You read your Bible, you teach Sunday school, and you might even preach sermons, but does this make you spiritual? Are you a spiritual Christian, or are you a carnal Christian at heart? So many who follow Jesus Christ do so motivated by a worldly desire; they seek Him with their minds, and intellect... much more than through relationship and meekness, not with a spiritual inclination. Which are you, and do you even know?
Are you an occasional practitioner of the Holy Spirit? Do you do the things of faith in your life by utilizing your spiritual gifts, but then once they have been accomplished set those gifts aside, to be used another day? Or do you possess Spiritual Grace, which is a state of faith where the gifts of the Spirit are so ingrained in you that they have become inseparable from who you are in grace?
You have heard of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and you see the results of it in believers around you, but despite your desire for it, you remain barren and unfilled. Perhaps you have been a Christian for a long time, and in all those years you have not received the Spirit. You may have consoled yourself by saying that it will never be yours and that you will suffer on without it, but listen as God tells you to take heart, and that the Spirit is your gift as well.
Have you ever been anointed with oil? Has a Pastor, or elder, prayed over you as they took oil, and applied it to you? Did you understand what was happening at that moment, or did you think it was merely an aromatic balm, a lotion; and simply something symbolic we do in church? No, it is much more than that, anointing is a sacred practice and is Holy; when we do this the one being anointed is made Holy, Consecrated, and set apart for the use of God. Let’s look at this further.
Are you a sinner of the worst kind? Do you think that there is no way that someone like you can ever be washed clean, and forgiven? Well, if so, you are not the first to have felt this way, and as a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul felt just as you do. To say that you are too far gone to be saved is to deny the saving grace of God in His Son Jesus Christ. So, listen to me today…
How is your faith? Are you strong in it, or is it lacking in some regard? Can you move a mountain, or do you think your faith is too small to move even a grain of sand? The disciples were chastised by Jesus on more than one occasion for their lack of faith, so do not lose heart, but ask Him why you can’t do a thing, or why you don’t receive the ability to perform a miracle. You may find that in some cases it has less to do with faith than you think.
Jesus is like a fountain, or a spring, out of which forgiveness flows. He is not like a spigot from which life is turned off and on when we need to wash the scent of death from ourselves or draw a drink. Do we only approach Him when we think we need cleansing or to receive refreshment for our spirit, and faith? Or is He the source of life that we have built our lives and families around… the well, spring, and fountain that our existence depends upon as we quinch our spiritual thirst, and for every cool compress that relieves the fever of our sin?
Are we servants to all those surrounding us? Have we humbled ourselves sufficiently in order to put our own desires behind us, so that we can be obedient to the example that Jesus has placed before us? If so then God will bless us, but if not then we need to take a long look at who we truly are. Do we see much difference in the person we once were and the one we are now that we have accepted Jesus as our Lord?
More likely than not, if you are reading this, you know Jesus; who He is, and about His life. If you are reading this you may have asked Him to come into your life, confessed Him to be your Savior, and gone down in the waters of baptism. But my question to you this morning is twofold... how deep has your relationship with Him become, and have you asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Listen... do you hear the voice of Jesus? Are you hearing Him calling you to “come” or is He asking for you to “come back!”? When Jesus first calls us He gives us incredible peace, rest, and spiritual lives, but over time we might feel that those things have subsided in us; why is that? Why do we lose the intensity of joy and faith that our initial answer to His call brought us?
Are we waiting on the Lord today? Is there a challenge or need in our lives that we are nearly overwhelmed by, and have brought before God in prayer? Are we about to give up on His provision or rescue because we can’t see Him moving? Well take heart, because our God is good and He has never abandoned us.
Who taught us how to pray? Did we learn Who Taught You to Pray?so long ago that we can’t remember any longer? Did you learn to pray by reciting common prayer in Sunday School or church? Perhaps your mother and father taught you as a child by praying over your meals or at bedtime. For something so crucial and basic to our faith and relationship with Jesus and God, we certainly appear to approach it in an often unthinking or haphazard manner. So how should we pray?
Do we hear the Gospel of Jesus and worship God as we should? We might go to church and sing songs, even pray together, chant, and recite creeds, but these are all simply physical manifestations of faith that any unbeliever can imitate. What I am asking is this... Do we allow our bodies and spirits to join as one as we worship with the Holy Spirit by praising God and give Him all the glory and honor for the things we do in obedience to His will? Can we honestly say that we worship Him as scripture tells us to… by loving Him, entering into relationship with Him, and in spirit and truth?
Do we think that just because our children are born into a Christian household that they are guaranteed to follow Christ? Sadly, that is not true. Becoming a Christian, or a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, requires us to make a personal choice. We like to look at the Old Testament Covenant that God made with Abraham and likewise claim Jesus Christ for ourselves and our children, but just as with Abraham’s seed, whose covenant required that they not only believe, but that they live a lifetime of action, we Christians must too.
Being Holy is more than a distant aspiration or some lofty goal that only the most pious of Saints can ever hope to reach. We are all called to be Holy. So, what is holiness, and how can we reach a state of Holiness in this fallen world? Well, we can study becoming holy at-nauseam but let’s boil it down to its simplest and most basic form. Let’s let Jesus gather us up in His arms and carry us with Him into holiness.