Life in the Spirit

(Rom. 7:4-6, John 3:5-8, Rom. 6:4-11)

Are we walking by the Spirit?  Are we born of the Spirit?. No one can live a spiritual life without the Spirit of God.  Now we can get harsh with many who are spiritually immature but that reveals our own immaturity.  Mature love is patient and kind with the weakest among us.  Paul gave the example of not eating meat in the presence of one whose conscience was weak so that they would not be troubled by it.  He also knew how to deal with blasphemy and false teaching.  We grow as we go on with the Lord.

After many years, I understood that when we receive Him, when Jesus Christ is revealed to us and we agree to follow Him, the Holy Spirit comes alongside to help and takes a place in us.  Our spirit is joined to His.  That is what Paul expresses concerning the law.  We are then dead to outward attempts at pleasing God and truly alive to Him.  He is our Father and we become one of His children.  The law leads us to the Lamb of God who was crushed, ripped to shreds, for us all.  In the ministry of Jesus and His end as crucified before the eyes of man, God demonstrated that He was not looking for outward observances of religious practice.  He put an end to shadows and was bringing in the substance.  Remember, the veil of the old system was torn from the top to the bottom.  A tremendous transition was happening in the history of mankind.

God had determined that the days of Jesus of Nazareth would come at that moment which is called the fulness of times.  It was a time of spiritual deadness and the world’s darkest time when Jesus Christ died.  Fellowship with Christ brings us to a personal knowledge of this in our lives and the time that we live here.  We see the darkness in us and around us.  Peter encourages us to pay attention to Christ the rising star in us as we are aware of the darkness.  We are waking up to who we are by the Spirit, even a new creation.  As children we begin to learn to walk.  As we grow, we may hear the Lord say if you cannot keep up with the footmen, how will you run with the horses.  The Spirit will teach us to move quickly with the Lord.

These words are all about growth and learning to cooperate with the Spirit, with the Lord.  Without human wrangling over the understanding the Father, Son, and Spirit, remember the simple truth.  The Lord is the Spirit and where He is, one has liberty.  We are dead to the law, and free from any domination of our bad selves, so that we might walk in love.  We are enabled to live fruitful lives since we re united with Christ in resurrection.

His death was total and complete.  And His life is total and complete and in that Life is all that we need.  He has poured out His Spirit on all flesh.  That is being carried by His witnesses into every corner of the inhabited earth.  That work, the harvest of God, has been in clear process for 2000 years.  The battle continues to be for a refining and maturing of a people who are like Christ, the Lamb.  Review the meaning of that name for the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.  I heard a so-called renowned teacher referring to Him as a ram as if to display His horns and some mature strength.  That is not what I hear by the Spirit.  In contrast, that name “Lamb” is of a young, even little, lamb.  Rather, hear the humility of the One who said He is meek and lowly in heart.  That is the Spirit we are to live and walk by.  Continue to resist every religious spirit, and walk by the One who is eternal.

Our walk must be new every day.  If we are still trying to be new wineskins, we will never get there.  Yes we pursue spiritual realities but they are given.  Truth is found in the seeming contradictions of God.  When we are weak, we are strong.  We are dead to our flesh, and alive to God , all at the same time.  Eternal life.  It cannot be taught, but must be known.  We learn what it means to wait upon Him and allow the fresh dew of the Spirit to refresh our spirits to rise within.  It is like the mist that rose from the earth.  And now it flows from our innermost being as rivers of Living Water, His Spirit.  Let it flow unhindered.

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One Body

(Eph. 4:4,5,13-16, Isaiah 61, Heb. 1:1-3)

A few years ago, I saw a display in a Christian bookstore.  In large letters it read, “There is no B.C.”  I thought for a moment and understood.  Before Christ appeared in the flesh, the Spirit was speaking.  We recognize that Christ appeared to Moses in the manner of a burning bush and the voice Moses heard.  He appeared to all Israel in the wilderness as the rock that gushed water and the daily manna.  Well before that He appeared to Abraham as the three at the oaks of Mamre.  And He appeared as Melchizedek.  Those appearances were limited and part of the shadows expressed in the tabernacle.

Read and consider Isaiah and his words recorded for us.  I focused on chapter 61 but have pondered the final chapters from 60 through 66.  The pronouns switch and Jesus Himself turned to those words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”  He had known that truth for a long time but that day He went public.  As members of Christ, that same oil flows down on us.  I am speaking of the Spirit of the Lord and that we are His body.  Yet it flows as we are in the unity of the Spirit, the oneness that He has expressed in His Son, and the Son’s matured harmony with His Father.  The Son learned that harmony, or obedience, by allowing, or suffering, all the troubles God ordained in His life.  The same Spirit that spoke in and through Isaiah speaks today.  Now it is clearer and brighter and sharper for it is expressed through His Son.

We must hear the clearer, deeper, higher, more matured word which is in His Son.  In these days, God has spoken to the church through and in His Son.  Are we listening to Him?  I have often prayed for the Lord to tune my ear.  Many voices are heard over the entire world but are we hearing Him?  Are we in tune with Him?  Are we allowing Him to synchronize us?  Today I hear the word prophetic used so much, its significance has been diluted.  Far too much as been spoken as if from the Lord, but it falls to the ground.  And many are disillusioned.  And those who have spoken out of turn, have acknowledged it and some have then defended their ministry.  We are all learning but I hope we learn more quickly.

The truth expressed in Ephesians 4 is a message that is simple, eternal, and is basic to God’s purpose in His church.  For years I heard the desire to be a new testament church, a first century church.  But what is that?  What does it really mean?  Follow the pattern of those words.  Grow to see yourself as a prisoner of the Lord to be given to people.  Then allow our Father to send you to a few or many and pour you out,  It includes speaking truth as it is in Christ, always maintaining a gentle and humble spirit.  The goal of God is a unity expressed that the world will hate and deny, but will draw people to Christ.  The church will shine with the brightness of His appearing. And the kingdom will fully come.  That kingdom is heavenly and is untainted by the hands of man, and by this world, this present evil age.