I am reading a great book by Francis Chan entitled "forgotten God" and it has brought me to a conviction about the Holy Spirit that I had not thougt about before. In his book he brings to attention the idea that if we were to read the bible with no presuppositions then we would come to the place that as Christians we would expect a great deal from the Spirit of God. And yet we seem to put a large Amount of restriction on the Spirit because there are so many " radicals" in the world. This simply is in my mind the fear of man. We restrict the Holy Spirit because we are afraid of being labeled my others and we are scared that we will not be accepted anymore.
First of all I would point out Eccl. 12:13 "this is the conclusion of the matter;fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So in essence fear God and obey His word. But first before we obey His word webmust believe it to be truth to the level of our hearts (Ps. 119:11). So then what does Gods word say of the spirit? For one it says that as long as you are walking by the Spirit you will not gratify the things of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). And there is a promise in Romans 8:9 that says "You however are not in the flesh but are in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.
So if you are reading what I am reading then it seems obvious that if you are indeed born again then you have the spirit of God great, so what does that mean to us now?
Well let's look at one classic passage that tells us the ramifications of a spirit filled person. Gal 5:22-23 says "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and, self-control." A verse we have most likely memorized before in our lifetime. But the thing most do not realize is that the Spirit of God does not pick and choose from this list with the believers He indwells it's always all or nothing with Him. That is why the Greek word for fruit is in a singular form not plural. Because the Sporit is always complete so His fruit will be also. The thing is that the church has lost faith in the power the Spirit has mainly because of the fear of man.
Guys, people of God's church, Let's walk in His spirit by faith.
Here is how: Step 1) faith-we need to take God at His word and not what others say about it read it for what it says always be accountable to a bible believing evangelical church in your doctrine but don't let the fear of man hinder what the word of God says.
Step 2) surrender-without surrendering he things you love and hold dear to God for Him to use and control then He will not want to have any part of using us in His church. It may seem as though He is but what you see is nothing to the amount God would use you if you were to believe the power of His Spirit and be willing to give up all you have for Him to control and make something beautiful out of it
Living in Him
~Hammy
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