Holy Spirit

Encounters with Jesus

True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.  
—Thomas Merton 

How can we live in such a way that encounters with Jesus, as Merton describes above, are possible for us?

We start by wanting to know everything we can know about him. As Christians, one of our missions should be to read and reread the Gospels to keep gaining insights into Jesus – not only his teaching, but also his actions, attitudes, and habits.

Then we will want to know him, not just intellectually, but experientially through a one-on-one relationship with him. We will want personal encounters with Jesus – times when we can sense his presence or hear his voice as a thought in our mind or feel his love reaching out for us.

These moments with Jesus are possible, but they cannot be commanded. They can only be received. We can prepare space for them by walking in obedience to Jesus, desiring to please him in every possible way. Such a moment might happen when we pause in our prayer to listen, or when we’re driving to an appointment, or as we sleep at night. Every encounter with Jesus will cut to our heart, it will change us, we will never forget it, and we will want more.

Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives within everyone who has put their trust in him. If we tune in to his presence and his power, he will respond in his own way and time.

“. . . “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” – John 14:2

Calming the Soul

“I can change my mind, but only the Holy Spirit can change my heart.” ~ Jack Deere

Years ago, coal miners would die from toxic gases in their unventilated mines. Someone realized canaries were sensitive to these gasses and would succumb to their effects sooner than humans. So miners would take canaries with them into the mines. If a canary began to show signs of toxicity, the workers knew it was time to evacuate.

As followers of Jesus, we have a similar warning system inside us: the Holy Spirit. When we are in situations that are dangerous or where we might be tempted to sin, the Spirit sends urgent signals for us to get out of harm’s way. If we trust him, we’ll pay attention and run.

Not only did the canary in the mine warn of danger, he also was an indicator when all was well. If the canary was singing, the men could work without worries about the air they were breathing. Productivity increased when there was a sense of security.

As we learn to know the Holy Spirit better, we learn to turn our attention toward him when we get anxious. If we sense he isn’t worried, we shouldn’t be either. Instead of letting anxiety prevail, we can learn to connect to him as our stability, our source of peace.

We need to get to know this Spirit better so we’ll sense danger when it’s there and have peace when it’s not. It’s beyond imagination, but the Holy Spirit is actually is our protector, and we are better off when we get in the habit of giving him our attention and trusting him to guide.

“. . . do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” – 1 Corinthians 6:19a

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Spiritual Boost

“A spiritual life requires human effort. The forces that keep pulling us back into a worry-filled life are far from easy to overcome.” — Henri Nouwen

Have you ever felt your spiritual life growing cold? The fire you once felt is now just embers? Here are some practices that help me when I feel that way:

  1. Gratitude: One of the easiest antidotes for spiritual stagnation is thanksgiving. It sparks the life of the Spirit. Every. Single. Time.
  2. Solitude: This means removing distractions – whether those distractions are work or people or cell phones. A vibrant spiritual life depends on time alone with God.
  3. Fasting: Traditionally, this means giving up food for a specified time to allow for more focus on the eternal matters of life. It can also mean fasting from anything that seems to draw us into excess.
  4. Spiritual friends: I have a friend who sometimes says, “Do you want to get together next week?” When she does, I find time because I know she wants to meet in a quiet place to talk about spiritual matters and pray together. We all need friends like her.
  5. Worship: It doesn’t have to be in a church. We can worship in a quiet place at home, or on a walk, or while driving the car – anywhere we can think about the absolute wonder of God, enjoy his presence, praise him with words or song. Worship wakes us to the awe-filled mystery of being in relationship with our Creator.

The Holy Spirit is often depicted as fire. The practices listed here will invite the Spirit to reignite our love for God and others. And there is amazing joy and excitement when he does!

“. . . I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you. . .” – from 2 Timothy 1:6

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Extraordinary Things

“Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand.” – S. D. Gordon

I don’t think we are supposed to live ordinary lives. Why? Because we follow Jesus and, because of him, we have a chance of participating in the extraordinary every day. There’s a great example of this told in the gospels.

