Access To Power

02/11/2006

I am weak, but You are so very strong Lord!

And the Lord answers back in 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness." (NLT)

Recently, I was asked if I would speak once again on the Holy Spirit. I say again because just a short while ago I was asked if I would share my testimony at church, which I did. The sermon that day was on the power of the Holy Spirit, so my testimony was to tie in with that. God's gracious favor was all I needed on that day to bring the two together.

Now here I am once again, praying about this upcoming talk on the beloved Holy Spirit of God, and I wonder, who am I to be talking about this subject at all? In preparation, I dove into Romans eight, discovering all the different aspects and characteristics that are there about God's Spirit. It is loaded! I'm going to share it here, but if it's a bit much for your "reading pleasure" please forgive me this indulgence:

Spirit of Life (NIV), and another way of saying it...Life-giving Spirit (NLT) (v.2)
According to the Spirit (NIV)...Follow the Spirit (NLT) (v.4)
In accordance with the Spirit (NIV)...Controlled by the Holy Spirit (NLT) (v.5)
What the Spirit desires (NIV)...Please the Spirit (NLT) (v.5b)
Mind controlled by the Spirit (NIV)...Holy Spirit controls your mind (NLT) (v.6)
Spirit of God lives in you (NIV)...Spirit of God living in you (NLT) (v.9,11)
By the Spirit (NIV)...Through the power of the Holy Spirit (NLT) (v.12)
Led by the Spirit of God (NIV)...Led by the Spirit of God (NLT) (v.14)
Spirit of sonship (NIV)...Adopted into his Family (NLT) (v.15)
The Spirit himself testifies (NIV)...Holy Spirit speaks to us (NLT) (v.16)
First fruits of the Spirit (NIV)...Holy Spirit as foretaste of future glory (NLT) (v.23)
Spirit helps us in our weakness (NIV)...Holy Spirit helps us in our distress (NLT) (v.26)
Spirit himself intercedes for us (NIV)...Holy Spirit prays for us (NLT) (v.26b)
Spirit intercedes for the saints (NIV)...Spirit pleads for us believers (NLT) (v.27)

There, that wasn't too painful, was it? It's sort of like, "Just the facts ma'am." The facts can sometimes be pretty boring, although to know the Spirit of God in this way should be extremely exciting! So, to quote another T.V. show (Star Trek), let's "Make it so..."

To break Romans eight down simply, the Holy Spirit is our Helper!! We are to follow Him, be controlled by Him, please Him, let our mind be filled with Him, acknowledge that He is living in us, allow His power to work through us, be led by Him, be embraced in the Family of God by Him, hear Him speak to us, get our Hope from Him of future glory, derive strength from Him in our weakness and distress, let Him pray for us and plead for us to our Father God...

Is there anything the Holy Spirit can't do in our lives? It seems not, but then again, we are talking about the Spirit of God here, so why should we be surprised. I guess what surprises me, are all the years I walked the Christian life without Him. What I mean to say is, "Without knowing He was there." How can something be living inside of us without us realizing it? Maybe it's like first getting pregnant.

I remember our son, Jimm's, second birthday party. I was pregnant with our number two son, Chris. We announced it at the party! It was fun to share the good news with everyone, but I didn't look pregnant, and I heard my mother and mother-in-law say that very thing to each other. For some reason, it was one of those things that someone will say that sticks with you forever. Maybe so that I would bring it up on this day, in this message? Who can know the ways of God?

I didn't look pregnant in July of 1980, but I was. There was another human being growing inside of me, one planted there by God. One seen only by God, until the child inside of me grew to the point of being visible to those around me. These new lives start out so small, it would take a microscope to see them, but God can see them.

You watched me as I was being
formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the
dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Psalm 139:15&16 (NLT)

And as an added joyful note, just last night I sat on a couch next to Chris' wife, Holly, and placed my hand on her stomach to feel the movement of our new grandson, who is due on Easter Sunday this year. Once again, God the Creator is creating a new life, one being formed in utter seclusion. A life, growing deep inside, is a miracle to behold, even if we can't see it yet!

The Holy Spirit, growing deep inside each believer, is also a miracle to behold. When we believe, He comes to live in us for the rest of our days on this earth. He comes to make a difference in our lives, to change things in our world, to be our Friend, to give us Hope and Power and a foretaste of future glory.
How do we grab hold of that?
How do we understand that?
How do we not miss all that God is forming in utter seclusion in the lives of believers?

The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Godhead that was sent to the believers seven weeks after Jesus' resurrection. (Acts 2:1-The Day of Pentecost) Jesus told the Apostles, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

The Holy Spirit is a gift, a life-giving Spirit that has freed us through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. (Romans 8:2 NLT) The Spirit of Life is the love of God that is deep inside every believer and He is our access to all the power we will need to live each day as we should...but many times we don't, and why is that? And is that what I am to talk about? But, who am I to even address such an issue? I have so many of my own struggles, my own weaknesses, my own failures...I know the Holy Spirit is living in me, but do I "look pregnant" with Him? Do I know Him as I should? Does He know me? I pray to God He's starting to "show."

