good God, and His love for us is everlasting and unfailing.

The psalmist wrote: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 42:11). When our hope is in the Lord and His goodness, we will experience the supernatural joy that is our inheritance in Christ.

Take hold of God’s hand.

Let Him order your steps to the destination He had planned for you.

Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure”.

Proverbs 20:24 says, “Man’s steps are ordered by the Lord. How then can a man understand his way?”

When God directs your paths, He sometimes leads you in ways that don’t make sense to you so you’re not always going to understand everything.

If you try to reason out everything, you will experience struggle, confusion, and misery—but there is a better way.

“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind, and do not rely on your insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths “.(Proverbs 3:5-6)

This sounds so simple, yet too many people make the mistake of trying to figure everything out themselves. You may have spent all your life trying to take care of yourself, but when you accept Christ as your Savior, you must learn to entrust your life to His care. When you do, you can say with the psalmist, …I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, You are my God. My times are in Your hands…(Psalm 31:14-15).

Beloved, the Lord wants you to take hold of His outstretched hands and let Him lead you to where you need to be in your life.

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

 

When You Seek Christ, Abundant Life Will Follow

Today we return one more time — the eighth, I think — to highlight Brothers of the Book, written by Bill Hood. Click the title which follows to read this where it first appeared.

Deuteronomy 4

Jesus’ promise of life more abundant can be had only when we put on His character.

My mind constantly returns to a specific phrase of scripture spoken by Christ:

John 10:10 ESV
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Christ also said:

Matthew 5:17-20 ESV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

He follows these words by telling us that the law says murder is wrong but He says if you harbor anger in your heart you are also guilty of murder.  He states further that while the law says adultery is wrong, the man who lusts after another woman is also guilty of adultery.

Now we all know that we needed the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ because we were unable to perfectly obey the law and yet Jesus is telling us that He is holding us to an even higher standard.  How can that be?

In today’s reading, Moses tells the people:

Deuteronomy 4:1 ESV
“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 4:9 ESV
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children”

God loves you and has promised you a land, a place of abundant life.  Obeying Him and His commandments is the key to possessing this promised land.  You can’t obey Him in your own power, however, which is why He sent Jesus Christ to die for you.  Having accepted the cleansing of sin through the shed blood of Jesus Christ we can obey the commandments of God because He has sent us His Holy Spirit to live within us, guiding us, and teaching us, and molding us into the character and mind of Christ.  It is only by putting on the character of Christ that we can obey God.  The mind of Christ was placed completely under the authority of God.  He didn’t come for himself but for others.

You want to know how to put on the mind of Christ? Stop thinking about yourself, deny yourself and do what He did; sacrifice your desires for the will of God.  It is in His character that you can obey.  It is in His character that you can have an abundant life.  His commands are not onerous; they are life enhancing!

God wants you to have a joyful, abundant life that can only be had by putting on the mind and character of Christ.  Doing so leads to, among other things, the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  How great would your life be if you had just that list of blessings alone?

Beyond all of that, God clearly intends for us to teach all of this to our children that it might go well for us.  If you want to do something meaningful, and eternal, teach your family the Word of God.  This following passage pretty much makes the point I’m attempting to make

Deuteronomy 4:35-40 ESV
“To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.  Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.  

And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.  

Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

God let you hear His voice out of the midst of the fire.  He brought you out of slavery to sin.  He has driven out evil before you and is bringing you to a land flowing with milk and honey.  Lay it on your heart that the Lord is God of heaven above and the earth beneath; there is no other.  As Pastor Jim Cross has said from the pulpit; “Make Jesus King of your life.”

We can nod our head in agreement that we should obey God.  We can praise God in thankfulness that He has forgiven us of our sins; but we need to surrender ourselves to our King and put on His character that we may enjoy the fullness of His blessings.  Make up your mind right now.  Are you king or is Jesus King?  You can’t have it both ways.

Let’s do that guys!  Let’s make God King of our lives!  Put on the mind of Christ and Obey!

Victorem Viver! (Live Victorious!)