Jesus was teaching, and people had comes from miles around to hear him. Some caring friends brought in a paralyzed man. They had come in through the roof because the crowds made it impossible to get close to Jesus any other way.

Jesus looked at this man who couldn’t walk and told him his sins were forgiven. Who says things like that? The religious leaders who were watching knew exactly who says things like that – they knew he was claiming to be God.

Then Jesus healed the paralytic, who promptly got up off his mat and walked!

And then we read about the reaction of the crowd: “. . . amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen extraordinary things today’.” (Luke 5:26)

The One we follow still teaches – through the Bible, other Christians, and in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Crowds are still following him from all over the world. Jesus still forgives sins. He still is God who came in the flesh so we could be with him forever. He still works miracles. These are all things that should amaze us every day!

Lord, I want to live close enough to you to see extraordinary things – to participate in them, to know you through them, and to share, with anyone who will listen, who you are. With you, no life will ever be ordinary!

“We have seen extraordinary things today.” – Luke 5:26b

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Reaching out to Heaven

“Scripture and souls are the primary fields of operation of the Holy Spirit. . . God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities.  We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit” – Eugene Peterson

Does your prayer life need a lift? Sometimes we find ourselves repeating the same prayers every day. That’s OK, but sometimes we wish we had a fresh approach in reaching out to God. For me, that fresh approach is found in praying over the Scripture passage I’m reading. When I do, I’m interacting with God about the message he has given. I think he likes that.

If you want to try it, the psalms are a great place to start because most of them were written as prayers in the first place.  So we can pray along with David or the song-writers or the praise-givers and know that these words and these pleas are inspired already. God will honor his word.

Here are some specific suggestions for how we can pray God’s word back to him:

  1. Go through the passage line-by-line, thinking about what each phrase means. Then start a conversation with God about it.
  2. Pray the truth of what you are saying will penetrate your heart and be made evident in your life. 
  3. Focus on the intention of the words of Scripture as if they were your very own. 
  4. Pause to listen between lines or verses to hear what the Holy Spirit is telling you about application to your life or what he may be revealing to give you a fuller understanding of the text.
  5. Offer thanksgiving to God for whatever he brings to you mind as you pray his word.

God has begun the conversation. It’s our turn to respond.

“I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” – Psalm 40:8

            

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The Me I Want to Be

“The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.” – Philip Yancey

Recently a Christian leader sent an angry tweet and, then, another post apologetic about the first and saying, “That isn’t really who I am.”

If we’ve used social media for any period of time, we most likely have had regrets about something we posted. Aren’t we all glad for the edit option?

In Mark 7, Jesus taught his disciples this truth: The words that come from our mouths (or, in today’s world, our phones or computers) reflect what we’re like on the inside. Our words reveal exactly who we are. Maybe, as one tweeter said, we shouldn’t say, “That isn’t really who I am,” and instead say, “That’s not the person I want to be.”

How, then, do I become that person – the one I want to be? The one who is good, kind, gentle, generous, wise, self-controlled, faithful, loving, patient, and forgiving, but still discerning and bold? Whether we need fine tuning or a total overhaul, the method is the same: We go to the Father, confess our failings, and ask him to grow us into the person he’s designed us to be. Then, believe that he’s doing it. As we go through our lives day-by-day, we will be given opportunities to choose our responses, to initiate conversations, to help someone in need, and all the while, we are changing – becoming more and more like the person we want to be.

It all starts with turning to the Father.

” . . . walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,” – Ephesians 4:1b-2

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Insight

“A moment of insight from God is worth a lifetime of experience.” – Anonymous

There’s a lot we cannot see with our eyes.

The story in the Bible that gives dramatic evidence of this is when the King of Syria sent a whole army to capture Elisha, and Elisha is calm, but his servant is terrified. So Elisha asks God to open his servant’s eyes so he can see what Elisha already knows: There are heavenly chariots of fire all around them! The servant had been afraid because he couldn’t see the protection God had already provided.

God can help us see the things we cannot see on our own. And praying for him to help us see is biblical, “Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).

Those might be insights to understand the messages in God’s Word, yes, but I have found there are more ways God helps us to see.

