Receiving the Holy Spirit

In the five translations I refer to the most, there are four names that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit: Helper, Counselor, Comforter and Advocate. The four chapters that we are now studying in John were all Jesus' words at the table of His last Passover with His disciples. The phrasing and words He used at that time were directed to His disciples but are for us in the same context at almost every stage of our development into maturity. Every time we face a new challenge in God, we need to go to these chapters and let our Spirit feed on them. We will gain a new insight every time for these are the words of God, our Savior.

Later, when He returned to them, He would give them explicit instructions that were for them, the apostles of the new Church. He would tell them where to go and how to receive the Holy Spirit that was to come into this realm in a new ministry to the new Church. They obeyed these instructions and we read of this in the book of Acts. But now, in these chapters of John, Jesus is giving the expectations and instructions of the New Covenant as part of the covenant making ceremony. Not until later would the disciples understand this was what was taking place at that time. These covenant words are for every one of us and are to be heeded as such if we are to conscientiously give to God our covenant response.

How do we receive the Holy Spirit as our personal, indwelling Guide? Jesus gave us the steps we need to follow. John 14:15-16 (NLT) 15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to "love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and strength," and the second, next to it, was to "love your neighbor as yourself". Love and obedience are two of the strongest responses we can give to God. All the money and posessions you have are not equal to these responses. Jesus said we are to obey His commands. The strongest command we have from Jesus is to love one another even as He loves us. These are strong words and even harder to obey. One or two people we can love, maybe, in this way but to love every person in this complete, self-sacrificing love as Jesus loves us? VERY hard to do in ourselves. But Jesus does not demand perfection, only the desire to set ourselves to obey, for Jesus looks on the heart and sees the intent. Then Jesus and the Father step in and send the Holy Spirit into you. He will be your Helper and your Guide. His grace will enable you to do what is impossible in your self. Don't forget, the Holy Spirit is always WITH you to help you. It is when He is IN you that you recognize the difference in the enabling power to do His will.

A covenant response

As Jesus was giving to His disciples the expectations of response and the promises of provision for the New Covenant, we find an insight into the ways of God for our developing maturity into His likeness. Jesus gives us three steps we can take that will result in the indwelling of the three Personalities of God. These three chapters of John have been my study guide for my relationship to God. There is a prgression revealed that we can follow.

John 14:15-17 (NIV) 15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

I chose this translation because of the two Names of the Holy Spirit. Jesus called the Spirit these names with reason. At the stage the disciples were in and the trauma they were facing, Jesus assured them that He was giving them a Counselor to guide them when he would no longer be with them. This was the relationship they knew with Jesus. When you are making disciples, you need to be seen as a counselor--one who has been a partaker of the way you are showing. This Counselor was to be received by them as the Spirit of Truth. Jesus was revealing Himself to them as The Truth and they needed to receive the Spirit as the guide to Truth when Jesus was no longer visibly with them.

These men would understand better later what Jesus was saying to them at this time. It is the same with us--we hear God's Word but we have to "grow" into the undestanding. The Spirit guides us to the place of understanding. The disciples had a measure of understanding of the world's perception of Jesus but there was much confusion. I am sure they could never have anticipated that anyone would actually desire to see Jesus crucified. But Jesus knew the power of darkness that bound people in their blindness. When one walks in the deception of Satan, that person cannot see, perceive or even desire Truth. The religious rulers were as blind as the Roman soldiers. They not only could not see the Truth that walked among them, they refused to know. They would not be able to comprehend the Spirit of Truth that would soon be in these disciples and in their ministry. People today who cling to their religious opinion of the Scriptures cannot see or know the revelation of the Spirit of Truth. They are bound by their own limitation. This world cannot see or know the Spirit of Truth that moves among them.

But Jesus continued showing the progression that God would sovereignly open to this realm. The Holy Spirit was with these disciples but soon He would have the right to be in them. Love is a very strong response. It is God's expectation in His covenant with us. It was His expectation in His covenant with Israel, the nation.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (English Standard Version) 4"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (I chose this translation for it is quoting the phrase that every synagogue starts each gathering: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.") This emphasized the totality of the love God expected each one to have and that it was to be learned in childhood and a part of each life.

