A Monthly Reflection
This month we enlisted ourselves trying to seek after the Holy Spirit. Yet I must challenge that right off the starting line. I think we are being pursued. In fact, I believe we are already purchased, just on layaway.
We are on layaway!
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Ephesians 4:30 (NASB77)
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:13-14 (NASB77)
Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (NASB77)
Think about that. Layaway. How many of us have decided to want to buy something so dear that we are willing to put it on layaway. We work, make money, save, and present our hard-earned labor in the form of currency to a store as payment, as a pledge, that one day we will be able to walk in and make our final payment for that item. We can’t wait to hold it, use it, cherish it, be with it. It’s ours. Finally. The anticipation is over – the end is now.
And that “it” is us. With the Holy Spirit we are on layaway. His installment is His Spirit. Yeshua is just waiting to collect when the time is right. Isn’t that cool. He knows where we are going.
We should know where we are going. And remember who the Purchaser is. He has paid a great deal of a cost for us and it’s about time for Him to collect His prized possessions. Wow.
It is tough waiting because we are not an inanimate object sitting in a store. We have feelings. We want. We crave things. Yet at the right time, His time, He will come and get us.
He has already paid the price and has sealed us with His Holy Spirit. It just now – time.
While we wait, we need to have that hope in Him, and try to obey Him (we need help) and try to share with others that they too are on layaway.
As I was reading the main tome this month, Billy Graham’s: Finding Power to Live a New Life: Discipleship and the Holy Spirit, a realization of a couple items flooded my mind:
- I have a history (and still do) of not knowing much about the Holy Spirit.
- I can hurt him. He has feelings and is a person.
Let’s start with #2 first – I knew for years now that the Holy Spirit is part of the three-person Godhead, and I knew that He is a “person” as I just said, but it never really took hold. I believed the Holy Spirit was more like a force or a spirit, like a ghost and it makes sense that way when you have not been taught otherwise. In fact, in a few different places He is mentioned as the Holy Ghost, and most of us know who Casper the friendliest ghost is and so I assumed this was the case – boy was I wrong. When you come to the realization that you can hurt Him because He is a person – that hits home. You can grieve Him. And I know I have and probably still do. This is horrible as I realize I have hurt G-d himself. With past choices and mistakes to today’s character flaws, worries, and lack of full obedience – I am sure these hurt Him.
Moreover not realizing that you can hurt Him opens your eyes that I have a lot to learn still even after this month. Why is it the more you think you know or the more your eyes are opened the more you realize just how off you are – how much I need to yield to grow!
The challenge is that yielding. We all have circumstances – good, bad, indifferent for a moment in time before it flips to one of the two aforementioned. The test is that when we face any of these – how do we respond? Do we pray for the circumstances to change, or do we pray for us to trust the L-rd to carry us through and beyond those circumstances through the Holy Spirit and His will?
If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.
Oswald Chambers MUFFH, online, Sept 29, 2022
So what Oswald is talking about, to me, is that peace that passes understanding. The concept that when your circumstances ebb and flow to the good or to the bad, yet if you agree that the L-rd has a plan and purpose and you surrender to Him, then the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in our lives to comfort, carry, help, protect us and much more. We may not know what the L-rd is doing and I venture to say we may never know, but if we trust Him, does it matter – or should it matter? The call has been placed on our life and we just need to respond.
Continuing in the spirit of #1, another point of revelation this month, I believe, is the unification with the Holy Spirit. The indwelling nature.
Yeshua answered him, “If someone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. John 14:23 (CJB)
So is the presence of Jesus and the Father with us = the Holy Spirit. Perhaps like the way they communicate and are with us, in the person of the Holy Spirit? So perhaps within the Holy Spirit is the mystery of all three persons inspiration and indwelling to us.
So how much is the allowance here? How much of me does He get?
I wonder if the amount we yield is because of our hurts. We want to self-heal. We might need a band-aid, maybe some doctor’s glue, stitches or perhaps miraculous healing. There could be a matrix to work through all the hurts for what type of solution is needed. That’s a lot of work – or is it? Who is the Surgeon to you? I could you a scalpel here and there to cut out disobedience, lack of love and forgiveness, and more.
And then there are the fruits of the Spirit and the giftings of the Spirit. If we have a gift or perhaps multiple, we need to use them for Him to love Him and further His Kingdom and will.
I might have mentioned this before, a great pastor friend, Joe, told me about D.O.A. – desire, opportunity, and ability. It seems to me that if you have a supernatural gift and you know about it and you are trying not to grieve the Holy Spirit then you would have the desire to use your gift(s) and hopefully would then surrender the usage of these gifts to the Holy Spirit while asking about the opportunities and the ability for growth to use them in a worthy manner.
There is a reason why you were given a gift or two. Some kind-of wonderful heavenly-inspired plan of service. I hope to be able to know, understand, and use mine while I get blessed along the way of being a part of the process. And if done right, full submission and by His leading that is, then the fruits will really show. I hope they do.
I mentioned, I believe, that love drives response. It drives trust and obedience. It drives surrender. Take for this series of statements, again from Mr. Chambers:
The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master.
If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it— a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
Oswald Chambers MUFFH, online, Sept 22, 2022
Love. Sacrificial. Pure. Devoted. Unaware of self.
The fact is, I cannot on my own strength find the power to love. I fail miserably because I am self-centered by nature. I need it to be removed. I need the Holy Spirit to help me and cleanse me. Scapel. I was thinking more about the idea that when the Holy Spirit is “fixing you” – opening your eyes and has access to you, there are some benefits:
- You are again becoming sensitive to sin and the disgust it really is.
- You start having insights before-the-fact so that you have the power, through the Holy Spirit, not to sin.
How cool also is this? The freedom not to sin. Your whole outlook on life changes. Or should – as it is a daily struggle, but it does get easier because you know who is in charge.
The old is gone and the new is here. Done. Check box checked.
ANDY GULLAHORN
Not Bad Enough Lyrics
[Verse 1]
You lied to your brother
Well you’re not bad enough
You take from your friends
Oh you’re not bad enough
You cheat on the one you love time and again
Well you’re not bad enough
To lose my love
[Verse 2]
Can’t control your anger
Well you’re not bad enough
Can’t control your greed
Oh you’re not bad enough
You don’t care about anyone except you, yourself, and thee
Well you’re not bad enough
To lose my love
[Chorus]
No you’re not bad enough
Not bad enough
Not bad enough
To lose my love
[Verse 3]
Addicted to the bottle
Well you’re not bad enough
You medicate your pain
Oh you’re not bad enough
Watch your marriage or sobriety go down the drain
Well you’re not bad enough
To lose my love
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
[Verse 4]
Jesus said to hookers
You’re not bad enough
To murderers and thieves
Oh you’re not bad enough
Jesus said to sinners bad as you and bad as me
That you’re not bad enough
To lose my love
[Chorus]
No you’re not bad enough
Not bad enough
Not bad enough
To lose my love
[Chorus]
Somedays I feel like a “blue light special” and not at all worthy. I do. And I am correct – but it is not about our worth in our eyes, it is about our worth in His eyes.
Look again at that music lyric set of lists:
…lies
…take from people
…cheat on the one you love time and again
…anger issues
…lack of control of greed
…me, myself, and I instead of others
…addictions to the bottle
…self-medication (probably through pills)
And then there is the kicker – all of those above were things you did, a lot I did, yet the latter is the consequences, i.e. the results of the failures – yet you are never “bad enough” for Christ.
You never can lose His love. You can try to push it away and forsake the Holy Spirit and cause that eternal separation, but it does not ever never ever change how our Abba, cares for us. We are truly never bad enough.
So remember today, if you are reading this, you are loved by the Purchaser and that you are on layaway…
Oh and by the way, let’s come alive and not be stuck in a room off to the side…
Credits for some material, not directly mentioned, to Joe G. and our conversations and his sharing of his knowledge and love of G-d.