Your brother and servant in Christ,
Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Rejoicing in the Holy Spirit

Yesterday I was conversing with someone about the contrast between the simplicity of the Good News — so simple that a child can understand it — and the complexity of scripture — so intricate that even back in Bible times John was able to write,

Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. (21:25 NLT)

Imagine what he would say in a post-printing-press world if he saw all the doctrinal and theological commentaries which have been written since.

Each time you read the Bible there is something new waiting for you that you’ve not noticed before. If you migrate between translations this happens more frequently, a word or phrase suddenly strikes you and have to simply stop reading and think about it.

Eight years ago, while reading Michael Card’s book, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement (IVP), I was struck by  Lk. 10:21. The NCV is one of many translations that uses the phrasing I chose for today’s post title:

²¹ Then Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the people who are wise and smart. But you have shown them to those who are like little children. Yes, Father, this is what you really wanted.

The NIV uses

 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said…

Although this is not one of the ‘trinitarian’ verses in scripture, the Holy Spirit is mentioned. If like me, the phrasing was unfamiliar to you, perhaps you were raised on the KJV which omits this:

²¹ In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said…

but the phrase hagios pneuma is there.

The occasion is the return of the 70 (or 72) from their mission trip and report that demons were subject to them. Jesus’ full prayer is:

My Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I am grateful that you hid all this from wise and educated people and showed it to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that is what pleased you.

My Father has given me everything, and he is the only one who knows the Son. The only one who really knows the Father is the Son. But the Son wants to tell others about the Father, so that they can know him too.  (CEB)

So while the verse isn’t, you can see that this passage actually is expressing all three persons of the Trinity.

Card points out that this missionary report is much different than when The Twelve were sent on a similar journey:

We are not told if the first mission of The Twelve was successful or not, but the failures that surround them before and after their first mission are not cause for hope.

We also know from Luke 9:49 there was confusion when they (the disciples) went out on their own:

“Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.” (NIV)

So to return to our key verse, Jesus rejoices in the report of the larger group. Matthew Henry takes particular note of the phrase “in that hour;”

It was fit that particular notice should be taken of that hour, because there were so few such, for he was a man of sorrows. In that hour in which he saw Satan fall, and heard of the good success of his ministers, in that hour he rejoiced. Note, nothing rejoices the heart of the Lord Jesus so much as the progress of the gospel, and its getting ground of Satan, by the conversion of souls to Christ. Christ’s joy was a solid substantial joy, an inward joy: he rejoiced in spirit; but his joy, like deep waters, made no noise; it was a joy that a stranger did not intermeddle with. Before he applied himself to thank his Father, he stirred up himself to rejoice; for, as thankful praise is the genuine language of holy joy, so holy joy is the root and spring of thankful praise.

Henry’s phrase in the last sentence, “he stirred up himself” is interesting, because he was working from the KJV, which we’ve noted omits the reference to the Holy Spirit. Still, it is interesting to consider Henry’s wording. What did it mean that Jesus stirred up himself? I would like to spend more time on this phrasing, however…

What is the application to us? The IVP New Testament Commentary notes:

The theme of rejoicing continues as Jesus turns back to the disciples and blesses them. They should feel happy and honored because they are seeing things that the prophets and kings longed to see (1 Pet 1:10-12). This passage emphasizes that what Jesus is doing is what the saints of the Old Testament had hoped to see. Many great saints of the old era did not get to experience the blessing, but Jesus’ disciples are blessed to be a part of this new era. The statement recalls 7:28: the lowest person in the kingdom is higher than the greatest prophet of the old era.

Sometimes we think how great it would have been to see Moses perform miracles before Pharaoh or watch Elijah defeat the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. Jesus says that the situation is in fact the exact reverse—they long to see what we experience, because to know God and life through Jesus is what they had wished to experience all along. In effect, Jesus says, “Count your blessings, for they are many and have been desired for centuries.”

That ought to make us rejoice in the Holy Spirit.

