Tag: Holy Spirit

God’s Promise to Perfect His Strength in Our Weakness

Matthew 22:37
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

To love God with all of our heart, soul and mind requires that all of our physical strength and all of our intellect and understanding be fully engaged in turning all of our affections toward our heavenly Father. May we always be mindful that God provided His Son to die for our sins because we can not measure up to this command from Almighty God. We simply do not have the capacity, except through Christ in us, to love God to the extent that our love consumes our whole heart, soul and mind.

We should also be mindful that God is completely aware of our weakness. He provides His Holy Spirit to dwell within us to guide us along our path of sanctification. The Holy Spirit will not rest when we depart from making God the love above all loves in our lives. The Holy Spirit will not accept us living with one foot in God’s kingdom and one foot in the world. It is all or nothing with the Holy Spirit. The good news is that the Holy Spirit’s job is to follow through on God’s promise to perfect His strength in our weakness.

Let us, who have no virtue or value without the work of salvation in our lives, allow ourselves to be overtaken by the overwhelming love of Christ in our lives. Let us become vessels of His perfect love and forgiveness.

Let us, who fall far short of loving Our Lord with all of our hearts, all of our souls and all of our minds, surrender to the urgings of the Holy Spirit. Let us be consumed by His pentecostal fire.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the mercy and the endless grace that You provide to each of us. We bless the name of Jesus who allows us to fulfill the law that we cannot fulfill on our own. Help us, Lord, to be keenly aware of the urgings of the Holy Spirit. Help us to humbly accept the corrections that the Holy Spirit is asking us to make in our lives. We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will take us to the high places that can only be reached when our hearts are fully consumed by Your love. We ask all these things in the name of the Exalted One, Jesus Christ.

The Process of Understanding and Assimilating What God Has Prepared for Us

John 16:12
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

Almighty God has created each of us to fulfill a unique need in His kingdom. His plan for our lives is much, much bigger than anything that we have ever imagined. We are just not ready to take it all in. Our flesh simply gets in the way with what the Holy Spirit has to teach us. And of course, for many of us, we dig our own holes which makes the process even harder. Nonetheless, for those that have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, His spirit will provide our strength where we are weak.

Even the apostles were not ready to receive and understand all the teachings of Jesus. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, their flesh simply could not handle what was going to be revealed to them in the spirit. It was only after Pentecost that the apostles were able to boldly proclaim the full gospel.

What a wonderful transformation when the Holy Spirit opens our minds to receive and understand the things that made no sense to us or had no value for us before. In the blink of an eye, our blinders are removed. Without even being cognizant of the process, we begin to assimilate truths that had been unavailable to us before. Then, just as suddenly we are able to share them with those who have been prepared to receive them.

Let us prepare our hearts to receive all that the Holy Spirit has for us. Let us fulfill the plans that Almighty God has created us to fulfill. Let us become all that God has created us to be.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the Wonderful Counselor that You have provided to guide and instruct us. We humbly ask that You prepare us to receive all that the Holy Spirit has to teach us. May we become willing vessels, ready to take on the fullness of Your living water. We pray that we will be eager to have the living water pass through us to bring life and enlightenment to those around us. We ask all these things in the name of the Living Water, Jesus Christ.

Standing for Christ When Challenged

John 16:32
Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.

The apostles and disciples of Jesus scattered as He began His journey to the Cross. They returned to their homes and their old jobs. Their faith was real, but without the Holy Spirit they were not strong enough to stand against those that were persecuting their Master. They left Jesus to stand alone. Fortunately for us, Jesus did not stand alone as the Father remained with Him and provided Him with all He needed to accept His place on the Cross.

Jesus calls us from different times and places in our lives, just as the apostles were called. At some point in time, we will all be called to stand up for our faith. In today’s anti-Christian environment, this challenge is more real than any of us could have ever imagined that it could be. Will we scatter to our old lives when the trials of persecution, the trials of trouble or perhaps the trials of political correctness challenge us? Or will we surrender all to Our Savior?

