One of the earliest statements of the Charismatic Renewal, to address the fear that being filled with the Holy Spirit will somehow make us do things we don't want to do, is that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He does not force Himself on anyone. He will not make you do anything you don't want to do. He is not going to send you to be a missionary in Africa if that is not your desire.
The Holy Spirit does not give us a new personality. What He does do is make who we are a better who we are. He changes our desires. He gives us a greater hunger to be more Christlike and to experience more of the presence of God. We stop engaging in the same old patterns of sin, not because of law but because it now grieves us to do so. We start worshiping more (like throughout the day) because it gives us joy and that's just what happens. Reading the Bible (although always a discipline) becomes fun because the words seem to jump off the page and they now speak to the deepest parts of our being.
So it should be no surprise that if you have a sense of humor then you will find out that God does as well. In fact He LOVES to demonstrate (if you watch for it) just how awesome He is in ways that just make you shake your head.
Let me give you three examples. The third is my teaching for today.
When my youngest daughter Becky was going to college in Milwaukee we would talk a lot about spiritual things via email, phone or when she came home. One Spring Becky was at our house in the woods and she quoted a Scripture verse by giving me the initial few important words and then indicated there was more to the verse by ending with "blah, blah, blah". Teasing her I replied: "Becky, are you blah blahing God!" "Don't worry Dad", Becky said, "Gods got a sense of humor and He always gets me back."
A little later we are going out for a walk and as we begin she notices yellow dandelions in our yard and says something like - 'those sure must be a pain in the rear'. We get about a half mile in and up ahead of us is an old couple. As we approach the old man wanders to the edge of the woods, leans over and picks something, then walks over to Becky with a nice bouquet of dandelions. Smiling he says; "Here, I picked these just for you". Becky looks at me, I look at her, she shakes her head and says; "What did I tell you?"
I watched a video by Dutch Sheets today. Dutch is one of the main leaders in the intercessory prayer ministry movement for our country. He was giving examples showing that we are now entering a major move of God in our land. In one of those he told about being at the end of a church service he spoke at and they were going to have a free will offering for the speaker. People started coming to the front to place their offering in a box. There was one young girl who he had noticed during the worship time and she came forward with a plastic baggie filled with change, only she didn't place it in the box. Instead she went directly to him and gave him the bag.
Dutch thought that was very sweet, thanked her, said there was about five dollars in the bag that she must have been saving up and was quite touched by it. The next week comes, different church, different person, but someone gives him a baggie filled with change. Now this starts to get his attention. In 35 years of ministry there are the first two times he has been given a bag of change. The same thing happens two more times in the next two weeks.
This starts to drive Dutch Sheets crazy. This must be God, there must be some meaning to it but he can't figure it out. One night he is praying about it and finally it just pops in his brain. He said it was like God saying - Is it that hard to figure out? Change is coming.
A week ago I have a dream just before its time to get up for the day. I thought it was pretty funny so I told Jackie and then shared it on Facebook. Then I get a few comments. One friend agreed with me and thought it was really funny. But another asks, have I thought about any possible interpretations? And yet another asks, is this like a public prophetic word given that you don't provide an interpretation for?
Well, think I, I do have a book on Christian dream interpretation so I might as well check it out, pray a bit, and see if the dream goes anywhere beyond funny. So here is the dream followed by what I believe God actually was teaching me through it.
I am in a back yard somewhere which is filled with people sitting around a bunch of round tables. President Trump comes forward from a table in the back and meets me up front where we are going to play a game. There is a white wall about 20 feet in front of us and the object of the game is to take a metal folding chair and toss it with one hand toward the wall, trying to stick the chair on the wall. If the chair sticks in a scoring area you get a point. The President throws first, sticks his chair, but it is low of a scoring position. I toss mine and it sticks in a scoring position.
On his next toss the President sticks his chair, but it lands high, half in a scoring position and half out. From the top of the chair come forth a bouquet of flowers. I stick my next toss in a scoring position. We each throw a couple more, some stick, some don't and we are down to the last round and I am ahead. However there is a man on the top of the wall and he jiggles the wall which causes the President's high toss to go lower into scoring position.
Trump gives the guy a nasty look then tosses his last chair wide of the wall so as not to take advantage of what happened. I tell him that it wasn't a problem and insist he take another toss. So President Trump makes someone get out of their chair, takes the chair and whips it hard against the wall, trying to knock one or two of mine off. The chair misses my chairs, bounces hard off the wall and comes back at us. Trump is in front of me. He jumps, I jump, the chair flies under our feet and passes between the tables. We look at each other and both smile like - that was close. Then I hear a beep, beep, beep which sounds like a garbage truck on a road next to us. The beep, beep happens to be my alarm clock and I wake up.
Symbols in dreams usually have several meanings. The meaning I am providing here are what struck a cord with me. When I checked them out it became quite clear that there was a definite theme and story to the dream that I believe God was showing me. I believe that the teaching here was for me personally but that there certainly are aspects that apply to all believers.
According to the book a yard is a place where I have authority. A chair is a position of authority. The right arm (with which I tossed the chair) indicates an area that I have authority over. Do you notice a theme here? Tables and chairs indicates a place I receive teaching from. Persons in a dream can represent the actual person but usually represent something else. Usually in a dream the President represents God, which makes sense here.
So the theme is that God is teaching me (or you) by the game that we were playing how to use spiritual authority in the areas that have been assigned to us. An interesting meaning for wall is that it represents faithful people joined as a barrier to evil. God's first toss against the wall was low. Low represents humility or being humbled. We should exert the authority God has given us from a position of humility. God's next toss was partly high and flowers came out of the chair. Flowers represent blessings or gifts and high means toward God.
This of course is one of the most basic principles of all. Whenever exercising any of the spiritual gifts, or using spiritual authority for that matter, we need to keep our eyes on Him. If shaking or resistance comes and we took away it's like the chair being tossed wide. Wide means the way of the world. The gifts and blessing decline and the authority doesn't stick. Shaking can also represent the removal of things that need to be removed which is the purpose for using spiritual authority.
God was showing me by the chair ricocheted off the wall that there will at times be great resistance when using our spiritual authority. He was in front of me, when He jumped I jumped, the chair missed us and we both smiled. We should expect a blow back at times but God will always be there with us as our protection. We should expect it but not worry. It's just part of the game.
Pray about the areas where God has or will give you the authority to combat the things of the world, flesh and the devil. If you are a believer and have yielded to the power of the Holy Spirit in your life you have that authority. Change is coming. I believe we are entering an age where we will be like Paul who said in 1 Corinthians 2: 4-5;
my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.
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