Jesus shows the love that is to be our response is connected with obedience just as the former covenant demanded. It is the response that opens the door to receiving the indwelling of the Spirit of Truth.

Jesus in flesh

Isaiah 53:2(NLT) My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.

In my meditations the other day, I began to wonder how much our day shapes our concept of ministry. We see the "big" teleministries, the hype of huge campaigns with thousands saved, mega churches and personalized ministries and see that as "success". Jesus came with nothing that would attract us to Him in the natural. We see pictures of Jesus and they present a very attractive man. But there are no pictures or descriptions of Jesus by those who saw Him. My respect for Isaiah as a prophet is based on the accuracy of his prophecies. Whether he was prophesying to natural Israel concerning the immediate future, or concerning the coming Messiah, there are no mistakes and inaccuracies. The description he saw prophetically of Jesus is as unattractive in the natural. The temptation of Satan to Jesus in the wilderness was to change his image to Israel so he would be accepted.

If we were to view His natural life, I believe we would have seen reason for unhappiness, discontent and discouragement. His siblings were jealous of Him and resisted Him. What would you do with an elder brother who never did anything wrong? He was probably constantly held up to the siblings as an example to follow. But in their adamic nature it would be impossible. The parents had a struggle to understand Him, yet they had no fault with His obedience and nature. He was constantly labeled as "Mary's son" and the scandal would always have been with Him. He grew up in "dry ground".

He had no natural recommendation. The Sanhedrin found nothing to justify His "ministry" or His attraction to the crowds, but could not refute the miracles that drew the crowds. His popularity had no other attraction that they could see but were jealous of it and fearful of what it would mean to their own place.

God gave to this realm every possible excuse to reject Jesus. I see this always in the Word that God "stacks the deck against Himself" in order that man might test his own hunger for God by what he must push through to find Him. Those who followed Jesus did so because of the Spirit of God in Him. They saw what they needed in Him. They met in Him what they could not find in anything of this realm. He filled the vacancy that always gnaws at every human ever born. Mankind will seek to fill that void with anything they can. Food, money, fame or any kind of success is sought to justify their existence and fill that void. Yet the deception of Satan denies that they can find what they seek in Jesus. The only time I hear that "religion is a crutch," is when they speak of Christians who follow too closely to Jesus.

If religion dresses everything up, promises wealth and health, looks successful and in control, people grab for it. It is the way of man to want to look really "good" in the eyes of his peers, but it is not the way of God. God takes us down to bring us up and takes us backward to bring us forward. If we follow the footsteps of Jesus, we can be sure there will be criticism and contention for us on that path. But God does not share His glory with flesh. The beauty people saw in Jesus was the beauty of God shining in Him. He did not justify Himself in the flesh but only spoke of His relationship to the Father and gave the glory to the Father. Our only real ministry is to point to Jesus and let His anointing flow through us to do the Father's works. Nothing else matters or will last into eternity.

I believe people saw the nature of God in Him and that drew them. His nature did not change when He came to this earth. All of His responses were out of His nature. Unfortunately, this is true of us also. If the Holy Spirit has not had the opportunity to change our nature because we cling to the adamic nature, our first response will be out of that adamic nature. What we call the fruit of the Spirit is actually the Spirit's nature being allowed to take over our nature and produce God's nature in us. I remember one of my early prayers was a cry that I might bleed Christ. I wanted my first reaction to be Christ and not my own response. It is indeed labor to surrender and enter into His rest.

Hebrews 4:11 (KJV) Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

Philippians 2:12(NIV) 12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

The miracle of Jesus' birth

Less and less do we hear of Jesus' birth at the Christmas season and more and more about Santa Claus and the economy as presents are purchased and decorated. But the percentage of believers among unbelievers is actually growing. It is not uncommon to meet fellow Christians in unexpected places. But the miracle of Jesus's birth is so far out of natural thinking that it is easy to just think of it as an isolated miracle and forget it.