The answer lies in Jesus Christ and has nothing to do with our own strength, capability nor merit. We must recognize our weakness. If we think we can stand against the world, especially against the enemy, we will certainly fall. We must recognize how weak we are and take our brokenness – all our wounds, all our frailties, all our fears – to Our Savior. We must allow His goodness, His love, His mercy and His kindness to become the essence of our lives. If we accept His free gift of love and life and surrender to Him, we will never stand alone against what the world tosses our way.

Let us stand our ground as the world tries to get us to accept changes that are directly against the Word of God. Let us call on the Holy Spirit to provide the strength that we need. Let us rejoice for we never stand alone.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that we have been called to follow Your Son. We exalt the name of Jesus who gained victory over all sin and all evil on our behalf. We praise His precious name as He stands forever by our sides. We pray, Father, that we may have the wisdom and the strength to recognize and face our brokenness. We ask that the Holy Spirit guide us in surrendering everything to Jesus. As we are challenged by the darkness of the world, my we call on the name of Jesus to stand up for our beliefs. We beseech You, Lord, to complete Your work in us so that we have the courage and the faith to choose Your Kingdom and defend it against the world. We ask all these things in the name of the One who gives grace to the humble, Jesus Christ.

The Endless Flow of the Love of God

1 John 4:16
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

God is love. His love is unconditional and without end. His love for us is expressed explicitly through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. His love for us is reinforced daily by the counsel of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Through His love, Almighty God gives us an unfailing hope for our future. Let us not lose sight of the truth that our hope for our future is so much more than how we feel about our future or what the world tells us about our future. Our hope rests upon a very special love gift from God. Our hope is built upon the Good News of God for the world that He loves us so much that He gave us His Son so that we may have eternal life.

Through His love, Almighty God also gives us His Holy Spirit to stand by us, to give us the strength to bear all things that come against us and the spiritual maturity to endure all the tribulations that make up life on this earth. His grace is poured out on us in this manner so that we may overcome the world.

Most importantly, Almighty God created a spot in our hearts so that we could receive His love and return it to Him. He gave us the capacity to share His love with the world around us. He gave us the Holy Spirit so that our love could be an endless spring. When we are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit within us, we are capable of extraordinary service to those around us. By returning our love to the Father through our service to those around us, we become living testimonies of His perfect love.

Let us prepare our hearts to become vessels of God’s perfect love and forgiveness. Let us show the world His love through our compassionate sharing of the love He has given us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us unconditionally. We thank You that Your love flows to us endlessly. Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may become vessels of Your perfect love. Cleanse us, Lord, of anything in our hearts that would restrict the flow of Your love in our lives. May we bear much fruit for Your kingdom through the spontaneous release of Your love to the world around us. We pray, Father, that the world will be drawn to Your Son when they see Your love at work in us. We ask all these things in the name of the One who delights in our steadfast love, Jesus Christ.

The Enduring Spiritual Endowments Received Through Our Savior

Isaiah 11:2
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

In this passage, Isaiah was prophesying of the nature of our coming Savior. The scripture foretold that Jesus would be given extraordinary endowments through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Because we are indwelled by Jesus Christ when we accept Him as Our Savior, we inherit these same wondrous endowments for ourselves. The inheritance that we receive is not temporary or occasional. It is a permanent and enduring influence on our lives.

With our inheritance, we receive three pairs of spiritual influences to assist us in being holy, pure and wise. Each pairing is made up of a spiritual gift and the resulting impact of that gift in our lives:
1) We are provided wisdom from which comes the understanding to perceive moral and intellectual truths.
2) We are provided counsel from which comes the might that gives us the direction and the power that we need to carry out the plans that emerge from our spiritual insight.
3) We are provided knowledge from which comes the fear of the Lord which establishes the foundation of our relationship with the one true God, Our Father in heaven.

Let us be mindful of all the gifts that Christ made available for us when He died on the Cross. Let us seek the fullness of the Spirit of the Lord to overwhelm us each day. Let us use our gifts to produce great fruit for the Kingdom of Almighty God and bring honor and glory to Our Savior.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the wondrous nature that You have given us in Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray that the fullness of the Holy Spirit will rest upon us. We seek Your wisdom so that we may have understanding in all matters. We seek your counsel that we may become mighty warriors for Your kingdom. We ask, Lord, that You inspire us to take the knowledge that we have of You and turn it into a reverent awe that changes how we live every moment of our lives. We ask all these things in the name of the One who gives power to the faint and might to those without strength, Jesus Christ.

