How does the Holy Spirit work in us?

This is something I've been looking at more and more lately.

Last week I was thinking a lot about just how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. I was in the kitchen cleaning up one evening when I just felt the need to pray. I usually don't depend on feelings a whole lot because they can be wrong, but then I thought, Well, it could be the Holy Spirit prodding me to pray, so I guess it couldn't hurt. So I prayed in front of my messy kitchen counter, just a simple prayer to thank the Lord for saving me. I always listen to sermon pod-casts or Christian radio shows (like Greg Laurie or Wretched Radio) on my iPod while cooking or cleaning. I put my iPod on and Greg Laurie started preaching on the Holy Spirit. Hmmm..... My wife came home from work a few minutes later. She sat down at the table and I turned my iPod off. Right off the bat, she started asking questions about the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and all that sort of business. Huh? Interesting. The next morning, I went to church at Calvary Tucson. Pastor Furrow got up and began his sermon. You'll never guess what he was preaching about. OK, I knew you would guess -- the Holy Spirit. God, are you trying to tell me something?, I thought. Hmmm. It was an awesome sermon too. After they service, they usually sell the DVD video of the sermon in the church's book store in the building right next door. I just had to go over and buy the DVD. I took it home and popped it in the DVD player while eating lunch with my family.

My pastor spoke about how he used to attend charismatic pentecostal churches when he was younger (like I did). He said he loves the brothers there and agrees that the Holy Spirit and all the spiritual gifts are for still intended for us today also, but that in church, things are to be done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:40) and not all crazy-like, with the falling down and the running around and "hanging from chandeliers" and everyone speaking in tongues all at once.  He was being funny when he mentioned that "that's why we don't have chandeliers in our church", but I knew exactly what he's talking about. I had seen a lot when I was a teenager in a charismatic pentecostal church called The Apostolic Church in the Faith of Jesus Christ, which is a (mostly) Spanish-speaking fundamentalist/modalist type of church.

OK, I didn't explain how the Holy Spirit works in our lives in this post. This is a very important topic and I don't want to attempt to teach others on it, but rather ask my readers (if you there are any) to share their knowledge on the subject of how the Holy Spirit works in us today.

Thanks for reading!

Heaven

It's been a little while since the last time I wrote on this blog. My Mom passed away a week ago. I am comforted only because I know for a fact that she is now with our Savior in the "present" heaven. I know this because the Bible explains to us that we are saved by faith (Eph. 2:8,9). My Mom understood that she was in need of a savior, just like the rest of us. She believed that God sent his only Son (John 3:16) to become the perfect, blemish-free sacrifice in our place. He took all of our sins, past, present, and future, upon Himself and died on the cross at Calvary. He rose on the third day, conquering death. If we receive this free gift (Rom. 6:23, Eph. 2:8,9), repent, and put our faith in him, he is faithful to save us from His wrath.

Romans 1:16-23 says it clearly:

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel (the good news that he paid the fine for our sins), for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures."

I'll see you in heaven some day, Mom, because Jesus paid for my sins as well. Love ya.

What is Water Baptism?

Acts 2:38 says:

 "Repent," Peter said to them, "and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Some believe that we are saved by water baptism. This is not the case. Baptism is a symbol of our commitment to God. It is a public proclamation of our salvation. 1 Peter 3:16 says:

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2: 8,9). Yet we are commanded to be baptized in Acts 2:38. We should obey this, but not confuse the process of salvation and sanctification. Ephesians 2: 8,9 tells us:

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift-not from works, so that no one can boast.

I really have a desire to serve the Lord, why don't I budge?

I remember when I was a teenager - how diligently I tried to serve God. I tried to dress modest, not curse, pray, read the Bible, pay my tithes, keep my hair short, thank God for everything I ate and drank, go to church whenever possible, even if I was very ill. I remember that clearly. Oh, yeah - I walked around holding my Bible a lot. That was just a habit though, but I remember my sister Cynthia saying that the other church kids looked up to me because of that. I guess I looked holy. Hmmm....but was I?

Truthfully, even though I looked holy on the outside, I was just like the pharisees. Jesus compared them to "whitewashed tombs" in Matthew 23:27.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean."

23 year later, I realize what a wretched sinner I really am. Through studying the Bible I've learned that I will never be able to enter heaven without the blood of Christ that was shed for me.  In other words, no matter what good deeds I may do and no matter how good and holy I seem to be on the outside, I will never be good enough to make it into heaven. We have to be perfect to make it on our own. I (as well as you, more likely than not) have lied, blasphemed, stolen, lusted, dishonored my parents, hated, etc. If God judged me by His standards (the Ten Commandments) I'd be guilty. God is a good and just God and he will judge us:

"Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment"  (Hebrews 9:27)

Where do guilty people go when they die? Hell. Yep, I said it. Where "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9:48) Let me say it again. Hell. Jesus took all the sins of the world and put them on himself and was sacrificed, conquering sin. We need to cry out to God, repent and put our faith in Him. He will receive us and save us. (By the way, we don't "accept Him", He accepts us!) We're not saved by our own works, like good deeds, or being baptized (though we are commanded to do good deeds and be baptized). So we are not saved by our own "good" because we are not good. We are saved by Jesus' works....and He must get ALL the credit!

Ephesians 2: 8,9 says:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."

So, why won't you budge? Because you still may need to realize that you are a sinner (like me) and God is the only one who is righteous. You need to realize that we can't do it on our own. Realize that God has already paid the price for our sins, then TRUST in Him. Put your faith in Him. We do this the same way we put our faith in a parachute.