 

Remembering Jack Hayford

Only one other time in the history of C201 have we repeated an article in our quotations series. With the passing last month of Jack Hayford I decided to repeat this, which first appeared in 2014. Many in the Hollywood community attended his church; one you might know is Stormie Omartian, author of the The Power of a Praying… series, who went to Church on the Way with her husband Michael. If I start naming names, however…

I know some of you prefer the articles to the quotations, so here’s an excerpt from a longer piece by him in 2005 to get you started:

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ~~ 2 Peter 2:4-5

The living God dwells where His people worship, and life happens where He dwells. It is my conviction, therefore, that the life-flow of a church congregation will rise only as high as their worship of the Godhead. We cannot underestimate the importance of teaching the Word of God, but the Word itself reveals that worship is what the Christian Church is all about.

The book of Ephesians says that we who trust in Christ are to be “to the praise of His glory” (1:12), “built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (2:22). Peter describes the people of God as “living stones . . . being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5). Each member of the Body is a part of the temple of the Lord, summoned to be a “living stone” of His dwelling.

God is looking for a place to dwell. We know of nowhere else in the universe except earth where God is not praised or welcomed. In the words of Jesus Himself, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). During His ministry, Jesus had no home. When He was born, there was no room at the inn (Luke 2:7). In one sense, this is just an interesting analogy, but in another, it is a dramatic demonstration of the fact that God has a hard time finding a place to be on this planet.

In order for the foundation of our “spiritual house” to be firmly established, it is important that we understand the biblical grounds for worship. These derive from the saga of loss and recovery of humankind’s fellowship with the Almighty God…

He then continues to list six stages of this saga; to read the complete article click here.

For the rest of you, here are some quotations from CrossQuotes.org:

---

I don’t perceive my call as one to protest the culture but to proclaim the Savior.

---

God gives grace to sinners and glory to saints.

---

The inevitable fruit of vital worship will be a transformed people who become transforming instruments of God’s grace and deliverance to the world.

---

Worship , in a very real sense of the word, opens a doorway to the power of His presence, confounding dark powers and overthrowing sin’s destructive operations.

---

Worship is about encounter– coming into God’s presence.

---

Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped.

---

Worship , in a very real sense of the word, opens a doorway to the power of His presence, confounding dark powers and overthrowing sin’s destructive operations.

---

God will crush the obstacles in your life if you will follow in His way.

---

Revival is going to come because somebody in your generation is willing to pay the price.

---

As leaders today, we must be warned of our common vulnerability to being distracted by the abundance of “enhancements” available to ministry today. We can become mesmerized by the array of church cosmetics for helping our church look better. “Makeup” isn’t evil, but it’s no substitute for leading believers to “take up” the disciple’s cross and be shaped as His true followers. We’re within frightening reach of being able to grow bigger churches while failing to grow bigger people.

---

The greatest tool of evangelism when it comes to loved ones is to be genuinely loving and friendly to them without the taint of manipulation. …Winning people to Christ is not conquering them or verifying yourself. It is about showing so much of Jesus that they cannot resist Him.

---

The power of the fast is found in the abject humility of people who desire the Lord’s way in their lives more than the bread that sustains their physical bodies. Fasting is an announcement the soul makes that the body will not rule over it, and it declares there will be no relief until the issues set before God are resolved in spirit.

---

The issue of faith is never founded on our ability to “move the mountain,” but faith in the Mountain maker. Visualizing a victory or working up a “feeling” of faith is a pathetic human attempt to get something to happen. Real faith lays hold of the Faith-giver (Eph. 2:8), who holds all power for every need, and trusts Him to answer our prayer as He promised He would do.

---

The Greek word for boldness, parhesia, means “outspoken, unreserved utterance, freedom of speech, frankness, candor, cheerful courage, the opposite of cowardice.” Here, it is divine enablement that comes to ordinary people exhibiting spiritual power and authority. Parhesia is not a human quality, but a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

---

Just one person would have made the difference! God sought that person. How many situations are there today, in our world, where the Lord is looking for just one person to stem the tide of sin’s hideous destruction? He is not looking for a perfect person, just one who will stand before Him on behalf of the people who cannot stand for themselves.

