05/04/2018
When you enter your time of devotion and reading the scriptures, is your intention to study the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and God, like a scientist would study a specimen in a lab? If you are a pastor are you looking for eloquence and inspiration that can be used in your sermons? If so then you are treating your relationship and faith as if they were something you might own, and not the love of your life that you should be immersed in, and changed by.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:1, 5 ESV
This letter to the Corinthians begins with a powerful statement of a very simple fact... “It ain’t about me!” What an amazing confession, and the stripping away of self to reveal what should be the wonderful truth of one’s faith... my faith is about God, and more than that... it is about my life and eternity in love with Him.
These two verses did not stand alone, they were wrapped around two others that described how we should approach our lives with God.
“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,”
1 Corinthians 2:3-4 ESV
Do you recognize this language? It is the language of humility, resignation, and relationship; it isn’t the speech of a man who is carrying God into the room between the covers of a leather bound book, or written down on a piece of paper. These are the words of a man who walks into the room holding the hand of God, and is fearful that at some unthinking moment he might make a misstep, and disappoint Him.
We are approaching Pentecost and there is no better example of a moment when the Lord stopped working on us and began working in us. Jesus had talked about us dwelling in one another on other occasions in scripture, but at Pentecost He showed us how that was to happen. Suddenly the words became real, the relationship was consummated; what had once been experienced only by the five senses of man was changed for all eternity by the addition of the sixth sense of the Holy Spirit, the very sense by which we experience God.
The interesting thing about this new sense is that it isn’t one that is of us. Someone can pluck out our eyes and we will never see again, or they can cut out our tongue and we will never taste again, but this sense is one that no one can isolate or remove; we share it with God Himself. It is not ours, but it plugs into everything we are. We don’t just bathe in it, or inhale it, our consume it, or experience it... it transforms us into new creatures.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV
My kids used to watch cartoons on television when they were young, and I remember one they liked called “The Transformers”. This was a show about cars, trucks, or airplanes that could change themselves into mechanical looking people by repositioning their parts. Then, when it suited them, they could change back. Many Christians attempt to treat their faith like this, but when the Holy Spirit becomes a part of who we are it isn’t like being a cartoon transformer... we aren’t just rearranging our old parts... it is a total remake. We are melted down and recast with every part of who we are joined with who God is. We cease being tin and copper, and become bronze... we are no longer iron and carbon, we are steel... we become a new metal... a new creature.
So as you read your devotional messages, and scriptures, and as you pray today... stop studying as one who is looking at a thing, and become part of it. The Bible isn’t the story of someone else... it is about you. The promises of God aren’t to be discovered or sought after... they are meant to be lived every day, and are real and true even when you don’t know of them. And as for prayer? Well God is much closer than you ever imagined, and if you accept the relationship He is offering through His Son Jesus Christ, and acknowledge the Holy Spirit... then you have been grafted into everything He is, and the words of Jesus have come to life in you...
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."”
John 14:20-21 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Thank you for redeeming me through His sacrifice, and for transforming me into a new creation. Help me Holy Father to stop using my intellect as a means of presenting myself as I attempt to announce you to the world, and show me how my humble life can speak volumes of you as I live it each day. Paul wrote to the Corinthians of not placing his wisdom before your power, and I fear that too Lord. Let no part of me attempt to cast a shadow upon you, for how can this world cast a shadow upon the sun, or my finger cast a shadow upon the flickering flame of a tiny candle? You are the light of my life, and there is nothing that can overshadow that. Help me Merciful Father as I immerse myself in your love, and as it changes me. Let no part of me remain untouched, and no part of my old self survive in the furnace of your renewal. I praise your name Holy Father, and chase after you like a child... Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God Almighty! Amazing is your love, and unbound is your Grace! Keep your hand within mine this day, and be with me in all I do.
Rich Forbes