Good morning Meetpastordan Readers. My Church, Grace Church-St. Louis, is involved in a church-wide study based on a book by Mike Bickle entitled, “Growing in Prayer”. Our mission is to engage more people in the true meaning of prayer. Prayer isn’t about following some religious ritual; or something we do when we know we have fallen short; or something we do when we want something. No! Prayer is about deepening our relationship with God. Psalm 149;4 tells us: “For the Lord delights in his people, he crowns the humble with salvation.” He longs for us to communicate with him…anytime, because He delights in us. No matter how lifeless we may feel; no matter how messy our lives my be, it is the call of every believer in Christ to release the power of God through prayer.
I recently had a conversation with a friend who was telling me how distant he felt from God. “Why do I feel like this? I know my sins are forgiven and I have been promised eternal life, but why do I feel so unworthy and pathetic in my Christian walk?” Wow! It opened up a great opportunity to talk with him about the “process” of walking the Christian walk. It is the same process that is embodied in the churchy word “Sanctification” (Have you ever worked that word into a conversation with any luck?)
Forgiveness of our sins and eternal life happen on the spiritual level, but we live in the here and now – in this fallen world and in these fleshly bodies. And our soul, which consists of our mind, emotions, and will are all subject to temptations from the world around us. (Refer to last week’s posting with describes what we are fighting against.) Our role as Christ-followers is to let our Spirit Man, the part of us that has been transformed by the Great Exchange, transform the human part of us, our soul and our flesh, into the person God wants us to be.
Believe me, it doesn’t happen over night. There is no mental or emotional delete button. Life keeps happening and we have to contend with it. However, the other part of God’s salvation plan is designed to make that possible. Keep reading.
So you may be saying to yourself, “What’s the big deal? We’ve all had experiences like that. I know I’ve fallen short, but I know I’m forgiven.” And I would say, “Yes, we all have experienced that distant feeling from God…especially when we give in to our flesh, which is our human instinct. But the point I want to make is this: we are called to rise above the “human instinct” and let Jesus light shine through us. (Matthew 5:16) And this is certainly a challenge for all Christ-followers because our actions are always on display.
Believe me when I say… a world of non-believers is very observant of what “we” (as Belivers) do and what “we” say. And as I have pointed out on many occasions, people would much rather see a sermon than hear a one. In other words, our actions as well as our words, reflect the state of our hearts. When our actions and our words have been outside of God’s will, that can make us feel remorse, guilt and shame. And that can make us feel distanced from God. But the good news is… when we call on the Holy Spirit and tell him that is not the person we want to be and ask Him to give us the wisdom courage and strength to be the person God has called us to be, you’ll be surprised at the results.
As Christ-followers, we are well aware of the “big sins”, but it would appear that sometimes we tend to “overlook” the list of sins enumerated by Apostle Paul in Romans 1: 28-32 or in Galatians 5:19-21. While it is easy to feel self-righteous about not lying, stealing, murdering, taking the Lord’s name in vain or participating in adultery or homosexuality, we forget that that list also includes such “venial sins” as gossip and covetousness. And the great equalizer is Apostle Paul’s statement at the end of Galatians 5:21, “…Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” And James tells us in chapter 2:10: “And the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of Gods laws.” Yikes! In other words, a sin is a sin?
Now with the sin issue behind us at the spiritual level, the challenge for Christ-followers now is how to live the life we are called to live in a way that brings honor and glory to God and furthers his Kingdom here on earth. The difference now is our motivation for changing our lives. Now we desire to become more Christ-like in the way we live. As I mentioned above, now we are trying to get our Spirit Man to being our soul and our flesh in line with his Truth and become the person God wants us to be. We are no longer trying to earn God’s approval because of our works. We don’t need to do that because when God looks at us now, he sees us covered with the blood of Jesus. In His eyes we are Saints, meaning set apart. (The New Testament uses the term “Saint” 67 times and in every instance it refers to Believers…those who are in Christ!)
There is a weighty church term that reveals the process of growing and maturing as a Christ-follower. That term was mentioned above and is Sanctification. There are numerous references to the term: 1Thessalonians 5:23; Colossians 1:5,27; Colossians 3:4; and 1John 3:2. These are all “wordy” passages, so I will hopefully simplify the content. Sanctification means a practical progressive holiness we develop in our life as we call on the Holy Spirit to prepare and mold us for the return of Jesus Christ. In other words, we are called to model a lifestyle that reflects the lifestyle Jesus portrayed when he was here on earth, one of Love, mercy, compassion, grace, forgiveness, service to our fellow man, and standing on the Truth of God’s Word.
Living the life of a Christ-follower is a process, and it begins at the very conscious level of the mind. Galations 5-17-18, 22-23, 25 describes the process. “The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to your sin nature. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.”
God’s salvation plan was not only about forgiveness of sin and eternal life, but it also equips us for living the life we are called to live right here and now in this fallen world. The indwelling Holy Spirit empowers us to accomplish tasks and grow in ways that are greater than what we could have produced of our own accord. In fact, that is how we fulfill the truth of the phrase I hear frequently: “Let go; let God”; or “I’m just going to turn it over to God.” To be perfectly candid, I have often wondered what people are thinking when they use those phrases. Do they expect God to solve the dilemma they are experiencing? Then when it is fixed, expecting he will let them know in some tangible way to “get back in the game?” The truth is, the Holy Spirit doesn’t fix anything for us; He empowers us to do the fixing. It is in that process that our growth and maturity develop.
When we are facing a dilemma, we call on the Holy Spirit to empower us by giving us wisdom, insight, patience, courage, strength, perseverance, whatever it is we need to solve our problem in a way that brings honor and glory to God. This IS the Sanctification process. We are consciously trying to become the person God created us to be, and we are using Jesus as our role model. Will we fall short of God’s glorious standard? Sometimes. But the only error we can make is to not get up and keep moving toward our goal. This is the process to prepare us to share in Christ’s glory, because “when he returns, we will be like him.” (IJohn 3:2)
So the whole purpose of mentioning the incident of feeling separated from God is something that we all have and will continue to experience, but something that can be corrected by connecting to the Holy Spirit. Nothing does God want more than for us to turn to him in our time of crisis or turmoil. He delights in us and he wants to be part of our life…at all times. James tells us that the prayers of a righteous man avails much. (James 5;16) And we are righteous not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus did for us on the cross 2015 years ago and because we accepted God’s Gift of Grace. When we get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit empower us to be the person God created and designed us to be, that is how we “let go and let God”.
All believers have the authority from Jesus to pray in his name, and when we do that we release the power of God. I will close with 1John 5:14-15: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask any thing according to His will, He hears us. Since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for.” How powerful is that?!
Feel free to respond to this posting, and please like it and share it with your social media friends.
May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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