Terrified

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
Luke 2:9

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Mark 4:41

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
Matthew 14:26

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.
Matthew 17:5-6

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
Matthew 27:54

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid…”
Revelation 1:17

Angels show up to announce Jesus’s birth and the shepherds are terrified. Jesus calms the storm and the disciples are terrified. The disciples see Jesus walking on the lake and are terrified. Jesus gets transfigured on the mountain, the Father shows up and speaks words of love and affirmation over Him, and the disciples fall down terrified. Jesus dies on the cross, the ground shakes, and the guards are terrified. John sees the glorified Jesus show up to him in a vision, and John is so afraid that he falls down as though dead.

People who say that the Lord would never act in a way that would scare people must have never read their Bible. Over and over again, Jesus does things that absolutely terrify people. American Christians have so often made Jesus out to be a tame, passive, stoic teacher. The real Jesus was way more unpredictable than that. He often left people shaking in their boots!

Today, sometimes the Holy Spirit moves in a way that people don’t understand. And when people don’t understand something, they are often afraid of it. Fear causes people to reject all kinds of good things. Fear is often the wall that prevents people from having a radical encounter with the Lord. Then, in order to compensate for their fear, they rationalize that it can’t really be God. He would never do something that would scare people.

Really?

Go read those passages of scripture above and tell me with a straight face that God would never do something that would scare people. He did it all the time. He does it all the time.

Don’t let fear of not understanding the movement of the Holy Spirit keep you from an encounter with the Holy Spirit!

What are you scared of when it comes to the Holy Spirit?

Releasing Peace

As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.
Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.
Matthew 10:7-13

Jesus sent out His disciples to do what He had been doing–preach the message of the Kingdom, heal the sick, drive out demons, raise the dead. They had freely received the authority of Jesus and now they were to freely give it away, freely release it to people in the surrounding towns. And they were to take nothing with them as they went. They were sent out with total dependence on the Father to provide for them.

Jesus gave them a strategy for entering a town to do supernatural ministry. They were to find a “worthy person” and stay at their house until they leave the town. They were to give the household their greeting. In the Jewish culture, the greeting was to say “shalom” which means peace.

Jesus then advises that they let their peace rest on the house if the home is deserving but to take it back if it is not. When Jesus sends out the 72, He says something similar in Luke 10:

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.
Luke 10:5-6

I believe this indicates that peace (as well as other aspects of the Kingdom of God) is something that believers can “release” into an atmosphere and onto people.

Every aspect of the Kingdom can be found in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” One of the fruits of the Spirit is peace (Galatians 5:22). So, I believe the Holy Spirit in us can release His peace through us into a room and onto a person. In other words, the peace that resides in us can be sent out of us to rest on a house or on a person.

Philippians 4:7 says, “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” And Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Peace here is described as something that can stand guard like a sentinel. It is something that can rule like a king. The peace of the Kingdom is not a weak, ethereal, whisp that evaporates with the slightest disturbance. The peace of God is dominant, invasive, and blanketing in the best possible way.

The peace of the Kingdom is a peace that dominates chaos (see Mark 4:39). The peace of Christ has the ability to rule; it has the ability to guard our hearts and minds from anxiety, fear, and worry. I believe this means we can see the impact of peace when it comes to rest on a person or in a room.

As followers of Jesus filled with the power of Spirit who walk with the delegated authority of Christ, we have the ability to release tangible peace wherever we go. I’ve experienced moments praying for people where I released the peace of Christ upon a person and watched as peace completely blanketed them. The peace of Christ completely dominated the fear, hopelessness, and despair they were just experiencing moments before.

I believe that sometimes when we are waiting for God to bring peace into a situation, He is actually waiting for us to release peace into the situation.

Where can you release peace today?

He will baptize you…

“I baptize you with (or in) water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with (or in) the Holy Spirit and fire.
Matthew 3:11

John the Baptist paved the way for Jesus, the Messiah, to come. He prepared people’s hearts by preaching a message of repentance. He baptized people in water as they came to confess and seek forgiveness for their sins. But John also declared that the Kingdom shouldn’t stop with repentance and forgiveness of sins. John pointed to Jesus, the One who would baptize with more than water.

So many of our conservative evangelical and liberal mainline protestant churches have people who are only baptized in water. The gospel that is preached is mostly about repentance and forgiveness of sin, which was the message of John the Baptist. Many churches have yet to move on to the gospel of Jesus which offers much more than that.