The Power of the Holy Spirit in Our Lives

Acts 9:17
So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And in an instant, Paul not only received his physical sight, he also received the filling of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he received wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge of God and a holy reverence for God. All of these gifts came on him at once. His vision of who He was in Christ, along with all of its associated power, served to allow him to replace the evil man that he had become with the new, righteous man that he was to become.

From this passage, we learn that for those of us who have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior that we become new men and women in Christ, just as the sinner and prosecutor of the early church, Saul, became the new man Paul. As new men and women in Christ, the Holy Spirit is given to us to reveal the lies of this world. The power of the Holy Spirit within us allows us to become new creatures who proclaim the Good News and serve as conduits of God’s love.

But do not miss the second message of this passage. There would have been no conversion for Paul without the obedience of Ananias to got out and deliver the message of God, even though He questioned the righteousness of the one that he was called to minister to. We must be careful not to withhold the message of hope from anyone because we feel they are not worthy.

Let us make ourselves seekers of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let us learn to overcome the world through the power of Our Wonderful Counselor. Let us make ourselves deliverers of the truth to others who God places around us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the anointing that we receive as disciples of Jesus Christ. We pray that You will open our eyes to the things of the world that are creating ignorance and pride in our lives so that we may turn away from them. We ask that You release the gifts of the Holy Spirit into our lives so that we may see the vision that You have for our lives and be empowered to go out as messengers of hope in the world that surrounds us. We pray that our hearts are prepared to view every person as worthy to receive the Good News that we possess. We ask all these things in the name of the One who rescues those whose spirits are crushed, Jesus Christ.

God Perfects His Strength in Our Weakness

Matthew 26:56
But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophet might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left him and fled.

When the time of testing comes in our lives, where will we stand? Will we stand on the promises of Jesus or will we try to stand on our own strength and capability? Scripture reveals to us that we will be just like the apostles if we rely on our own strength.

The men who had lived with Jesus for three years, sat under His teaching and witnessed all the signs and wonders of His ministry abandoned Him in His time of trial and their time of testing. How could this happen? It is the weakness of the flesh that failed the disciples. They did not yet have the strength of the Holy Spirit to overcome their weaknesses. What a dramatic difference the Holy Spirit made in their lives. After their baptism of the Holy Spirit, all of the apostles boldly proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ. All but one, John, died as a martyr while sharing the salvation plan.

We can be sure that in the flesh we are no stronger than the apostles. If we try to live by the flesh without calling on the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us, we will fail in following Our Savior. Thankfully, God promises us in His Holy Word that He will perfect His strength in our weakness if we abide in Him. He secures this promise through His Holy Spirit who continuously stands with us so that we will not fail in the times of our testing.

Let us be strong when the world tries to weaken us. Let us be bold when the world tries to shut us down. Let us stand on the promises of Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have provided Your Wonderful Counselor to be with us, to guide us and to strengthen us in our weaknesses. We proclaim our weakness before You, Lord. We ask forgiveness for straying from You. We boldly claim Your promise to perfect Your strength in our weakness as we surrender to Your reign in our lives. We ask all these things in the name of the One who gives grace to the humble, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our Manifest Destiny in Christ

Isaiah 52:12
For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

As the glorious Easter celebration approaches, our thoughts are likely to turn toward a new path ahead in our lives. Let us not rush out to make decisions. Let us move forward toward our new path, not in a disorderly fashion, but under the leading hand, instruction and protection of the Holy Spirit.

Let us move on to our new path knowing that God will be with us. Through His Son, His Holy Spirit has been sent to guide us. Under submission to Our Savior, we can let loose of the things of this earth and grasp on to the things of God’s kingdom. We can shake ourselves from the dust of our doubts and our fears. Our victory was settled on the Cross. May the presence of the Lord be constantly before us and behind us.

