You read your Bible, you teach Sunday school, or 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 relationship, and meekness, not with a spiritual inclination. Which are you, and do you even know? 

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 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 it 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, or lotion; symbolic? Anointing is a sacred practice and is Holy; in so doing the one being anointed is being made Holy, Consecrated, and being set apart. Let’s look at this further. 

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 God why you can’t do a thing, or why you don’t receive. You may find that in some cases it has less to do with faith than you think.

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. My question to you this morning is two fold today... how deep has your relationship with Him become, and, have you asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Who taught you how to pray? Did you learn so long ago that you can’t actually remember? Did you learn by reciting common prayer in church? Perhaps your mother and father taught you as a child. For something so crucial and basic to our faith and relationship with Jesus and God, we appear to approach it in an often haphazard manner. So how should we pray?

Do you think that just because your children are born into a Christian household that they are thus Christian? 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 Covenant that God made with Abraham and likewise claim Jesus Christ for ourselves and children, but just as with Abraham’s seed, that promise requires a lifetime of action.