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)
No comments:
Post a Comment