This miracle goes back before creation. In God's wisdom and knowledge, Jesus was the lamb slain from the creation of the world. Revelation 13:8(NLT) And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life before the world was made—the Book that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered.

Our creation was planned to allow God to come to this world in the likeness of His creation. Our realm is a water realm but God's realm is spirit. Within the invisible shield around our earth is the air we breath that is part water. We need water more than food. Our bodies are part water and we are shaped in a bag of water. That bag of water comes from the sperm as does our blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood. Jesus came into this realm in water not of this realm and with blood not of Adam. But he came born of Mary and probably looked just like her. This miracle of birth is to be respected and rejoiced. Without this miracle, the miracle of our salvation could not exist. It is how God's Life became our life and believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead brings the miracle of our being born into the Family of God. By the ministry of God's Spirit within us, we come to look just like our Father.

Have a blessed Christmas!

The fruit of unity

I used the marriage covenant a few days ago to illustrate the unity with Jesus that is necessary in the fruitfull use of His Name. In meditating on this, I began to see a deeper fruitful promise than just the answer to our prayers.

I think one of the most misunderstood experiences we see in the Scriptures is sanctification. For years I thought it was a growing experience and could not agree that one received an "experience" of sanctification. The reason I felt this was the many I saw in counsel who had lost faith in God because they did not see the fruit of sanctification in their lives after they had been told they had received sanctfication. (However, that has also been true of salvation and baptism of the Holy Spirit! If a person has to be told he has received, he may have only a mental acceptance!) But I saw something deeper in this passage after I wrote about it a few days ago.

Seeing the unity of the Father in Jesus when He was in our likeness on earth, I saw the miracle that revelation could bring to us. Seeing that He came to bring Life, and that more abundantly, I saw the flow of God's Life to each person that received a miracle. John 14:11 NIV 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. This verse in the NIV shows a deeper inspection of the miracles than just considering Jesus doing works. The NIV is a balance between word for word and thought for thought and is parented by the American Standard Version, a word for word translation which is now out of print but can be viewed on the Internet. ASV 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. They had seen Jesus doing the works, so it was not that He did the works, but that the works were an evidence of the Father in Him. The very Life of God--the essence of the Holy Eternal Being--was flowing through Jesus into cells of this creation of God to restore and control. When the disciples would come to see it was this Life of God flowing in Jesus, with whose flesh life they had been most acquainted, and realized Jesus was telling them they could do these same works with the same flow of God in them, this would be a revelation that would bring instant change. After the resurrection of Jesus when He breathed on them to receive the New Birth He had purchased for them, Jesus told them to wait until the Holy Spirit had come into them before they went out to witness of His resurrection. On the Day of Pentecost, these men began to do the works of Jesus. They knew the difference of seeing Jesus as a man and seeing Him as the Son of God. They knew the difference of going out to do the works Jesus sent them to do and doing the works because the Spirit of God was in them.

I believe that sanctification is knowing Who Jesus is and who you are in God and resting in that knowledge to be the vessel God works through to accomplish His will. Not only God's Nature is seen in you, but His Power and Love flow through you.

Your control

Do you realize you have a control in your relationship to God and God's relationship to you? Jesus spoke of the "if" in the New Covenant relationship. He was giving to us (His Church) the greatest carte blanche the world will ever know and then reveals the if. John 14:13-15 (NASB) 13"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. 15"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
There is a relationship in covenant that we can understand because of our experience with the marriage covenant. There is an exchange of names that represents the identification of covenant. You may know my husband's name and use it in greeting, in conversation and even in a business context, but I am identified by his name. I am in covenant with him. That covenant is more than a written permission. It is an every day, every week, every year, lifetime commitment and lifestyle. I know him as no one else does, but every day, all through the years, that knowledge has grown and deepened and developed a deeper love and commitment. His name means more to me now than the day (after our engagement!) that I filled a page with writing his name as my new name. I use his name with reverence and carefulness because I am responsible for its use, not only legally and financially, but because I care for his reputation.

