AHA!!! Moment
I just love it when the Holy Spirit, whom I invite into my life each morning, afternoon and night gives me these moments, suddenly and it can happen anywhere. I got home putting stuff away and had the moment.
I was reminded of when Jesus said he would give rest to those who were laden and heaven with yoke, when Paul said that if anyone who preached a Gospel other than the one he had, even an angel from heaven, they should be accursed, when he reprimanded Peter for his double standards about circumcision and all that, and when he said that he did not come to baptize etc... should the Cross be of none effect. At first, I didn't really get it, but then I realized it had to do with understanding the Bible and also the gifts of the Holy Spirit, this debate about are they still all in effect, and it it really helped me to understand. When you look at those together and you really think about it, they are interconnected. I am not in any way saying no baptism, as I think baptism is an important way of showing that you are ready to take that journey with Christ, leave the old behind and be a new person, live for Christ, according to the teachings of the Word, not legalism, but holistically with the help of the Holy Spirit, and the victory Christ gave at Calvary in defeating Satan. When we look at the almost bureaucratic structures of the churches, memberships, these Alpha churches, the government form, very unscriptural of the Catholic Church the secrecy of the Mormon Church, it's really fitting, the legalism that Jesus was infuriated at the Pharisees and Sadducees with, has never gone away and it seems to get worse and worse. It must be breaking the heart of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to no end and angering them to no end. It also made me think about the presentation I am preparing on the Gifts and Offices of the Spirit and how we Christians have frustrated the Holy Spirit, we have decided which gifts were no longer in operation, we became the very ones Jesus called Brood of Vipers. We say we go according to scripture, but then we say that since there are no reports from the early Church of any activity then they ceased, and that is our proof. However, we don't connect the dots and I will be talking about those dots related to the gifts in that presentation on that subject. We forget that for the Holy Spirit to operate, the gifts to grow etc... we must ask for the Holy Spirit. It is important to connect the dots.
The Bible is about the core messages of us as being deserving only of wrath and death due to being sinners, in bondage to the sin nature by virtue of being born descendants of Adam, and the only victory over that being Christ and what he did at Calvary, his shed blood the atonement, along with the ongoing power of the Holy Spirit because God loves us and did not want that to be the outcome. Thus he made a way for us to be spared the just wrath we would otherwise deserve. That is true, but then there are layers of other things to understand that can be a bit difficult to grasp and it really is a lot like a connect the dots, like in those books they have for kids, a daunting one at times. This is why it is necessary to ask for the Holy Spirit to teach us still, to give us knowledge, wisdom, faith and everything else we require as Christians to grow daily, even if we study, even with the best study guides. The power to understand, discern so on and so forth can only fully come from the Holy Spirit and the study of the Written Word, along with reasoning it all out. All three must be present, all three.
Shalom and Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment