Thursday, July 07, 2005
How Does The Holy Spirit Deal With You?
A while back, I raised a bit of a ruckus when I asked some questions about the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and then looked at the responses I got. This post from Jollyblogger got me thinking about some of those question again.
Now, before I get too deep into this, Jollyblogger was not writing about this topic. He was presenting some notes on a speech given at an conference he is attending. The subject was "The Trinity and Worship in the World to Come." I am just going to take some of the notes out of context and develop an idea they raise. Here's the money quote
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to transform us, to create obedience in us, and to make the love of God real in our lives. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is not to make us happy, not to make us feel good about ourselves, not to make the crowd sing better, not to make us euphoric. Those things may be by-products of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but they are not the ministry itself.
Sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit will not produce those things. I opined last week that the transformation the Holy Spirit brings to our lives is sometimes a process of demolition and reconstruction. That means that sometimes the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to create in us discontent, pain, and trial -- not because those things are good, but because they start us on the journey towards good.
This is why those who focus too much on the miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit scare me some. They seem to want to skip this hard stuff. I think we need to learn to embrace our times of trial -- not to wallow in it, but to understand that it generally is God sending us in a new direction.
SmartChristin may be thinking on the same lines. He said this recently
I may catch a lot of heat for this, but I think the Christian life is a good life, but it is not always a pleasant or an easy life. Adversity, particularly adversity against which we lack sufficient resources, puts us in a position to rely on God more than we ever thought possible. This is a cast to the gospel that would be advised against by church consultants, it's part of the gospel most do not want to hear -- but it may be the heart of the gospel, because the heart of the gospel is transformation.
In the end longsuffering is the slow, often painful, process of learning to rely on God -- allowing the Holy Spirit to purge us of the sin to which we are so enslaved.
Now, before I get too deep into this, Jollyblogger was not writing about this topic. He was presenting some notes on a speech given at an conference he is attending. The subject was "The Trinity and Worship in the World to Come." I am just going to take some of the notes out of context and develop an idea they raise. Here's the money quote
False teachers don't say "I hate Jesus." They stand up in the morning and say "I love Jesus, I believe in Jesus." They preach a cheap grace which relies on the cross but has no concern for the coming judgment. They turn the grace of God into licentiousness, not with their lips, but with their lives. Licentiousness - living according to passions placed in second rate, ungodly pleasures. This is making God a means to some other end. They wink at sin in their own lives and the lives of others. They deny the life-transforming power of God made possible through the cross.What a wonderful statement about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
These folks say "I don't have any trouble loving God, I have trouble obeying God." If you separate believing in God from obeying God you are denying the doctrine of the Trinity because you are denying the life transforming power of the Spirit in your life. Can you imagine saying to your wife, "I love you, I just have trouble staying faithful to you." Obedience to God is trust in God gone public. You don't steal because you are trusting God to meet your needs. You don't bear false witness because you trust God to care for your future and so you don't need to put people down to get ahead.
We live by faith when we live between the realities of the cross behind us and the judgment ahead of us. There is really one command in Jude 17-23 - keep yourself in the love of God. The other commands are subsidiaries of this. There is one target - keeping yourself in the love of God. The other commands in Jude 17-23 are target practice.
We build faith by magnifying the glory of God and the glory of God has a magnetic character. We simply learn about the love of God and pray for the Spirit to make this real in our lives. Asking God for help is building ourselves up in the faith. [emphasis added]
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to transform us, to create obedience in us, and to make the love of God real in our lives. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is not to make us happy, not to make us feel good about ourselves, not to make the crowd sing better, not to make us euphoric. Those things may be by-products of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but they are not the ministry itself.
Sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit will not produce those things. I opined last week that the transformation the Holy Spirit brings to our lives is sometimes a process of demolition and reconstruction. That means that sometimes the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to create in us discontent, pain, and trial -- not because those things are good, but because they start us on the journey towards good.
This is why those who focus too much on the miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit scare me some. They seem to want to skip this hard stuff. I think we need to learn to embrace our times of trial -- not to wallow in it, but to understand that it generally is God sending us in a new direction.
SmartChristin may be thinking on the same lines. He said this recently
It [longsuffering]is not a topic preached about in most of our churches. But it is a deeply biblical and God-centered word.The dictionary defines that word as "Patiently enduring wrongs or difficulties." Interestingly, in the Bible translations I have readily at my disposal for searching (King James, New American Standard, NAS Update, New International Version, and New King James) only the KJV and NKJ use the word. In those version it is considered one of the "fruits of the Spirit." The newer versions substitute the term "patience." When I review my Greek source, I think "patience" does not quite catch it -- that word implies simple waiting, but in the original the word implies forbearance and endurance, as if not only waiting, but waiting through some sort of adversity.
What do you think "longsuffering" means? How is "longsuffering" practiced in daily Christian living?
I may catch a lot of heat for this, but I think the Christian life is a good life, but it is not always a pleasant or an easy life. Adversity, particularly adversity against which we lack sufficient resources, puts us in a position to rely on God more than we ever thought possible. This is a cast to the gospel that would be advised against by church consultants, it's part of the gospel most do not want to hear -- but it may be the heart of the gospel, because the heart of the gospel is transformation.
In the end longsuffering is the slow, often painful, process of learning to rely on God -- allowing the Holy Spirit to purge us of the sin to which we are so enslaved.