Imagine this: 

You are on a plane. There is a parachute under your seat. The plane's engines go out all of a sudden and it's going down. What do you do? Do you just believe in the parachute, thinking that your saved? Nope. You put it on. You trust it and have faith that your life will be saved by putting it on. If don't put it on, you're doomed. (Thank you, Ray Comfort, for the analogy.)

We need to stop trying to work our way to heaven. We are to trust in God -- that He'll save us. And when we are truly saved, we are given the gift of His Holy Spirit, which guides us. When we are saved we will be given a new heart with a strong desire to serve Him, to obey Him, to live for Him, and to worship Him with our lives. 

Rom. 12: 1.2 says:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I wasn't truly saved until 5 years ago. When were you saved? Examine yourself. If you are saved, cool! If you are not, get on your knees and let God save you. Remember that we are not going to change over night. It is a process that we go through (sanctification) and it takes time. We repent and the Holy Spirit works in us and guides us, molding us into a model of Jesus. We will sin, yes, but if we do, we will fall into sin as opposed to diving into it like before. We repent daily. If we fail, we get up, dust ourselves off and keep on going. Remember, we don't jump into sin anymore when we're saved. We don't plan it, check to see if anyone's looking, indulge and enjoy it. Nope.

Have you put on the parachute, or just believed in it? Remember that the demons believe in Jesus and tremble at his name. Are they going to heaven?


Made ya think! 


(I hope.)

(Not) The Gospel

If you died tonight.....

If you died tonight, would you go to heaven? Why? Cause you're a good person? OK, let's run through some of the ten commandments.

• Have you ever told a lie?
• Have you ever stolen. No? Come on...you already told me you're a liar!
• Have you ever dishonored your parents? ...by not listening, or talking back...?
• Have you ever looked at someone with lust? Jesus said that this is adultery in the heart.
• Have you ever been mad at someone for no good reason? God considers this murder in the heart.

We’ve only gone through five of the ten commandments. So if God judged you by his standards, would you make it? So how do we get to heaven? By doing good, like everyone thinks? Nope. If that were true, none of us would EVER make it. (Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.) This is why we need a savior. God came to Earth and became a man, lived a sinless life (just like a spotless lamb for the sacrifice in the Old Testament) and took the punishment that WE deserved and died. 1 John 4:10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent us His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.


Then he arose from the dead, which was God saying he approved of the sacrifice. Imagine Jesus taking all of your sins, every single one and putting them on his back right before the Roman soldiers started whipping at it with a cat of nine tails, with pieces of glass, etc. until his intestines started to protrude. This is why Jesus is love. Not because if we follow him, we'll be able to make the next car payment, but because he loved us so much he died for us. Romans 5:8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

If we do not repent and put our faith in Jesus Christ, we won't make it. It's the plain truth. We are sinful and headed for hell. That's the bad news. Jesus paid the price for us, and it's there if we ask him to accept us, and live for him. That's the good news, or "gospel" as the Bible calls it. If we repent and put our trust in Jesus (like we trust a parachute to save our life when we jump out of a plane), God will give us a new heart with new desires, granting us the gift of repentance (Acts 5:31).

Think about what I said about how to get to heaven. I don't know if you're saved. You and God only know. So, if you don't think you are, pray about it.

I'm only telling you this cause I care for you and I want to make sure I see you in heaven. I'm not pointing fingers. Believe me, I'm a much bigger sinner than the likes of ya. Remember that we only get to heaven because of what HE did. If we depend on our own good works, we're headed for the oven. Ephesians 2:8,9 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift - not from works, so that no one can boast.

It makes you think, doesn’t it?

Take Up Your Cross

Luke 9:23 says, “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” What does this mean? Well, let's take a look. First off, what Jesus says here is addressed to ALL, not just the Twelve Apostles. When he says “Come after me”, he means that we are to become his disciple. A disciple of Jesus must deny himself, not just deny himself certain things, but total personal control of his life. We need to make a commitment that may in fact lead to hardship and even death. Here in America, we think we are persecuted when someone reads our “Christian” T-shirt and throws the F-bomb at us. Yeah, OK. There are people in Sudan getting tortured and killed this minute because they are Christians. That's persecution. Jesus then says, “follow me”. We must follow Jesus' example of how to live 100% for the glory of God. Everything we do MUST be for him, and we must thank him for all things, good or bad.

Luke 14:27 says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” This condition of discipleship is critical, in that if we have not done this, then we must ask ourselves whether we are a true Christian. Jesus commanded us to repent and put our faith in Him. If we continue to live primarily to satisfy our own fleshly desires, have we really repented? Have we really put ALL of our faith in Him? I think not.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “...I die daily”. This is what he's talking about. We don't feed the desires of the beast (or ourselves, the flesh) but rather live totally for God, killing the flesh, in other words. We need to stop living to please ourselves. Everything – every single thing we do must be for the glory of God! We need to embrace God's will, no matter what the cost is. We must not feed the flesh, but give it all up and turn towards God. Have you been feeding the beast?

By the way, what are you doing for God? Have you witnessed to anyone lately? Passed out a Bible tract or two? Given a copy of “Hell's Best Kept Secret” to someone at the park? Called up a family member to share the good news of the Gospel (because you care that he is on his way to hell, and do not care if they get angry with you, if it could mean he'll get saved)?

Pull out your drivers license and check the birth date on it. Subtract your age from, let's say, 80 years. Note how much time you might have to live. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, “What have I done for God so far? How many years have I foolishly wasted?” Use every single minute of your life to do something that glorifies God.

About 150,000 people die every day in this world. How many are dying without Christ this very minute and are on their journey to hell? Don't spend your time “feeding the beast”, but rather use this time for God's work. Well, what are you waiting for?