Some people believe that when you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within you, that is what it means to be “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” Even if we assume that is true (which I’m not sure it is), then what about being baptized in fire?

John prophesied that Jesus would baptize in both the Holy Spirit and fire. Where is the baptism of fire? Where are the messages that preach and teach about the baptism of fire? Unfortunately, it gets glossed over and lumped in with the salvation experience. I’m convinced there is more available to us because I’ve experienced it firsthand.

In the Gospel of John (John 20:22), we see the resurrected Jesus breathe on the disciples in the upper room, and we see them receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus’s very next words were about forgiveness of sins. Receiving the Holy Spirit within us is about being forgiven of our sin and being able to forgive others when they sin against us.

Then, before ascending back to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus says to His disciples (who’ve already received the Holy Spirit within them), “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high“(Luke 24:49).

Luke, the writer of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, reiterates this same point in Acts 1 and brings meaning to the words of John the Baptist. Speaking about the resurrected Jesus before He ascended, Luke writes,

On one occasion, while he (Jesus) was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with (or in) water, but in a few days you will be baptized with (or in) the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 1:4-5

Then in Acts 2 we see the disciples “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” This experience in Pentecost was very different than what the disciples experienced in the upper room when Jesus breathed on them. This was a much more powerful and violent experience of the Holy Spirit. There was a sound of a violent wind, tongues of fire and speaking in tongues. This was the disciples being “clothed with power from on high.” This wasn’t about forgiveness of sins like the upper room experience in John 20. This was about the Spirit empowering the disciples for purity and powerful ministry.

One way to say it is that first the disciple received the Spirit within them and then they received the Spirit upon them. The first was the breath of God; the second was the wind of God. The first was for their own salvation; the second was for the salvation of others. The first came gently, intimately, and quietly; the second came powerfully, outwardly, and loudly.

If one still wants to maintain that we as Christians are baptized with the Holy Spirit at salvation when we receive the Spirit within us, then we could still call the event that happened to the disciples at Pentecost a baptism of fire. It was still something more. John’s words stated that Jesus would baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.

For others, it is clear that baptism in the Spirit is a second event that results in us being “filled with the Spirit“(Acts 2:4; Ephesians 5:18) similar to what happened at Pentecost. Some experience this second event months or years after salvation and others experience it simultaneous with conversion. I didn’t experience it until over two decades after my conversion experience.

Either way, (whatever you want to call it – baptism of the Spirit or baptism of fire) the truth remains: There is more available to us than most Christians are experiencing! There is more power of the Spirit, more gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12), more supernatural encounters, and more freedom from sin.

So many churches in American have stopped at the ministry of John the Baptist. They preach a message of repentance and baptize with water, but never introduce their people to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. They have a room full of people on Sundays baptized in water but hardly anyone (if anyone) baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire.

No wonder the world is so skeptical of the gospel message. We claim to proclaim the message of Jesus but only experience the ministry of John the Baptist. We proclaim a supernatural God who came in the flesh in Jesus, performed signs and wonders throughout His ministry, and rose from the grave. Yet, people come to our churches and don’t see any of this: no supernatural gifts of the Spirit, no healings, no casting out demons, no supernatural encounters with God. It’s not too hard for people to see that, while we preach a supernatural God, there is nothing supernatural happening in the lives of many Christians or in the life of the church.

We need to be teaching our people that the Christian life is more than water baptism, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins. There is more than the ministry of John the Baptist. Jesus made available to us a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.

Have you had that kind of baptism?

God With Us

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”^{[Isaiah 7:14]} (which means “God with us”).
Matthew 1:22-23

Jesus is “God with us.” He is the majestic, transcendent God who has come near. So many people relate to Jesus as if He is God against us or God condemning us or God disappointed in us. But Jesus is none of those things. Jesus said of Himself, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him“(John 3:17).

The Christian faith uniquely captures both sides of God’s nature–His transcendence and His immanence. The apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians about Jesus and said, “The Son is the image of the invisible God…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him“(Colossians 1:15, 19).

There was a time in history where most people focused on God’s transcendence, how He is completely “other” than us and full of unapproachable power, majesty and light. This is an important aspect of the nature of God, but if that is the only focus, people easily slip into deism–the belief that God is distant and disconnected from His creation.

Deism says that God created everything, put it motion like a machine, and now it runs on Newtonian laws of nature without God’s involvement or interaction. This view of God is heavily influenced by the Enlightenment age. Much of liberal protestant theology is still heavily influenced by this kind of erroneous thinking.

