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11/21/2015
The Holy Spirit(Portions of this were taken from a personal journal entry I wrote October 2012. I recently edited and added more thoughts to it in order to share.) The Holy Spirit exists to guide us, and the moment we give our lives to Christ, it makes its place in us. Walking with God enables us to tap into the unknown of our lives and others, as God reveals to us things that would otherwise not be present or known. Ministry becomes so much easier when we exercise this knowledge and power. We have all that we need. The bible, those words, God's words, meant for us, to sustain us, nourish us, and fill us up. I envision a pitcher overflowing as we read God's word, but there are times we get so caught up in our radical and supernatural life changing experiences. Moments we often feel are enough to sustain us for years to come, forgetting that our faith walk requires continuous work. That we have to nourish what we want to see grow. Not fully grasping that before we go looking for what can temporarily fill us, all that we need has already been freely given to us by God. I've personally had many seasons where I was caught on the high of radical moments but left parched by the end. I didn't fuel the flame, and honestly there were times I just stopped caring, stopped listening to the Holy Spirit or doing simple but necessary things needed to sustain the overflow. When I was an athlete, it didn't require divine revelation to know that if I didn't workout or train I'd ultimately decrease my chances of winning a competition. I even risked getting hurt. Even though I had the talent and the skill, that talent and skill did one of two things, it either kept growing because I worked at growing it, or it diminished because I stopped training. My teammates and I had to consistently work hard and workout in order to sustain our talents. Yet, we quickly learned after retiring, that looking lean or knowing we had the ability or potential in us to be great athletes, because we once were, didn't quite make us one today. Especially since many of us have not exercised or worked out in months. Well...the same goes for many of our spiritual lives. We can't keep riding the curtails of our salvation from 1975 or 1992 thinking that our salvation from years back is enough to overcome and sustain us through the storms we are facing today. We must continually be pursuing Jesus, running this race. If the United States still fought wars using weaponry from the 1800's, we would not be the country we are today. So how is it that I often think and many other Christians often think they can live life on overflow or fight some of our greatest battles solely living on, I don't know, John 3:16...? Trust me, I am speaking to myself too, as God has been telling me a thing or two about myself, and this what I've concluded as a result of His correction and direction:
The Holy Spirit is your navigation. Utilize that gift, that was freely given to you by God and watch Him radically change your life, time, after time, after time. John 14:15-17 ESV “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  For more verses on the Holy Spirit "click here".
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