we try to do what only the Spirit can do.
i've been thinking about the Holy Spirit lately. During staff training today, all three of us had done bible projects/read books on the Holy Spirit. Divine?
A lot of people have been asking me for advice lately, and ultimately, i always ask the question, "How are you and God doing?" Cliche? Maybe. But necessary.
The response is usually, "Not so well..." or "..meh... mediocre..."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't spend enough time with God." or "I don't pray enough." or "I don't have the motivation." or...other things that have to do a lot with "doing".
We were talking today in training about how as humans, "doing" is always the solution we come up with when there's a problem. Leaky faucet? Fix it. Broken heart? Fix it.
But, as we talked more about the Holy Spirit...there were some pretty good reminders.
1 Corinthians 12:3b says that no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit.
We can't even acknowledge that Jesus is the Saviour without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives!! Our sinful nature is just THAT contrary to God and the gospel!
Galatians 5 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
This means that we are UNABLE to love wholly, or have joy or have peace..etc WITHOUT the Spirit's ongoing work in our lives.
Imagine that. It means that it's IMPOSSIBLE to love (both man AND God) without the Holy Spirit working in us!
So, what does this mean practically. It means that our solution, before fixing the leaky faucet is to make sure we have the right TOOLS. What Paul is telling the Corinthians in chapter 12 is that on their own, they can't fix the problem. They can't even acknowledge that God is GOD, let alone grow CLOSE to God without the work of the Holy Spirit!
We need to PRAY and ASK God to give us the tools, namely, the person of the Holy Spirit!
Jesus PROMISED that if we were thirsty we should approach him.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” John goes on to tell us, “By this he meant the Spirit” (John 7:37-39).
How amazing is this? That He WOULD fill us. That HE would be the SOLUTION. He promised He would answer. 1 John 5:14-15.
It's humbling to realize that I can't fix things on my own will. I can't MAKE myself desire God. No amount of time spent reading God's Word on my own power will MAKE me desire God. But God can make me desire Him.
So all I need to do is ASK.
Grace.
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4 commentaires:
Thanks birdie.
Just what I needed.
<3
we talked about the H-spizzle in our staff training today too!
Great post! It's something I've been learning in bits over the last year too, but I've never written it out all logical like that. :) Such a good reminder.
It's so true, all we need to is ask. If we want that overflowing of streams of living water to happen, as scripture so eloquently states, we need to hungrily ask.
Good post.
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