The disciples had known Jesus as their Teacher and Lord, a much greater intimacy than others knew, but that knowledge had to deepen into the commitment the new covenant would open to them. They were responsible for the degree of intimacy they would allow by the response to the covenant they would give. You have the freedom of choice. Will your love for Him consume you? Will it be divided, scattered, passive? Will His glory be the reason you use His Name? What will drive your relationship to Him? Do you follow Him for what you can get? Do you long to be like Him and bring glory to His Name and just live in His presence? Is your greatest reward just to see Him smile?

Asking in His Name is more than just saying His Name. It is a living joy and responsibility of bearing His Name.

New Covenant response

I often speak of covenant response as that which frees God's hand to move in our behalf. In the Old Testament (covenant) the response was obedience to the Law and following it. Jesus is very explicit in John 14-16 as to the response we must have. These chapters are so full that to spend time in them is to enrich yourself.

John 14:10-14(NASB)10"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11"Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. 12"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

Jesus emphasizes the unity of the threefold ministry of God to this realm to bring forth "man in His image." These ministries all have individual personality and all are the essence of Eternal God. It is God working in us. (Philippians 2:13) Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, and the Holy Spirit, filling Jesus without measure, did the Father's works in Jesus. Jesus emphasized His purpose in coming to this earth was to provide the way for us to be in God. He did not do it for His sake but for ours. It was to draw us into God's complete unity that He came. The works He did, we can do. It depends on our faith in Jesus. Not just that He died and provided for us in a finished work, but that even in the likeness of man, He did the Father's works, or rather, the Father was doing His work in Jesus. When you come to believe in the power of this unity and that this unity is provided for us in Jesus when we abide in Him, the Father is able, by the Spirit living in us, to do His works in us as He did in Jesus on this earth. "The world has yet to see what a man can do when he fears nothing but the Lord." I grew up hearing this quotation repeated often. What hinders our faith in Jesus, God incarnate? Is it fear of man, fear of being different, or fear of failing? II Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. We are hindered by the human nature that has yet to be surrendered to the Holy Spirit. The Word is very clear, the works that Jesus did, we are to do also because of our faith in Him. The Father has not changed, He is still doing His work in the earth. He can do it through you if you believe in Jesus Who has made this unity possible for you.

We often forget how vulnerable Jesus made Himself for our sake. He said He was going to the Father. Because we know He was resurrected and ascended to the Father, we take for granted this was what He meant. But He had to go by the way of the cross, the grave and resurrection to get back to the Father. If He had failed, He would not have purchased our salvation but neither would He have gone back to the Father. Jesus put everything on the line for you to join Him in the Father. Don't let fear and doubt rob you of this privilege that is yours.

mountains in covenant

Have you ever noticed how significant mountains are in the Scripture? So many covenants begin on mountains or are finalized there. I was reading John 14 again this morning and I began to see a comparison with the disciples experience, as Jesus prepared them for the New Covenant that would see the beginning of the Church, and Moses, as God prepared him to receive the written part of the Abrahamic covenant that would see the beginning of a nation. The conditions were so different yet the message to the heart was the same. Our conditions today are so very different from both of these, yet the message to our heart is the same. Prepare yourself to follow God's leading. God moves forward into areas that are uncharted for our human understanding. We have to prepare our selves to follow Him.

As I awakened this morning, the Spirit was speaking to me concerning the disciples and their human query of Jesus as they struggled to understand what He was saying to them at that final Passover as described by John. Thomas and Philip wanted an explanation of the Way that they could grasp in their minds. When Jesus said the "way they knew" was not explicit enough for them. But the Spirit was saying to me, the Way can be summed up in two words, and Jesus had given them the two words at the very beginning of their journey. It is the same for us as it was for them, "Follow Me." They became blindsided by their human expectation and interpretation of Jesus' words and actions. We become blindsided by the same human reactions as we try to fit God's words into our circumstances. We do not see the natural circumstances of our day and of our lives as God sees. We can only follow Him as He leads us through them.