In reaction against this, people began to focus more on God’s immanence–His nearness to and involvement in His own creation. And while this is a very important aspect of God to understand, especially with the Holy Spirit, it has recently become over-emphasized.

With the rejection of Christianity and the introduction of eastern mysticism (Hindu and Buddhist thought), the rise of New Age spiritualism has begun to infiltrate western culture. Terms that celebrate pantheism are being woven into the English vernacular: chakra, the Universe, energies, spirit guide, etc.

Though most of these concepts come from the Occult and eastern religions–and are therefore heavily demonic–western culture, including many people raised in the church, has embraced it because of its emphasis on the experience of the nearness (the immanence) of the spirit realm. Protestant fear of the charismatic experiences of the Holy Spirit–a fear which led to an overly-rationalistic and hyper-cognitive faith–has left an experiential void that is being filled by New Age religion.

We need to hold both truths about God’s nature together in tension so that we don’t slip into these sorts of false beliefs. God is transcendent and other. He is a holy, majestic, and all-powerful personal God who relates to us as Father. God is also immanent. He first drew near to His people with theophanies (visible manifestations of His Presence) in the Old Testament; then He became “God with us” in the person of Jesus Christ, and finally dwells in us and among us in the person of the Holy Spirit.

God is not distant, and God is not “everything.” God is not “the Universe.” God is not creation. God is the Creator of creation. He is separate from His creation but loves to come and dwell within His creation. God is not an abstract “life-force” found in things. God is personal. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And if He is found within a person, it is as the Holy Spirit dwelling in the new Temple of God through faith in Jesus Christ–the crucified and risen Savior of the world.

Pregnant

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Matthew 1:18-19

We know that Mary and Joseph would have received ridicule for being pregnant out of wedlock. This would have been a total scandal. And it is easy enough to read this passage and think that it has little to do with us. Yet, God continues to impregnate His people through the Holy Spirit with unbelievable promises. And He often does this in ways that cause a scandal.

When God gives us a promise, there is often a “conception-gestation-birthing” process that we have to walk through in order to get to the fulfillment of the promise. This process can be awkward and embarrassing. It causes a disruption in our life and in the lives of those closest to us. This disruption often causes conflict and misunderstanding.

During these trying times, we are often faced with the decision that Joseph faced. Will we divorce ourselves from this promise, uncertain as we are of its origin and its fulfillment? Or will we see it through regardless of the disruption that occurs? Our answer to this question is everything! It is the difference between a promise aborted and a promise fulfilled.

In order to stick it out and give God our unconditional “Yes,” we will most likely need an encounter with Him–some sort of confirming revelation or experience–that gives us enough confidence and boldness to move forward. For Joseph, an angel appears to him in a dream and told him to marry Mary and name the baby Jesus. The angel confirmed that, “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).

Often the level of encounter we have with the Lord confirming His promise to us is equal to the level of opposition we’ll face to see it through to its fulfillment. I want to encourage you today that if the Lord has given you a promise or a word over your life, see it through to completion. Handle opposition with grace and humility, but don’t let it abort the promise.

You may face skepticism, ridicule, condemning words, rejection, and all sorts of opposition. The reason for this is multifaceted. Opposition comes because: 1) people naturally don’t like change, 2) the enemy doesn’t want that promise to come to fruition and 3) the testing will purify you and get you ready to steward the promise when it comes.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4

Seven Churches-Seven Spirits

John,
To the seven churches in the province of Asia:
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne,
Revelation 1:4

John was in exile writing from a small island called Patmos about 36 miles off the western coast of the province of Asia Minor. He received a revelation of Jesus and from Jesus while there. He wrote it down and sent it to seven major churches of Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

These seven cities were each located about 50 miles apart in a clockwise circuit starting in Ephesus. John’s letter would have likely been delivered from church to church in this circuit. If you can imagine an oval shaped clock where 9 and 3 are closer than 12 and 6. The circuit would have been as follows starting with Ephesus on the western coast of Asia Minor: Ephesus (at 9 o’clock), Smyrna (at 10 o’clock), Pergamum (at 11 o’clock), Thyatira (at 12 o’clock), Sardis (at 1 o’clock), Philadelphia (at 2 o’clock) and Laodicea (at 3 o’clock).

The number seven is a significant biblical number. Seven is a number of perfection and completion. Jesus intended that this revelation be sent not only to the seven churches of Asia Minor but also to the Church as a whole.