The question becomes, do I/do we, all live our lives the way they have been designed, letting these feeble, sickly, fleshly bodies we live in be renewed inwardly day by day, or do we allow the evil forces of this world to kill, steal and destroy all that God has provided? It is a choice we will all have to make once we have heard the call of God on our lives and said, "Yes" to the gift of His Son. Do we allow the Life of God that now lives within us to grow, or do we keep it covered up, so much so that those around us say, "Well, they don't look like they have the Spirit of God living in them." 

Once we say, "Yes," we can stop there and never allow that growth to take place. Many do. We can receive salvation, try to be good, attend church as often as we can, join a Bible Study, volunteer when a need arises, basically do all the things we think Christians do to be Christ-like, and we can still leave the Holy Spirit hidden deep inside. That's what our enemy, Satan, is hoping for. When once we have escaped his death-grip, don't think the enemy has given up. Each day as we grow closer to our Lord, he will continue to pull us in the opposite direction, filling us with lies about who we are, how much we fail, what we should do, how hopeless it all is...the list is endless. Without abandoning ourselves completely to the Spirit of Truth within, we will be easy prey to the enemy, and the importance of the Holy Spirit will be deflated in our lives.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.
John 16:13 (NIV)

The Spirit of Truth starts out, most times, as a small flicker, or as in a baby, a single cell. With the Spirit, when we embrace the Truth of God in our own lives, it's as if a match has been struck against our heart of stone. When we invite Jesus in, we will feel His warmth at first, but we must continue to fan the flame of our desire for Him each day of our lives. We must continue to draw near to the fire of God within, and warm ourselves there, especially when the harsh winds blow. As we tend to our relationship with our Lord, He will start to burn away the lies, the hurts of the past, the feelings of failure, etc...and the ashes that are left will become a thing of beauty called the glory of God.

We will begin to understand that our Father God is seated on the throne, and the train of His robe fills the temple with Glory. We will begin to understand that Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son is seated at His right hand, interceding on behalf of the saints. And we will begin to understand that we have not been left alone, but that the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon all who will believe. (Acts 2:33)

That's where I am. That's all I know...that God is seated on His Throne, that Jesus is now my Friend, and that by a miracle of God I am able to put one foot in front of the other each day no matter what the circumstances of my life may be.

Is that the power of the Holy Spirit deep inside of me? I have to believe it is!
Is that what He wants me to share with those who want to know Him more? I have to believe it is, because that's all I have to share, and yet it seems to be the greatest story every told--that the very God of the Universe loves us so much that He lives inside of us!
How do we grasp that concept?
I can only say, one day at a time...one day at a time.

I heard a cute story just the other day about a small child learning a lesson in Sunday school. The lesson was about how big our God is, and how He lives inside each one of us. In talking with her mother on the way home, she said something to the effect, "If God is so much bigger than us, and He lives inside of us, shouldn't He show?"

Exactly!!!
We should look "pregnant" with the Spirit of our living God!
Would words be needed if He did show that much in our lives?
Not many!!

When we make choices that lead us into the presence of God daily, we will begin to experience a new strength and a new power from within that we never thought possible. We will learn to "go there" when we need help, and we will find it. We will start to long for more and more intimacy with our Lord, and we will want to please Him. It will become our greatest desire to follow His leading, to be controlled by Him, to let our mind be filled with His thoughts instead of our own, and to drink in His Word as often as possible. We will feel His presence within to such a depth, that we cannot help but share Him with those who long to know Him too, and sometimes, perhaps most times, that sharing will be without words...the invisible God will be visible in the lives of those who know Him intimately! That's what will speak volumes! (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all.) (Romans 8:9b NLT)

If we are not "pregnant" with the Holy Spirit, God is not growing in us each day. We are walking through this life without His help, His strength, His power, His Hope...Christians know life is tough with God, but many times we ask each other the question, "How do people do this life without knowing God?" It boggles our minds! 

I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death with God, filled with His Spirit, and still it was the toughest thing I have ever had to do in my life. Each morning I would have preferred to pull the covers over my head and not face the harsh cold reality that my son was gone from me. It was too much for a mother's heart to bear. God may have been God, and He may have had a perfect plan for my life, for my son's life, but this was beyond anything I could possibly understand without a daily drawing near to my God and pleading for His help, even when...and especially because, He was the very One who was in control of the whole situation and our son still died!! Where were our answered prayers? Where was our loving Father in this horrible situation? Why would He do such a thing when He already knew how much it would hurt? And the word hurt doesn't even begin to describe it! The grief process is a pain that has no earthly description...it cuts so deep, as the Bible says, to the marrow. I recently told a friend that the reason I am so passionate about the things of God now is because I have felt a pain so deep, so intense, that the only way to survive it is to allow God to penetrate to that same depth in my heart to relieve that pain. It is the only way I know how to keep living. Anything less would not be enough to get me through that darkened valley.

Deep inside the heart of each and every believer dwells the Spirit of God, His amazing Holy Spirit, just waiting for us to acknowledge Him in our lives and be willing to let Him "do His thing" in us, and through us, and for us, and despite us! That's how deep we will find God inside of us when we discover that all this isn't about us, our hurt, our pain...it is about our God and His plan, and eventually abandoning ourselves to Him.