---

Our greatest victories are rarely won in an instant, but in the morning-by-morning application of His truth and power which overthrows the strongholds of darkness in our world and secures His purpose in us.

---

All successful, spiritual enterprise is based upon clear understanding of the forces which oppose us and direction for dealing with these influences. The carnal mind is unfit for spiritual warfare. Our natural human perception can at best only lead us to the doorway of understanding and never through it.

---

We know that if we call on the Lord He will answer. Often, however, our expectations are too small, and we ask based on what we know is possible. But He is the God of the impossible! The Lord sees the situation from every side and has a bigger plan than any of us dream. He did not choose us to do small things.

---

The Bible is…as necessary to spiritual life as breath is to natural life. There is nothing more essential to our lives than the Word of God.

---

---

Jack Hayford elsewhere at Christianity 201:

• Spiritual War: Rules of Engagement (Sept 1/2011)
• Interceding Specifically (Oct 21/2011)

On the Subject of Revival

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will show forth Your praise. For You desire not sacrifice; else would I give it. You delight not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:15-17)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting  (Psalm 139:24, NIV).

I try to keep posts here as timeless as possible, but as I write this, we’re approaching the two-week mark of what’s been called the Asbury Revival, or Asbury Outpouring, which took place on the campus of university of the same name. Because of the unique qualities of what’s happened there, I’m not sure if revival is the right word at all, but after some discussion here, we’ve decided that there might not be a word to describe it accurately.

I decided to see when and where the subject of revival has occurred here over the years. (Links are internal, original source links may still work from those items. For the sake of flow, I’ve left out author names here.)

An element of revival is confession, or consecration, or re-consecration. So a foundational scripture to begin with is:

“And He said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. – Luke 9:23 NKJV

Another recurring verse in the last two weeks has been:

If my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. – 2 Chronicles 7:14 NET

Some describe these types of experiences as “a taste of heaven.” This article puts that into perspective:

I remember a professor quoting one of the early revivalists who said if he could give people a minute of hell, he would never have to convince them to repent. My sarcastic comment was, “but what if we could give them a glance of heaven?”

Sarcastically said then, but I’ve thought of the wisdom of it – how can we give people a taste of heaven? How can we help them know the joys of which we should sing? That which is “beyond” theology, that which defies our explanation?

How can we show them the holiness, the glory, the pure love that we will experience in heaven? How can we help them experience love beyond love, as radical as the day is from the darkest, stormiest night?

The present event taking place in Kentucky as I write this, is not something that was planned or organized. Any structure around the campus had to be put in place on the run. I don’t think that five minutes before it started anyone knew what was going to happen. This article refers specifically to preaching and the event which took place was more music-driven but I believe it applies, and even goes so far as to suggest that leadership might even be reluctant to step into what begins to happen, using the example of Jonah.

The only one qualified to preach … is the one who wants to run the other way, like Jonah. … The man who sighs and groans when called upon to speak, who does not want to be there, who feels terribly uncomfortable … is the man out of whose mouth the word of true preaching is most likely to come.

Jonah is often criticized for desire to find an escape route — though evangelizing the Ninevites was a formidable challenge — but scripture is replete with examples of those we could call “reluctant prophets.” A mentor of mine once said, “those in leadership are often surprised to find themselves there.”

Some have said that the current revival isn’t a true revival until it permeates the broader culture; until it works it way into society as a whole. This article alludes to that:

Only a profound revival of biblical influence into our culture will save us from the devastating consequences of rampant, moral impurity. Critical to that will be strong, godly marriages and faithful churches committed to teaching and living the whole counsel of God. We desperately need to put on the whole armor of God, holding firmly the shield of faith to protect us from every flaming missile hurled at us. Sorely needed are prophetic voices warning of the consequences of moral impurity, and a multitude of saints demonstrating what it looks like.

