Tuesday, January 20, 2015

WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT IS POURED OUT



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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

You women who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me; you daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say!

In little more than a year, you who feel secure will tremble; the grape harvest will fail, and the harvest of fruit will not come. Tremble, you complacent women; shudder, you daughters who feel secure! Strip off your fine clothes and wrap yourselves in rags. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines and for the land of my people, a land overgrown with thorns and briers—yes, mourn for all houses of merriment and for this city of revelry.

The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted; citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks, till the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest.

The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert, His righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.

Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.

Isaiah 32:9-20

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you experienced the awesome power of the Holy Spirit?

I firmly believe everyone does, whether they are a believer or not. It’s just that some choose to reject or ignore the Spirit while other embrace and treasure it.

Think about it. When the Lord God Almighty created us, He placed within every man and woman, a conscience. Ask anyone to explain the conscience to you and they will be hard pressed to describe it. I took a basic psychology class once and asked my professor if he could explain the conscience to me and all I could get from that question was the statement that the conscience is a mystery. To which I say, “Exactly!” Science will never be able to capture the conscience because it is not for mankind to be concerned with. It’s a part of our spiritual DNA and the mechanism through which the Lord communicates with each of us, whether we choose to listen or not.

When we go onto to do something that is wrong, don’t we get a weird sensation that tries to get us to stop before we do the wrong thing? What is that exactly? And what about after we have done wrong? What is that constant feeling of guilt we feel until we admit our wrongs and seek forgiveness? Where does that sense of conviction come from anyways?

Conversely, have you ever done something really good for another or for a certain cause? Afterwards, didn’t you experience what a lot of people refer to as a “warm and fuzzy” feeling inside, a feeling that makes you feel good about yourself and what you have done? Where does that come from?

And how about when you are praying over a situation you are struggling with and either during that prayer or sometime after you finished praying, you started to get some thoughts about how to solve what you are going through. Did you somehow fashion that solution using your own intellect? Hardly. Instead, you were open to the guiding of the Lord, petitioning His assistance during prayer and receiving the response to your request through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Friends, there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on us all the time. It comes to us when we need it most, not based on our demand as don’t order the Lord to do anything, but we do receive the things we need to fulfill His will in His perfect time. If it’s His will to lead you to a solution, He will impart that solution to you by the Spirit. If He wants you to grasp a certain truth from the scriptures, He will use the Holy Spirit to unlock that truth to you as you seek His direction and guidance through your bible study. If He wills for you to receive healing, then He will send that healing within you, whether emotionally or physically, by way of the Holy Spirit.  

I could go on and on but you get the point. We receive all the wisdom, spiritual direction, and healing we can handle through the power of the Holy Spirit freely poured out to help us during our life on earth. But these things are not the only things we will receive. For in today’s scripture passage, we find still more we will receive as the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us. Look at these words:

till the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest.

The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert, His righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.

Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free. vv. 15-20

Look at the other things we receive by the Holy Spirit, things the people of Israel were about to experience:

1. Fertility.

When our lives might seem dried out by the challenges and difficulties we face, we can always expect that the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us to water our spiritual soil and quench our thirst for deliverance and rescue. For when we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the Lord’s righteousness that will always reside in the fertile places of our souls, bearing the fruits of righteousness in and through us (Galatians 5:22-23).

2. Righteousness.

Want to live right, in a place where the Lord favors?

Then you need to receive His outpouring of the Holy Spirit that will always lead us to righteousness, to do the right thing every time. We don’t have the ability to do this in our own, the sinners that we are. This is why we need the Spirit to lead and guide us in the right way, a way that will bring us peace with the Lord, a way that leads us to point 3.

3. Peace.

One of the fruits of righteousness is peace and there is no greater peace than knowing you are living fully under the Lord’s guidance and thus within His favor. No one wants to be in the crosshairs of the Lord’s judgment and the only way we can assure we are out of it, and thus living in peace, is if we are living right in full accordance with the Lord’s will, word, and way, a place where we will be blessed, our final reward from receiving the Holy Spirit.

4. Blessing.

Want to feel happy, another word for feeling blessed?

Never allow their to be a time when you are not living with the Holy Spirit active inside your heart and mind and soul. For it’s there that you will find your life fertile, righteous, and in a state of peace. In other words, blessed.

Friends, the word of God was assuring the women of Jerusalem that they could expect an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to come. For you and me, that outpouring is always happening as the Lord rains it down upon His people, hoping that it will be received by those who have relied on the world and its ways to water their dried souls and bring fertility, to bring a righteousness that leads to the right way of living, and to through that righteousness, bring His people to peace with Him and through that peace, blessing.

Have you experienced the Holy Spirit fully in your life today?

If not, why not receive it for the Lord is offering it to you and all mankind in abundance and there’s more than enough to go around.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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