He can give insight . . .

. . . to sense when someone says they’re fine when they’re not.

. . . to clearly discern the direction we are to take.

. . . to know when to instruct and when to confront.

. . . to understand today’s events in light of eternity.

. . . to ‘see’ the heavenly help we receive when the battle seems overwhelming.

I believe God wants us to live in the light of his revelation every day. Commitment to constant walking with him allows us to see the things only he can reveal, and our decisions, understanding, and relationships take on new and richer dimensions. Open my eyes, Lord!

“. . . that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you . . .” – Ephesians 1:17-18a

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Not much new there.

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.” -Charles Spurgeon

We were driving home from church last week, and I asked my husband, “What did you think of the sermon?” The message was based on a very familiar passage from the Sermon on the Mount, so, after thinking for a minute, he said, “There wasn’t much new there.” I agreed.

Every pastor reading this is cringing at this point, but the story didn’t end there. We began to talk about certain points this pastor made, and I acknowledged there was one point that was my “take away” for the morning – something that I needed to hear and to pay attention to in my life. Then Warren said he really had one of those, too, and his take away was specific to him. We had a great time talking about what changed for us as we listened to and processed that message.

What just happened? The Holy Spirit showed up. He took an old message, a familiar passage, and applied it in a new way in our hearts. The scripture is the same we had heard from our childhood until now, but our life circumstances are different, the problems we face have changed over time, and our hearts are more or less receptive at any given moment.

So we need to keep going back to the Word of God. True, it’s an ancient book, but it’s not a dead book. It may be old, but it never gets old. It refreshes our souls in new ways and with new emphases over time.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12

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God Connections

“Blessed are the people . . . who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
who exult in your name all the day. . .” – Psalm 89:15-16a

Would you like God to be gracious to you? To lead you? To teach you truth? If we love him, we want that, right? The Bible is filled with verses that tell us the path to these blessings is for us to keep God in the front of our thoughts all the time. Here are just two examples:

“Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” Psalm 25:5

“You keep covenant with your servants and show them grace, provided they live in your presence with all their heart.” (1 Kings 8:23b)

So how can we live our busy lives and still constantly connect with God? Sometimes our minds have to be otherwise engaged, so I try to take advantage of times when when I’m walking or doing things like cleaning, driving, or preparing meals. For those of you who garden, it’s a perfect time for conversations with your Creator.

When we keep him in our thoughts with intention at these times, we will find the Holy Spirit within us carries on the connection even when our minds are doing something else. Then when we finish our conversation with someone or put the project down, the Spirit gently draws us back into awareness of God’s presence. We can trust him to do that.

A unique blessing comes to us when we sense God’s nearness all day long.

“We have the ability and the responsibility to keep God present in our minds, and those who do so will make steady progress toward him for he will respond by making himself known to us.” – Dallas Willard

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Am I the answer?

“He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” – Job 6:14

Most of the time, we don’t know what’s on another person’s prayer list, do we? Sometime they share their burdens with us. More often, they are silent about what keeps them awake at night. We might not even know they need help.

But God does. He knows, as well, our relationship to this person, and it just may be that he wants to use us to answer a prayer request we aren’t even aware of. So what do we do?

First, as friends, we should learn to listen with sensitivity and to observe behavior. Often a person in need will give clues to what he cannot seem to verbalize, but we have to be aware and watchful. The Spirit will often reveal what we would not see on our own.

Then we can come in a little closer and try to help – sharing from our resources, offering our skills, giving biblical counsel, and standing alongside until our friend’s burden gets lighter. If we are willing, we can make a difference – one act of kindness at a time.

We usually aren’t called to solve other people’s problems, but we are called to respond in whatever way the Spirit shows us until they, with God’s help, can solve their own.

We may be the answer to someone else’s prayer. That, dear friends, is one of the greatest joys of the Christian life. Serving God. Loving others. Sensing God’s affirmation. And being reminded of Jesus’ own words, “. . .It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35b).

None of us can help everyone. But all of us can help someone. And when we help them, we serve Jesus. Who would want to miss a chance to do that? – Max Lucado