This leads to a subject which has been discussed in our home a few times in the last two weeks. There’s a desire that’s part of human nature to want to contain the event within the four walls it’s taking place; to “keep it going;” and do so in the absence of being, to use King James language, “sent forth.” This article, from a writer we use here quite often shows us that Peter, James and John had the same idea on the mountain where Jesus was transformed — Biblical language: transfiguration — and perhaps thereby missed the point:

When Jesus was transfigured on the mountaintop with appearances of Elijah and Moses, the disciples beheld the glory and jumped to a conclusion. We need to build a shrine here and perpetuate this experience.

Our first response to miracles, revival and signs might be to presume a plan to perpetuate, that which would most benefit our experience.

Widely agreed on is the premise that revival begins with personal confession. It starts with each individual; this one, that one, etc. There can’t be a mass event without change taking place at the personal level; we each stand before God on our own and will someday stand before him alone. This article defined this and the quotation selected shows why perhaps it sometimes doesn’t happen:

Repentance leads to restoration and when the need to repent is realized by many it may even lead to spiritual revival. God is sovereign and will punish those who disregard his holiness. Speaking through Isaiah the LORD said, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” (Isa 66:2) Unfortunately, current presentations of God’s grace and mercy have brought God to the familial human level and have engendered the absence of sorrow, regret, or contrition for acts that are offensive to our holy and sovereign God.

This article repeats that:

‘Revival’ is always connected to repentance. Whether it’s people coming to faith for the first time, or believers having the low-burning embers of their faith fanned into flame once again, repentance unto a holy life is normal.

And also this article:

The revivals of the past did not start on a stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people, but it started in a private place with one, two or a few people praying and humbling themselves before God — people who were passionately seeking the face of God and desiring Him to move in their lives in a real and powerful way.

The same writer also talked about the shaking aspects of revival. I found this interesting because the event taking place as I type this has been very tame and orderly by comparison to what some people expect.

[T]hings can get wild and woolly during times of revival. The Holy Spirit is poured out in ways that go beyond ‘typical’ — the ‘omni’ presence of God becomes the ‘manifest’ presence — and there are a wide range of responses from people.

Some sin will be stirred up by the Enemy, trying his darndest to discredit what the Spirit is doing. And the critics of renewal movements delight in pointing this out, as if the presence of sinful activity ‘proves’ that God is not involved.

And some sin will be stirred up by the presence of the Holy Spirit, so it can be dealt with…

Don’t miss that line: The omnipresence becomes the manifest presence. At the revival in question, people have reported instantly feeling something (to say it unspecified) or instantly feeling the presence of God (to say it specifically).

Also widely agreed on is that the time for this is ripe, as this article reminds us:

Sin is spreading faster now than ever before and it’s almost mind-boggling to see how far into it people are daring to go. The world is filled with anger and deluded with a hate for the things of God. Yet, for the Christians—that is the born-again, Spirit-filled believers in Jesus—it’s a time of redemption and revival because we know that Jesus is about to return. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.—Luke 21:28

Will it last? I don’t mean the revival event itself, but what has begun in the hearts and lives of the people who were touched by what happened at that campus and is now taking place at other locations around the world? Will that last? This article quotes a classic writer (italics added):

Why is it that hundreds of well-meaning Christians attend conventions and conferences for the deepening of the spiritual life, enjoy the ministry there given, return to life’s vocations with a feeling of improvement, yet speedily lapse into their former ways of backsliding and defeat?  There are many reasons, but one of the least noted is the matter of incomplete consecration, the sin of broken vows.  Too many Christians make a bargain with God and fail to pay their part of the price.  This is sin.

Seems fitting to end with this video. It’s a 10-minute song so sit back and enjoy. (It starts slow, but picks up, so hang in there!)

---

On the weekend I wrote an article comparing the Asbury Revival to the story told in the movie The Jesus Revolution which releases this weekend in North America. If you’re interested in seeing that at Thinking Out Loud, click this link.

Accusation and Conviction Arrive on Parallel Tracks

^{NLT Ps. 51:3} For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.

