Tag: Holy Spirit

Others May – You Cannot

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to measure yourself by other Christians; and in many ways, He will seem to let other good people do things which He will never let you do.

Other Christians and ministers, who seem very religious and useful, can push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their Christian goals, but these things you simply cannot do.  Others may boast of their work or their writings or their success, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you ever try it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, but most likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him and the joy of seeing Him supply your needs day by day out of an unseen Treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and keep you hidden and unappreciated because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.  He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work on and on without others knowing how much you are doing; and then, to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will rebuke you for little words or deeds or even feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem to be concerned about, but you must make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and He has a right to do whatever He pleases with His own.  He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in the way He deals with you, but if you will just submit yourself to Him in all things, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are very near to His heart.

Settle it then, that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others.  Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that your secret heart becomes pleased and delighted with this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, then you will have entered the very vestibule of heaven itself.

G.D. Watson, 1845-1924

My Deer in the Headlights Story

Usually when someone talks about a deer in the headlights, it is with some humor, such as when some hapless guy’s girl friend or wife asks him about his feelings.  He then has this “deer in the headlights” look as if he doesn’t know what she is talking about.  But sometimes a deer in the headlights can be a very serious matter.

On March 12, 2016, I drove to Rison for a night meeting, then returned home.  Rison is about an hour and half south of Little Rock, and is an area that is almost all pine forest.  It was a rainy day and coming home at night the rain just absorbed the light from my headlights.  I was on a two lane highway, driving through the forest.

In the meeting I had just attended, someone mentioned that Rison and Cleveland County were known across the state for deer hunting and the number of deer that are killed each year.  As I was driving along in the dark night, the thought occurred to me that if a deer jumped out in front of me, I would not be able to see it until it was too late.  So I slowed down a little, from 65 to 55 miles an hour.

Less than a minute later, the largest doe I have ever seen crossed right in front of my car from left to right.  It happened in just a second, and I didn’t see it until it was on the highway, passing in front of my car.  It was so close, I was really surprised that I did not hit it.

I slowed way down and pondered my near accident.   A car traveling 65 miles an hour would traverse a football field in about 3 seconds.  Do you think a 300 pound deer hitting my windshield would break the windshield?  Yes, I think it would.

We have a body, soul, and spirit, and it is our spirit that has the capacity to connect with and hear from the Holy Spirit.  I understand that often the Holy Spirit will plant ideas into our minds, which we can even recognize as coming from the Lord.  I believe the Holy Spirit nudged me to slow down on that dark highway, even a little bit, and enough for me to miss hitting a large doe. 

So seeking to know the Lord and hear His voice is not only a great adventure, it can also save our lives.

Mark Peterson

Hearing God

Augusto Perez

http://www.theappearance.com/

Revelation 2:7: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches; to him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”

Mankind has for ages wanted to be able to hear and communicate with the Creator. When Adam and Eve were created, they were able to hear and see God in the Garden of Eden with perfect clarity. Their spirits were connected to the Spirit of the Creator, the One who created all things by the Spoken Word, and thus were able to hear him and see Him.

After they sinned they died spiritually, as their spiritual DNA was messed up (their physical DNA was corrupted as well, however we will not address that topic on this series of lessons). They lost their ability to hear the voice of God and see Him because of their fallen state. When the Church was born at Pentecost, they received the ability to hear the voice of the Father.

When the Holy Spirit indwells a human spirit through the born again experience, not only is the born again believer able to hear the voice of God once again, but he is endued with certain spiritual abilities that the Bible refers to as gifts of the Spirit (John 3:6-7; 1 Corinthians 12). 

God made man with three parts to his being. Man has a spirit, a soul and a body. As a human being you have a part of you that came from God and which has the same nature as God. That part is your spirit and it has access to the realm of the Spirit.  Your spirit has the capability to make contact with heaven, but yet it is living in a physical body that dwells on the earth.  That is basically what Jesus Christ referred to when He said:

John 1:18: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.”

Yahushua was physically on the earth but His spirit was in perfect union with the Father at the same time. Whenever you are born again of the spirit, you are already walking in the heavenly realm without realizing it. The moment that you accepted Jesus as your LORD and Savior and were born again, you gained access into the spiritual realm where He dwells.

This means that your spirit is in touch with His Spirit at all times:

Colossians 1:27: “To whom God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”.

Whenever you are born again, the Spirit of the Lord comes to dwell within you spirit. Your spirit is in touch with the Holy Spirit and is in touch with the heavenly realm twenty-four hours per day. God is communing and communicating with your spirit twenty-four hours a day through the Holy Spirit.

What a great honor.  We have to lay this important foundation so that we may be able to go on to the things that we want to cover in the next few lessons where we will get into how to actually hear His voice.