02/19/2018
Do we stand at the foot of the hill and listen to Jesus teach? Do we watch Him enter Jerusalem and celebrate the fact that we know Him? Are we in the upper room and marvel at His foot washing and His words surrounding the bread and the wine? Well, all of these things are amazing and wonderful but in each case we are a bystander, yet when we are filled with the Holy Spirit then suddenly the life of Jesus moves from before your eyes to a place deep within us. We cease being watchers, and perhaps marginally practicing Christians, and become one with Christ.
“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Acts 2:4 ESV
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and now is a great time to ask ourselves whether our relationship with Jesus has made the transition from an external one to an internal acceptance of Him; have we opened ourselves up to His indwelling? Today we find that we are on a Spiritual Journey to Easter and there is no better time, as we look towards Calvary and at the cross, to take a long look back at our walk of faith. Are we walking with Jesus today, or are we walking in Him? Are we watching Him as He carries His cross alone, or have we picked up our own cross to follow Him?
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
John 14:20 ESV
When we accept the Holy Spirit we are allowing our relationship to become as personal with Jesus as is possible. At the moment the Spirit enters into us our relationship moves from being that of mere friends, or teacher and pupil, to a level of spiritual intimacy that we never dreamed we were capable of experiencing. Pastor Andrew Murray wrote of the metamorphosis we experience at the instant of our filling. Listen to his words...
“If you would taste the joy, if you would know by personal experience the blessedness of having Jesus in your heart, of having within you His Spirit of holiness and humility, love and self sacrifice, courage and power, as naturally and continuously as your own spirit - then separate yourselves from everything that is of this world and cast it from your heart; fix your desire on this one thing: to be filled with the Spirit of God.” - Andrew Murray
Jesus tried to explain this phenomenon of the Spirit to His disciples, but they weren’t ready to hear it because it was beyond their understanding. They were happy and satisfied with having Jesus beside them and could not comprehend what He meant by being in them; they had no idea who the comforter was, or the road that he would take them down.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
John 16:7 ESV
So, Jesus was preparing to leave them to complete his own journey to the throne of God. He was going to take His place at the right hand of His Father. He was going to that place where He could best intercede for mankind, but there was one more step He needed to complete and lead His disciples in... He needed to send His Spirit to complete their Spiritual transformation from the fishermen some had once been to true fishers of men as He had promised. Their pilgrimage was about to reach its climax, they were at the place where Jesus would no longer be looking into their eyes, but would allow them to look out of His instead.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
John 16:13-14 ESV
So yesterday, as so many of us commemorated the beginning of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness after His baptism, we too should face our own journey of faith, and finalize our own plans for the pilgrimage ahead. This is a time of sifting, a time of scarcity of worldly things... a time of dwelling with our Heavenly Father and seeing Him through the aid of the Holy Spirit... this is a time to see eternity through the eyes of Jesus Christ as He looks at the cross which awaits Him just ahead.
Do we walk this way in the footsteps of Jesus, or do we experience something deeper as we look down and see that our feet have become His? Has the Holy Spirit poured Him into us, and us into Him until we have become so thoroughly mixed that it is impossible to tell one from the other? Are we a mixture of weak and strong wines that have been poured together from glass to glass until now their taste has become one, and is smooth, sweet, and new? This is our conversion, this is our sanctification, and this is what lies beyond the cross with the coming of the Holy Spirit. From here, we will travel through the wilderness and look at ourselves as we ask... “whose are these eyes that I am seeing through?”
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, and for the Holy Spirit that shows me the things that are to come, and gives me understanding of those things that have passed. Thank you for the Spirit that dwells in me now, and allows me to live in Jesus, even as He is abiding in me. In this way Holy Father, I can dwell in you with Him. I can feel the exhilaration of what once was faith but now is real; I can touch what before was merely hope, but which now has become life to me. Praised be your name Father, for your will has been done, completed in the Son, and the Spirit. Surround me Father as I walk this path of righteousness, let me hear your voice as if I were in the Garden. Lead me ever closer, and by your Holy Spirit increase me. Great art thou Merciful Father, and greater yet is your grace by which I am saved.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV
Amen!
Rich Forbes