^{KJV Ps. 51:3} For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

^{ESV Revelation 12:10} And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

^{NIV I Thess. 1:4} For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵ because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.

^{NIV I Tim. 3:16} All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…

Sometimes you just know when you’ve messed up.  You need neither the devil’s accusation nor the Holy Spirit’s conviction. It’s black and white. You missed the mark. You weren’t even aiming for the target. You recognize that the border between the righteousness and holiness that people in your church think you live out, and the propensity to sin of weaker brothers is a border only micro-millimeters thick.

How did I think that? What made me say that? Why did I look at her/him the way I did? Why did I charge that customer for two hours’ labor when I did the job in one? Why did I click on that website? Where did that anger come from when they mentioned that person’s name? Why did I say I’d be there when I have no intention of attending?

Yikes! I’m no different than anyone else! Here I thought — and everybody else thought — that I was super spiritual, when in fact I’m … human.

That’s the moment to confess.

This is often referred to as “keeping short accounts with God.” 

The blog Amazing Grace Bible Studies explains:

…let’s consider the phrase as it is used in accounting acumen. To keep your accounts payable on a “short basis” simply means to keep them “paid up”, or rather, not to let them become extended. An example of this would be to pay off your credit card balance every month.

In the spiritual sense, when looking at the theology that prescribes this practice, it always refers to confession of sin(s) (the equivalent of a liability or debt in accounting terms), and requesting to be forgiven of sins on a daily basis.1 When you hear believers say that they are “prayed up” this invariably means that they’ve got all their sins “confessed up.”

Rick Warren adds,

“Clean hands” simply means a clear conscious. Does that mean we’re perfect? No. None of us is perfect. But we can keep short accounts with God. 1 John 1:9 (TLB) says, “But if we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.” So when we sin, we just say, “God, I was wrong. I confess it.” There is no power without a clear conscience.

Classic writer A. B. Simpson wrote:

It is a good thing to keep short accounts with God. I was very much struck some years ago with an interpretation of the verse: So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God (Romans 14:12). The thought it conveys is that of accounting to God daily. For us judgment is passed as we lay down on our pillows each night. This is surely the true way to live. It is the secret of great peace. It will be a delightful comfort when life is closing or at the Master’s coming, to know that our account is settled and our judgment over. For us, then, there is only the waiting to hear the glad Well done, good and faithful servant; . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord (Matthew 25:21).

But sometimes we feel a sense of a nagging in our heads and hearts either because (a) we haven’t confessed yet, or (b) we have but something about our sin is such that our brain won’t let go of it — or at least that would be a superficial explanation to what is going on.

But what’s really going one?  In either case above, it has to be either:

• the conviction of the Holy Spirit (or you might read the I Thess. passage above as ‘the conviction of the gospel’ or in I Tim., the rebuke of God’s Word); or,
• the accusation of Satan who is described (in the Rev. passage above) as the accuser of the brethren (and, as some translations add, the sistren.) (Yes, I know that’s not a word.)

Conviction or accusation?

So when you find yourself in the situation of unconfessed sin, or of sin you feel you did indeed confess, then is what you are experiencing conviction or accusation?

Does it really matter?

No, I mean that question. We looked at a tough passage a few days ago where David took the census, and the two Old Testaments account differed in terms of whether the idea for David to do this came from Satan or from God.  Theologians still aren’t sure; the jury is still out on how to interpret this passage.

So here’s what I think. And remember this is just one guy’s opinion.

I believe that, to use a train analogy, sometimes conviction and accusation arrive on parallel tracks. Both will lead you in the same direction. One is very negative: “So I guess we’re not so spiritual after all, are we?” But the other comes from a heart of love, “Let’s get that confessed, so that we can spend the rest of the day walking in grace and forgiveness.”

One will beat you over the head. Actually, you don’t need to be a Christ-follower to have that experience. All humans have some degree of guilt-reflex.

But the other will free you, provided you act on that conviction, confess and move on.

---

If you’re keeping score, this is post #4,700 at Christianity 201.