Our lives are not about what we can do, who we are, what we want or even the mistakes that we have made and will continue to make; it's about the greatest plan ever devised! It's about an all-knowing, all-loving, all-caring, always-present God taking up residence inside all who will put their faith in Him. It's about a frail humanity on the road to destruction being given a second chance in our relationship with our Creator. This is our chance! Adam fell from grace, we have been restored. Adam walked and talked with God, we can too! Adam was provided for, taken care of, nurtured, loved and embraced as a child of God. We are too! Adam was one with God, but he turned away from God and hid in the aftermath.

If we are we still hiding, there is no need to! It's time to come out and be "naked" before God again. To bare our souls to Him, and abandon our lives to Him. It's time to be fully "convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39 NIV)

When we trust a love so deep, a power so Heaven-sent, we will begin to understand the magnitude of the gift Jesus wanted His Apostles to wait for there in Jerusalem.  There was no way in the world He would have sent them out without the promised Holy Spirit. If He had, it would have been all about them...and they would have failed miserably in their walk with Him throughout the rest of their lives. If the Apostles would have failed in their attempt, who do we think we are that we can walk through one day without God's indwelling Spirit? We are not designed to live without the filling of the Holy Spirit, and ultimately the flowing out of the Holy Spirit into everything we do, say, believe, and hope for in this life!

I don't have all the answers some may be looking for when I am called to stand up and speak about God's Holy Spirit, but I do have one very important thing, I have God's Holy Spirit living in me! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I am just a mom, who loves her children like any mom does, one who has lived through something that no mom ever wants to face, but I have faced it, because to turn away from that pain would have been to bury it deep inside and to die along with it. I don't believe that is God's plan for my life. I have to believe that His plan includes so much more than that. He did not give me my son on this earth and then take him on Home to Heaven, to destroy my life. He has a greater purpose for all of this! One that includes getting to know His amazing Holy Spirit in an even greater way!

Getting to know God's Holy Spirit is a daily process of learning to tap into the power that lies within. How do we know if we're even starting to get close to what that looks like? God reminded me of the passage of Scripture that talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Let's take a look at it:

Wait, let's take a look at what it is not first because I think that's a little easier for all of us to relate to. In Galatians five, it says if we follow the desires of our sinful nature the results will be, sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. (NLT)

See yourself there at all? I sure do! I will spare you the ugly details of what that may be, but it certainly wakes me up to what my flesh desires when God's Spirit is not in control each day. If this were the end of the story, it would be pretty depressing. The Spirit would certainly not be "showing" as God desires. But this is not the end of the story, because when the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, things start to happen. When we draw near to God more and more each day, these desires slowly start to change. Those on the outside may not see it at first, we may not look "pregnant," but we are!! It may take months or even years for the first signs of God's indwelling Spirit to be visible, but that's okay. God knows what's going on, He is the One in control, and He can see deep inside to what is being formed in utter seclusion! It is amazing!!

As time passes, as we open ourselves up to God's ways, ideas and plans for our lives, things start growing inside. God will produce His love, His joy, His peace, His patience, His kindness, His goodness, His faithfulness, His gentleness, and His self-control in us. Please note, it's His, not ours! It's not us trying, but Him working through us! It's His love, not our feeble attempts. It's His joy, not our happiness at our circumstances. He fills us with His peace when there is none in our world. He gives us His patience when ours have worn thin. He showers us with His kindness and goodness so it can flow through us into the lives around us. He is faithful to us, teaching us how to be faithful to others by His example. He is gentle when our hearts are tender, allowing us to be compassionate to other hearts that are hurting. He gives us His self-control when our flesh wants to rule the roost, so to speak! Yes, things start to grow, and over time, sometimes a lot of time, changes start to become noticeable. Good changes. Needed changes. A better way to live this life.

You may say you don't like changes, but one thing is for sure, change happens! It can't be stopped. Nothing remains the same except for God. His plan has remained the same. He sent His Son who died for our sins, His Son now reigns with Him in Heaven at His right hand, and the gift of the Holy Spirit lives inside each believer on this earth. That's you and me! That's exciting news! We have not been abandoned, we do not need to be envious of the Apostles who walked with Jesus, we do not need to fend for ourselves, feel alone, or lose Hope, no matter what happens in our lives, God is with us always!!

That's the only reason when I am asked to share about the Holy Spirit that I have anything to say at all--because He is always with me, living in me, helping me to share of His goodness. I can tell my story, but I'd rather tell His. I am just one of millions, perhaps billions, who have known Him, depended on Him, drawn strength and wisdom and hope from Him. Without Him, we are an empty vessel, wandering aimlessly through this life wondering what it all means anyway. With Him, we can find a purpose for all things, including our life.

I was just a mother, on the journey through this life, looking for the way Home. What I have discovered along that journey is that I am really a child, and having found God's path, I am on my way there! The Holy Spirit of God is leading the way!

Following Him,
Diane