36

NO BEGGING, PLEASE!

You don't have to plead with God to get him to fill you with his Spirit.

He longs to do so.
He yearns to possess you fully.
He is eager to share the grandest blessings he can give.
He wants your life to bear the Spirit's refreshing fruit.

What is it that makes water flow with such force from a faucet when you turn it on? It is the power of gravity operating from a pent-up reservoir longing to be released.

In much the same way, the pent-up love of God longs to release itself in you.

To fill you
and then
flow through you
to
bless others.

Are you ready to turn on the faucet?

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HOW TO BE FILLED THIS VERY MOMENT.

In Sight Bite 4 you read these powerful words:

"Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19).

In Sight Bite 5 you learned what repentance means.

First, it means turning from.

For me that meant turning from a spirit of unforgiveness. That wasn't easy, but refusing to forgive others was making me sick. Consciously, deliberately and by name I forgave everyone who had ever hurt me.

It also meant turning from a spirit of pride. I had bought into the notion I could never forgive myself for some of the things I had done.

A. W. Tozer helped me with that pesky demon. Somewhere he said,

Refusing to forgive yourself may sound humble, but it's actually inverted pride!

I swallowed my pride and forgave myself.

Second, repentance means turning to.

Having turned to Jesus for the forgiveness of sin,
I turned to the Holy Spirit and told him to take control.

In the past that would have been frightening. But I was tired of giving the Christian life my best shot and coming up short. My prayer was simple and direct.

Spirit of God, come and fill me now.
      Take control of my life.
Pick the path I am to walk.
      Keep me away from anything and everything
      which might take God's place in my heart.
In each and every situation I face today, enable me to
      have the mind of Jesus,
      express the attitudes of Jesus,
      and do the will of Jesus.
In his name, amen.

That was it. In the deepest most personal part of me I knew he had come in fullness.

I invite you to do the same.

Date____________

Time____________

Location_________

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CLEARING UP A MYSTERY.

In pharmacy there are synergistic drugs.

These are drugs which, when taken together, have an impact for healing
or harm out of all proportion to their effect when taken separately.

There are also synergistic truths.

An example would be the seven ministries of the Holy Spirit.
Any one of them is wonderful. But, when understood and applied together, their synergistic impact is huge.

Why then, I asked myself, with this seven-fold synergistic ministry of the Holy Spirit available to me, was there a troubling lack of consistency in my walk in the Spirit?

That was a mystery to me
and a bother as well.

I had been deadly serious, as I'm sure you are, about my decision to become a Spirit-filled Christian. As a result there were exhilarating victories.

But too often, at least for me,
these were followed by devastating defeats.

Now, however, I was no longer willing to live on an emotional roller coaster.


The answer came when, intellectually at first and then viscerally, I discovered a simple truth.

The Spirit-filled life is not emotional. It is volitional (key word).
It's a choice you make!

There is an emotional component, of course. And that's grand! As a friend of mine said,

"I don't want to go on feelings, but I sure do want to feel what's going on."

Exactly!

We all want and need emotional support for what we choose to do and be.

The nature and degree of your personal response to intimacy with God will depend on

how you are wired up,
      how you were brought up,
           how you choose to express yourself.

You won't package intimacy the same way I do.
          
There isn't a "one size fits all" style of intimacy with him.

How you demonstrate your acts of intimacy in the Spirit will be distinctly you.

And that's ok!

I'm going to guess you want what I want. A growing degree of consistency in your walk in the Spirit. Here's what I learned about that. The hard way!

The Spirit-filled life is not emotional. It is volitional and intentional.

It's a choice you make!



39



DIFFERENT WAYS THE SPIRIT COMES TO YOU.

The Greek aorist tense (pronounced a/or/ist) denotes a sudden, definite act in the past and has no counterpart in English.

Put simply, the aorist tense describes a crisis rather than a process.

In a special way Pentecost (Acts 2) was that crisis.
         
Pentecost is an untranslatable Greek word meaning fiftieth day.
It is part of the Jewish calendar and is computed from the Day of First Fruits.

Jesus was raised on the Day of First Fruits and ministered for 40 days following his resurrection.

After he ascended into heaven his disciples returned to Jerusalem and spent the next ten days in the upper room.

On the 50th day, the Holy Spirit descended upon them in a brand new historical event which had never happened before, and will never happen again.

Pentecost!

"And they were all filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:4).

THE EVENT IS UNREPEATABLE.

To tarry and pray for a repetition of Pentecost as an event is fruitless.

Just as there was
     one birth of Jesus,
          one death of Jesus,
               one resurrection of Jesus

                     and one ascension of Jesus
so, too, there was one giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
                     That part is unrepeatable.

But, and this is wonderful, later on in the New Testament narrative a variety of Christian believers were also filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit to empower them for the crises confronting them.

40

PETER.

Peter was in the upper room on Pentecost and was filled (aorist tense) at Pentecost.

Later, during the first persecution of the early Church, Peter was filled again

"...Peter, filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit, said to them, 'Rulers of the people and elders'..." (Acts 4:8).

Peter had a crisis and he was filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit for that crisis.

OTHER BELIEVERS.

When Christians were forbidden to preach or teach in the name of Jesus they rebelled. They prayed for power to face that crisis and,

"…when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31).

Even though they knew that to do so would mean being put in jail!

PAUL.

Paul was filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit at the time of his conversion (Acts 9:17).

Later, when Paul was severely tested by the sorcerer, Elymas, he was filled again (Acts 13:9). "But Saul, who is also called Paul, (was) filled (aorist tense) with the Holy Spirit…" (Acts 9:17).

SO WHAT?

While it's pointless to pray for a repetition of the Pentecost event, it is important that you pray for a repetition of the Pentecost experience.

When you come to
         moments of crisis,
         times of temptation,
         periods of testing,
you may, in fact you must, ask to be filled (aorist tense)
         by the Holy Spirit to meet them.

When you do, the good Lord who said:

"Ask and you shall receive" (Mt. 7:7)
provides exactly what you need exactly when you need it.


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