This is also the first of several reverences to the seven spirits or the seven Spirits of God (sometimes translated as the sevenfold Spirit).

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God…
Revelation 3:1

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.
Revelation 4:5

This doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is seven spirits. This is more of a reference to the Holy Spirit’s presence in each of the seven churches. Each believer has the Holy Spirit in them but that doesn’t mean there are 2 billion Holy Spirits. Again, the number seven points to the perfection or holiness of the Spirit of God. It’s also an allusion to the sevenfold characteristics of the Spirit of God mentioned in Isaiah 11:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The (1)Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the (2)Spirit of wisdom and of (3)understanding,
    the (4)Spirit of counsel and of (5)might,
    the (6)Spirit of the knowledge and (7)fear of the Lord—
Isaiah 11:1-2

The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of your Father, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of Truth, the sevenfold Spirit, the seven Spirits of God are all different references in the New Testament to the one and only Holy Spirit. They are just different names–different ways of describing who the Spirit is and what characteristics He has.

The One In You Is Greater

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world…
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
1 John 4:1, 4-6

False prophets and false teachers speak from the viewpoint of the world. It’s easy to gain popularity by ignoring what scripture says and instead teach what the world likes to hear. It’s the quickest way to gain a following on social media. The spirit of falsehood loves a good following.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit in us is greater than the enemy–the one who is in the world. The reason scripture calls Satan the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) and “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) is because he has a tremendous influence on cultural norms and society’s views. He exerts an enormous influence on the world through his control of the demonic, which is also why he’s named the “prince of demons” (Mark 3:22; Matthew 9:34; 12:24; Luke 11:15).

While the enemy does have some power, the only authority he has is the authority people give him by believing his lies (Jesus nicknamed Satan the “father of lies” in John 8:44). Originally, humanity was given authority to rule the world (Genesis 1:28-30). Satan tried to steal that authority through deception, and humanity gave it away through sin. It’s why the devil could show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and say, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to” (Luke 4:6).

Who gave Satan the authority to influence and shape the kingdoms of the world? God? Nope. We did!

And while humanity handed over our authority to the enemy, Jesus got it back through His death and resurrection. It’s why before Jesus ascended He could say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”(Matthew 28:18). He became the second Adam (Romans 5:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49) correcting the mistake the first Adam made in giving away our authority. Now, if we have a covenant relationship with Jesus, we receive His delegated authority through the Holy Spirit. The One in us is greater than the one in the world!

We’re now on a mission to take back all that was stolen, restore all that was broken, usher in the Kingdom of God, and counter all the lies with the Spirit of Truth!

Hearts At Rest

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:19-20

As a pastor, I have recommended counseling for a countless number of people. I am a strong believer that getting to a place of emotional health often requires the help of others, and sometimes professionals, to help us see our blind sides and the deeper wounds in our hearts.

When counseling is done well, especially when done by someone with a Christian worldview, it can be a good first step toward emotional healing and emotional health. However, I’ve also seen the darker, more damaging side of counseling.

Do you know people who have gone to counseling for years, even decades, and are not much better than they were before? They are no more free and no more like Christ than when they started counseling? Sometimes they are worse? Me too. Unfortunately, as a pastor, I have had front row seats to see how very common this is. It is so common it is embarrassing.

John reminds us in this passage from 1 John 3 that what truly sets our hearts at rest in God’s presence is not an endless cycle of morbid introspection. The key to emotional health and healing in our hearts, he tells us, is having confidence that God is greater than our hurts, our emotions, our past and that He knows everything. Which means instead of spending years in an introspective search for all that is wrong with us, we can simply seek God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the things deep in us that need healing.

The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians about the “search engine” capabilities of the Holy Spirit:

…these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
1 Corinthians 2:10-13

In a subsequent letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds them that it is the Spirit that does the work of transformation in us. He said:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The Holy Spirit is a master at searching the deep things in our heart and in the heart of God and bringing them to the surface so that our heart can be healed. So often we struggle to see ourselves the way God sees us, so we either end up blind to our own sin or we end up with a lot of self-condemnation.