The circumstances of the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai and the disciples facing Mt. Calvary were very different. But both were facing the ending of one "era" and the beginning of a new. We stand in the same position today. The time of the church age is drawing to a close. The day of opportunity is closing. God is preparing His people to move on to become a part of His next phase of bringing His purpose to completion: man in His image. The words of Jesus in these four chapters of John are as significant to the covenant for us as His Church as the Law was to the covenant for the nation of Israel. We may not understand completely but the way is still defined by His words: Follow Me.

We are going to begin a study of the teaching of Jesus to prepare His disciples, not only for the trauma they faced, but to be the foundation of the Church. These teachings are for us as we face a similar but different time. But our day is as formed by God as the day in which they lived. We are living in this time by God's purpose and plan.

Recognizing the spirit that motivates

I was meditating on the origin of sin and several interesting truths were revealed that I had known but did not connect before. We always speak of Adam's sin as the original sin. Actually, sin had entered into God's "space" before that.

One of the really difficult things to consider is "eternity" and "no beginning" for God. The only way we can fathom it is to realize the completeness of God. He has no need. Time is not in His eternity. These two things are a great limitation on us as mortals. In God's eternity, outside of time, God said, "Let Us make man in our image." What we cannot understand is God's completeness of thought. So much is instantaneous in God that takes process for us. The "Us" in that involves so much more than we can comprehend. God so impressed on Moses the truth that "the Lord, our God, is One," that the Israelites could not comprehend Jesus as God in man. It was the desire for man that caused God to have three ministries for the purpose of bringing the creation of man into fruition. The ranks of angels, created for the purpose of serving man in the process of becoming God's desire, were an instant creation without process. These will not change but always be as they were created. This is Satan's frustration. God's purpose and plan are written in the stars and for this reason, Satan declared he would exalt himself above the stars.
Isaiah 14:12-14 (NLT) 12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. 13 For you said to yourself, ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. 14 I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’ It is Satan's jealousy of man's destiny that caused his rebellion. With his rebellion, sin began.

In God's completeness, He already had everything covered to attain His desire. He wrote our names in His Book of Life and Jesus became the Lamb of sacrifice. Satan had no knowledge of God before his creation and only knew the Ministries of God in their plurality. To me, the greatest sacrifice Jesus made was not coming to our realm to die for us, but that, forever, He will be as we are. Yes, He is our Lord, but He, the Creator, has become the creation for our sake. We will forever bow to His Majesty and the Love He showed us--the very nature of God. Also, we cannot but honor, forever be grateful, to the Holy Spirit, Who willingly lives in us to guide and shape us into the image of God. How great is the love of God for us!

When it comes to defining sin, we must see God's view as expressed in I Samuel 15:22-23(NLT)22 But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. 23 Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” Another translation uses "is as" instead of "as bad as". I think it is a little stronger, for Jesus said we must become "as a little child" to see the kingdom of heaven. There is a stronger identification in that usage. I often wake up with the Lord speaking to me, and the other day, He was speaking this scripture and said, Satan uses witchcraft to imitate the Holy Spirit.

Satan certainly uses rebellion (which is a spirit) to resist God and is the heart of his deception to Eve. But there is a seducing spirit to witchcraft and Satan certainly seduced Eve and also Adam. I have often wondered how Adam, who had been taught by God and fellowshipped with God, could have been deceived enough to ignore what God had taught him. But the seducing spirit from Satan is very strong. Satan plays on anything in our mind, emotion or spirit that will open to his seduction. Adam must have had a curiousity about the tree and Satan's explanation must have triggered that curiosity to open the door.

We know God hated witchcraft, homosexuality, pride and idolatry. But Satan has so seduced the present generations now living on the earth, that they call evil, good, and the good they call evil.