Let us live each day knowing that the Lord Jesus reigns in our lives. Let us live in the fullness of the good tidings that came in with His birth and move ahead confidently under the promises of His death and Resurrection. Let us place our futures firmly in His hand. Let us live today in freedom, in peace and in service to His calling on our lives. Let us move forward boldly into our manifest destiny in Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your constant presence in our lives. We thank You that You go before us to prepare our path forward and that You stand behind us to protect us on our journey. We bless the name of Jesus whose victory on the Cross allows us to live our lives without fears or doubts. We pray that the Holy Spirt will guide us as we seek the new lives that You have set aside for us. May those around us in the world be drawn to Your Son as they see us living our lives under His reign. We ask all these things in the name of our ever present shield, Jesus Christ.

The Saving Work of the Cross

John 3:30
He must increase, but I must decrease.

John the Baptist had the perfect understanding of His relationship with Jesus Christ. He knew that he was a sinful man who was created, prepared and sent to show the way for the One from Above who was coming to save the world. He understood that he had no power and that all the power belonged to Jesus. Most importantly, John was completely satisfied with his place and the work assigned to him.

From the life of John the Baptist we get a great model for bringing others to salvation. It is our job to bring others to Christ. It is not our job to save them. The saving work of the Cross will be done by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We also learn from the words of John the Baptist the model for our spiritual maturation. We must increase our life in Christ as we allow our life in the flesh to decrease. We must allow our new man to rise and our old man to die. We do not lay down what we are called to do in the flesh, but instead come in complete harmony with the work of the beloved One who dwells within us.

Let us free ourselves from the idea that our job is to save others. Let us introduce others to Jesus and let them see the impact of His presence in our lives so that they are drawn to Him. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of those around us so that they will be open to receiving their Savior King, Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Holy Word which lays out the models for our lives through the lives of Your servants spoken of in the Bible. Help us, Lord, to understand the depth of the teachings that come from each of Your precious servants. Open our eyes, Lord, so that we may surrender our lives completely to Your Son, Jesus. Help us, Lord, to live our lives in such a way that others are drawn to Your Son. As we give up our lives in the flesh for our lives in Christ, bring others to us to be introduced to Jesus. May our living testimonies affect the world. We pray that we see many around us surrender their lives to the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. We ask all of these things in the name of Our Divine Deliver, Jesus Christ.

As if Christ Himself is Speaking to Us

Luke 24:32
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

Two men walking on the road to Emmaus were met by Jesus, who accompanied them on the journey and joined them in their discussions about the recent events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. They did not recognize Him, but marveled in His knowledge of the events. Later Jesus revealed Himself to the men, resulting in their realization of how stirring that His words had been earlier.

The Scriptures can be a sealed book. The very identity of Jesus Christ and His salvation message can be hidden from us. The power and the truth are unveiled only through Jesus Christ. With Christ as Our Savior, we receive the words in Scripture as if Christ Himself is speaking them to us.

To aid us in our study of the Bible, we are joined in each reading by the Holy Spirit who directs us to focus on Jesus. The Holy Spirit whispers gentle urgings into our hearts as He reveals the truths and promises given to us through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit directs us to abide in Christ so that we may follow the path of salvation and sanctification that the Word of God provides us. If we are obedient in following the urgings of the Holy Spirit our hearts will burn with a fervent love for Our Savior and we will live in the fullness of His presence.

Let us surrender ourselves to the consuming fire of the Holy Spirit. Let our hearts burn within us with the knowledge of Our Risen Savior. Let our lives reflect the burning passion of Our King and our burning passion for Our King.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending us the Living Word, Your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank You for inspiring the writers of the Bible who made the Living Word readily available to us for reading and study. We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit joins us as we seek to make Your Word the fire that fuels our love for Your Son. As the Word comes to us with evidence, power and sweetness, may our hearts burn with eagerness to be transformed by our relationship with Our Lord. We pray that our fire be so strong and so bright that others will be drawn to surrender their lives to Our Savior King. We ask all these things in the name of the eternal flame, Jesus Christ.