All To Jesus, I Surrender

It was around this time in the month of November, 47 years ago, that I knelt down on the living room floor of our little apartment in Kalamazoo to confess my sins and asked Jesus to come into my life as Savior and as Lord and to fill me with the Holy Spirit. I had been born and raised a Catholic but was then an atheist. Earlier that year I had married a Spirit-filled Catholic woman, and there I was, now speaking in an unknown tongue and experiencing the overwhelming presence and peace that Jesus had indeed come in. He revealed Himself in such a way that I could never deny what had just happened.

I recognized even then, without any theological training, that I had surrendered the lordship of my life to Jesus and that my life was no longer mine. Obviously I knew that I would often fall far short of what His will would be for me but sensed, as I would learn later, that having died in Christ I was indeed a new creation, now part of God's family. And as a bonus, by surrendering to the move of the Holy Spirit in me, I had also surrendered and opened up many areas of my soul that might put up barriers to my relationship with God.

Here is a point that I want to make clear when we talk about how we go about obeying the will of the Father. Salvation is to the spirit. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is to the soul.

When we are born again it is our spirit man that is changed from death to new life in Christ. In our spirit we are now perfect, holy and redeemed in the Father's sight and that is now a place where the Holy Spirit can reside. The Father's will from the beginning was to give us revelation of His will from the Holy Spirit, through our spirit, to minister to our soul and from there to our body.

At death the spirit/soul is separated from the body and for the believer the spirit/soul goes to be with the Father. The rebirth of the spirit affects the soul as well. The difference is that although the reborn spirit is now perfect we have a soul that, although redeemed, still needs to be conformed to the image of Christ.

The fall was the result of man desiring the knowledge of good and evil apart from the direction of the Father through the Holy Spirit. And the result of the fall was that the spirit of man in effect died and became separated from God and the soul of man took charge, subject to it's own weakness and to the weakness of the desires of the body.

The answer of the world to the fall is religion, or, we do things or act a certain way to earn something and thus justify ourselves before God. In all religion it is the soul of man that stays in charge.

And sadly, although the believing Church talks about redemption through the free gift of what Jesus did on the cross, our walking out our salvation can sometimes look an awful lot like religion. The emphasis in many places is completely backward. People are taught that they can come into a deeper relationship with God by striving toward obedience and holiness. And that striving is often a struggle because the soul, apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is trying to overcome its own weaknesses as well as the desires of the flesh.

I contend instead that obedience and holiness should be a natural out working of a deep and mature relationship with God. We seek Him. We become sensitive to the Father's will and develop a deeper relationship with Him through prayer, through the faithful reading of His Word and through the influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus the desire to be obedient to the will of God comes from and through that relationship. The Holy Spirit moves through our spirit to influence our soul. This makes obedience so much easier. We will now be acting out of a desire born of love and the desire to honor that love.

Now the Holy Spirit does move to one degree or another in the soul's of all who become born again. Many old desires are changed and the soul often surrenders certain aspects of control to the Spirit of God. Old sinful ways are set aside. Godly fruit is demonstrated. Christian growth becomes evident and various ministry abilities spring forth. However the soul is very complex. It contains our personality, our memories, the effects of our past experiences, our desires and so much more. In many of those areas the soul has barriers (probably because of fear) where it does not allow the Holy Spirit to freely move or maybe even to enter.

From observation I would say that most born again believers actually desire a closer relationship with God and the ability to live a life submitted to His will. They just don't know how to go about it. They don't know how to remove the barriers still set up in the soul. When the Church, in it's desire to create better disciples, presents a list of things that a person should avoid or must strive to accomplish, it may actually result in producing guilt or frustration. Sound spiritual advice must be partnered with the spiritual means to achieve the goal.

That same sense of guilt or frustration can come about for people involved in groups with a strong spiritual authority figure where there is an emphasis on instilling "holiness" or an "overcomer" lifestyle. This usually goes to a place where people lose all the freedom and joy they should be having in the Spirit. What was begun in the Spirit cannot be completed in the flesh, no matter how spiritual it sounds.

Would it not be so much better instead to show people that perfect love overcomes all fear and to demonstrate how we can experience that love by surrendering to the move and power of the Holy Spirit?  We open up the door to a more excellent way but we must allow the Holy Spirit to walk the person through it. At salvation I surrendered my life to Jesus. I also surrendered as an act of faith my tongue to a language the Spirit gave me, which opened my door to a much greater infilling of the Holy Spirit.

So much happened in those beginning months. Behavior changed, friends changed and I counted it all joy. It was a process and it still is a process. The Holy Spirit fills us but we need to keep emptying Him out (by responding to the direction of the Spirit) so that He can refill us a fresh.

And that is a key. The Holy Spirit is never stale. He will always move in fresh and more amazing ways. The gifts, fruits and the power of the Spirit as demonstrated in the Bible are for all of us today. There is joy and faith, a peace that passes understanding and a closer relationship with God where we can actually say and feel, every day, Abba, Father. But even more important there comes with the Spirit an ability to live a life holy and pleasing to the Lord.

Take some of your precious time and devote it to seeking His presence. Take a risk and surrender your tongue and your whole being to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. He is a gentleman and will only bring you as far as you are willing to go. That said, surrender the fear that is holding you back and receive in turn what your Loving Father has designed especially for you from before you were even born. It is much more than you could ever imagine!

Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matthew 11: 28 - 30)

Key Words

The 2020 elections are now just a bit less than a year away. With that in mind I thought I would come up with a list of a dozen keys words for Conservatives to remember when we head to the voting booth next November. Problem was, I got up to 12 and then others kept popping into my mind. So for your enjoyment (or maybe enlightenment), here they are (read slowly for best effect).
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Abortion
Resist
TDS
Pussy hats
Border Security
Supreme Court
Federal Court appointments
Kavanaugh hearings
Covington Kids defamation
US Embassy to Jerusalem
Impeachment
Clinton paid Steele Dossier
Adam Shift lies
Read the Mueller Report
Confused Robert Muller
Adam Shift secret hearings
Read the transcript
Antifa
Twitter mob
Algorithm censorship
YouTube demonetization
MSM 24/7 bias
Hollywood hate
"Good people" distortion
"Racism, racism, racism"
Identity politics
Men and Women are different?
The Swamp
Comey
Brennen
Clapper
McCabe
Struk
Socialism
Marxism
Anti-Semitism
The Squad
1st Amendment
2nd Amendment
The Constitution
America's Founders
American pride
Religious liberty
Arlene's Florist
Masterpiece Cake Shop
No Mexico City Accord
No money for Planned Parenthood
No Paris Climate Accord
No crazy Iran deal
Hostage's released
Less Federal regulations
Dismantled Obamacare
Destroyed Isis Caliphate
Dead Al Baghbadi
Domestic manufacturing growth
Do nothing Dems
USMCA Trade Deal
Middle class tax break
6 million new jobs
3.5 % unemployment
Real wage growth
Low inflation
Lower drug prices
Record Dow
Rebuilt military
Better care for Vets
U.S. world's largest energy producer
Project Veritas
Chuck and Nancy as American Gothic
China
Air Force 2
Hunter
Burisma
DNC deals with Ukraine
Slow slow Sleepy Joe
Crazy Bernie
Pocahontas
50 TRILLION government health care
70 TRILLION Green New Deal
Obama election interference
Harvey Weinstein
Pedophiles
Private island flights for Bill
Mega bucks for Hill
- and of course -
Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself

I Will Teach You The Fear Of The Lord

It says many times throughout Scripture that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is in such great contrast to the society we live in today where even in many areas of the Church there is a laissez-faire attitude toward what God's perfect will is for us. I think for most people we mistake God's grace for God's permission.

Paul makes the argument in Romans that as believers we are no longer under The Law. The Law did not come to justify anyone but it came instead to demonstrate that all men fall short of what God's will for us is. The law actually made man's transgressions against God increase,

When Jesus came His death made right for us all of the requirements of The Law. Although man's sins are many and great the grace that God provides through the death and resurrection of Jesus are even greater. Paul then says in Roman's 6:1-2.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!

By our confession that we have sinned against God, and our desire that what Jesus did on the cross for the forgiveness of sins He did for us personally, we join ourselves into the death of Jesus.

Paul then says;

If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is free from sin. v 5-7

Well, praise the Lord! Every believer needs to know that they do not need to fear death (wondering if they have done enough to please God) because when we have joined into Christ's death we also have joined into His resurrection. Death no longer has a hold on us. We can rejoice that even when we fall short of God's perfect will for us He is always there like a loving Father, willing to forgive and anxious that we do better.

Yet even so, God is awesome beyond our comprehension and righteous and holy in all things. The Father's desire is that even as we have become like Christ in His death we also become like Him in His life.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your body so you obey its lusts and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness . . . for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. v 11-14

I do not have a fear of losing my salvation and I daily rejoice in all that God is doing and has done in my life. Worshiping Him is wonderful and prayer and reading the Bible help show me His will and connect me with Him on a personal level, always challenging me to do better.

There are things though that make me tremble. I do not want to dishonor God in any way. I do not want to take His grace for granted. I try to avoid going outside the safe boundaries He has set for me, such as what I read, watch or listen to, where I go, what I drink, where my mind wanders and what I do.

I recognize that we are in a battle with an enemy who constantly seeks to steal, dishonor, corrupt, kill and destroy all that has been given by God to declare His glory, and it would crush me to think that I have partaken in the enemy's plans.

A major deception of the enemy is to prevent us from knowing what God's will is and what His boundaries are. The Bible is attacked, ignored or distorted and the tugs in man's conscious are overcome by false doctrines teaching that there are no moral constants and that God's main desire is that we find and do the things that make us happy.

I believe there is coming a time when a great fear of the Lord will sweep through the Church and then spread through society. Even believers will put aside all that has been petty and look into their own hearts and cry out for mercy. God's presence will be more manifest and we will approach it in fear and trembling.

Until then let us continue to open up the Word and to take seriously all that the Holy Spirit is showing us.

Psalm 34: 4-11.
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I sought the Lord and He answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

They looked to Him and were radiant
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor man cried and the Lord delivered him
and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord (Jesus) encamps around
those who fear Him, and rescues them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good,
how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

O fear the Lord you His saints
for to those who fear Him there is no want.

The young lions do lack and suffer hunger
but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want
of any good thing.

Come you children, listen to me.
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.