The beauty of allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal things to us–rather than endlessly, introspectively searching for what is wrong with us–is that He is able to masterfully avoid the traps of justification and condemnation. He reveals to us what needs to be healed, what needs to be surrendered, what needs to be faced, what needs to be forgiven, what needs to be confessed, but does it without an ounce of fear, avoidance, shame or condemnation. He also knows when to reveal it and when to wait until we can handle seeing it. As John said, “If our hearts condemn us, we know God is greater than our hearts…”

Counseling, without also engaging in the inner healing ministry of the Holy Spirit, can become just a self-absorbed exercise in endlessly talking about oneself. And we all know people that love to endlessly talk about themselves. It is a sign of the very opposite of emotional health.

Morbid introspection assumes: 1) I will have the ability to see what the problem is, 2) I will want to do something about it, and 3) I will be able to do something about it. But we need the Holy Spirit to enable us to do all of these things. Without the Spirit we are blind and powerless to enact real, deep and lasting change in our lives. Christian counselors know this better than most.

What we need to cultivate is 1) the willingness to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal areas that need addressed in our life and 2) the ability to listen to the Spirit’s direction. So much of Christianity has lost the ability to hear the intimate voice of the Shepherd. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me“(John 10:27). But rather than cultivate the ability to hear the Spirit speak to us, direct us, and reveal things to us (1 Kings 19:12-18), we’ve substituted that kind of intimacy with other people telling us what’s wrong with us.

I will always be an advocate of counseling, especially by those who do therapy from a Christian worldview. But I do not think it is the ultimate solution to our problems nor should it be done in a vacuum. I believe it should be used as an aid, a helpful addition, to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit speaking to us and revealing to us what He wants us to see when He wants us to see it. This allows us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2) rather than turning our attention to self-absorbed introspection.

Who is a child of God?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:1-3

There are moments with the Lord when His Presence comes so near, when His love is felt tangibly in quiet moments with Him, that I weep with gratitude for getting to be so close to Him. One day it hit me like a ton of bricks: it is the greatest honor of my life to have the Spirit of God dwelling in me! What an incredible and undeserved honor!

God the Father lavishes His love on us. He doesn’t hold back. If we find we can’t feel His love, we: 1) rely on the truth that we know from scripture that His love never ends, and 2) find out what wound, hurt, or sin in us is separating us from experiencing His love. The problem is never on His end.

It is common to hear people say that all people are children of God. It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not what scripture says is true. This passage, among others, makes clear that followers of Jesus alone have the unique privilege of being the children of God. Paul makes this point emphatically in his letter to the Romans:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Romans 8:14-16

When the New Testament addresses “the children of God” it is talking about those who have given their life to Jesus, have received the Holy Spirit, and have been adopted into the family of God. It’s our second birth, when we are born of the Spirit (see John 3:3-8), that makes us children of God not our first birth.

In the 1 John 3 passage above, John makes a clear distinction between children of God and those of the world. Those in the world will have a hard time with children of God just as they had a hard time with Jesus. Likewise, our adoption into the family of God causes us to want to purify our lives because Jesus Himself is pure. Being a child of God means we long to be like Jesus!

Gracelets

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 4:8-11

We who are followers of Jesus have been given the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has in turn given us gifts. The word used in the Greek for “gifts” is simply the word for grace (charis) with a suffix on the end (either -ma or the plural form -mata). One way to translated the word gift (charisma) is “grace-enablement” or “gracelet.” Each gift is a little droplet of the grace of God pouring through the Holy Spirit in us. Each gift is the grace of God in a different form.

The purpose of these gifts is clear–to serve others. They aren’t given to us to serve ourselves or our own glory. They are meant to give glory to God as we serve others. They are divine enablements that empower us to built others up. They are gracelets that operate in our lives so that we can love others well. We are to steward these gifts, knowing that they didn’t originate in us but came from the Holy Spirit. They are things we try to steward well as a way of honoring the Source from which they came. The whole purpose of having and using these gifts is that “in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”

To not use the gifts we’ve been given and to not grow in the gifts we’ve used is just as dishonoring to God as misusing the gifts of the Spirit. We all are wary of gifted people who misuse their gift in a way that is selfish and destructive. But are we as wary of those who never use the gifts they’ve been given? Are we as wary of those who have the seedling form of a gift but never allow it to grow through the use and development of that gift? Both misuse and un-use of the gifts of the Spirit are damaging to the Body of Christ.

We can’t be so afraid of misuse that we scare people into never using and developing their gifts. Living in this kind of fear paralyzes the Church. We need healthy risk-taking and discerning wisdom that allows room for mistakes and yet creates an environment of growth for the gifts. This is the only way gifts can flourish and mature into health.