Hebrews 13:7-16 – “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

How did you first come to know God?  Not merely know about God, but when was it that you really began to know Him?  Who were the people that helped share God’s Word with you to reveal Him to you both in word and deed?  I am blessed because God has given me a great man of God to imitate.  I pray for Him and His family that God would sustain their faith for their sake and my own.  Some of us don’t have that same experience, but who are the Christians in your life now that you can look up to?  Who are the people you can draw strength from when your own faith is faltering? 

This passage out of Hebrews 13 is greatly encouraging and immensely practical.  It has three main messages for us.  It begins by exhorting us to recall and imitate the faith of those who brought us to Christ.  It then exalts the worth of Christ, and the supremacy of a believer who has Christ by faith, rather than by works.  Lastly it closes by exhorting us to live a life worthy of our calling by Christ, not merely in words, but in deed. 

The middle of this passage is truly the foundation of this passage, and where we draw our strength.  We are not alone.  We do not have to go to priests to make sacrifices for our sin, we have a great High Priest who dwells within us, who has already made full atonement for all our sin for all time.  You are a holy people because of Christ.  You are credited with Christ’s perfect righteousness, and He is with you every moment of every day. 

In light of this, we are encouraged to look at others who have been walking in their faith longer than we have, especially those who may have shared the gospel with us and discipled us when we were first granted faith to believe. God has given us gifts, to spur on our faith, and those gifts are men and women.  Have you ever been discipled?  Do you have older more mature Christian believers to walk through life with you? 

These men and women will be there to encourage and at times rebuke you as you stumble and grow in your faith.  We are called to go out, to be ministers of reconciliation to others by sharing the gospel.  We are called to live a life of holiness, in obedience to God, not merely because we’re told to by God, but because through Christ we already are righteous.  We are being called to live a life in accordance with what God has declared us to be through Christ’s blood.  This is a high calling, and will come with daily struggles.  As we struggle though, we are able to offer back up to God a sacrifice of praise, not with words, but with our very lives. 

My exhortation is the same as this passage.  If you have never been discipled, ask someone to disciple you.  If you do not have a strong Christian mentor, seek one out.  Ask friends or a pastor to help you.  If your belief in God has stopped merely at words or church service; pray that God would put to death your own will and desires, and submit to the leading of Christ.  There is greater treasure in Him.  Let your life be a sacrifice of praise to the Lord.

Romans 12:1 – “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Grace and Peace,

Adam

Is it possible to do many great things, and still be outside of God’s will?  Is there a lack of peace in your life as a Christian?  Do you go about the tasks of your day, running around to get things done only to wake up the next day and start all over?  This is not God’s will for us.  There is a stark divide between doing the works of God to be accepted by Him and doing the works of God because you are accepted by Him.  In the end, God has called us not to be taskmasters, but to only one thing – follow Him.

As much as I thought the WWJD (What would Jesus Do) bracelets were corny and borderline cultish, they carry with them a very Biblical truth.  We do not need to rush about trying to manufacture something for our lives that we believe God wants (usually our own desires).  As believers, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit.  To be in the will of God, all we need do is submit to God’s Good Lordship, and seek after Him.  What would God have me do in this situation?  Who around me would God have me encourage, preach the gospel to, give aid to, etc.?  This is what it means to follow after Christ, to do the one thing He has called us to.

Luke 18:18-23 – “And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Read carefully, one would notice that Jesus actually tells this man he needs to do 3 things, right?

1)  Sell all that he has
2)  Distribute to the poor
3)  Come to Jesus

Ultimately though, Jesus is only giving this man insight into his own heart and personal situation.  For Him, the “One thing he lacks” is Jesus Himself.  For Him, believing on Jesus to follow after Him necessitates him to rid himself of the idol of money.  For each of us, Jesus could have said something different.  It could have been, Adam, “One thing you still lack, throw out every electronic device you own, seek after me in scripture, love your neighbors in action not merely thought, and come, follow me.”  My heart here though is not to give you a list of actions to do, but to encourage you faith in God to give you peace and singularity of purpose.

Luke 10:38-42 – “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Above, Mary had chosen the good portion because she delighted in Christ alone, and sought to let Him lead her.  God does not need your service.  You’re not helping God out when you try to do a great many things, even though they might be good things in themselves.  God accepts you as you are, because Jesus died and paid the price for your sin.

As a believer, it’s good to plan, but know that God has a way of accomplishing His will throughout the day, and in your life, when you are merely open to His leading.  Isn’t that refreshing?  Isn’t it good to know that the God of Universe has everything under control, and your greatest good is within your grasp without stressing you out?  Have you ever read the verse about Jesus saying that his yoke is easy and burden light, and thought to yourself “yeah right, he doesn’t know my boss or family”?  Jesus offers peace to those whose greatest need is to be accepted by God, knowing they are sinful, but trust in reconciliation through Christ alone.  With life as chaotic as it can be, I would be remiss if I didn’t say anything about prayer here.  How can we prepare ourselves to be led by God throughout our day?  Prayer.  Pray without ceasing.

Seek Christ, pursue One thing throughout your day.  Grace be with you.

Psalm 33:6-11 – “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses.  Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!  For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.  The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.  The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”

It is a good and healthy thing to know and fear the awesomeness of God.  He is altogether different from us.  He is perfectly holy in a way we cannot fathom in this fallen world.  He does not experience time as we do, but everything from the past until the close of time is NOW to Him.  Space has no meaning to God, for everything in creation that is outside of Himself is contained within Him.  God is the only independent being, we are all dependent upon Him for our very being, and sustained by His power.  My will and purposes are wrong/change consistently, but His purposes are always perfect and are always fulfilled perfectly according to His will.

As important though, is to know that we serve a living God, a personal God.  He is not an idea, or a thought, but He lives and breathes (in Christ) and purposes (in the Father) and empowers action (in the Spirit) even as I write this, and even as you read this.  God feels emotion, God is acquainted with every sorrow and joy in their fullness.  We do not see God, therefore it is easy to think of Him as separate from us, impersonal perhaps.  My encouragement, therefore, is to know when you pray that you are praying to a God who is deeply relational.  They very being of God is relational within the Trinity.   While God may grow our faith through a time of feeling His absence, His love for us ensures that His ultimately desire is for us to know Him fully, and enjoy Him forever.  This was the same encouragement given by John to those who had not seen Jesus as He had:

1 John 1:1-4 – “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Our God is not a force or power.  Our God was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.  He is risen, and lives today.  Take comfort that our God is not money, or a statue that is created by human hands; we serve a living God, and will be with Him for eternity.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

I love God’s Word.  It’s beautiful to me how God reveals Himself so clearly through scripture, using scripture to explain scripture.  I wanted to encourage you today with what it means for Christ to be the rock of our salvation, the cornerstone of a righteous, redeemed son/daughter of God.  I also want to encourage you to break open your Bibles however, and to know that the Old and New Testament are not at odds with one another.  I want to encourage you not to merely take one or two verses to build your beliefs upon, but dig deep into the whole counsel of God’s Word.  May His Word be refreshment to you, and you rejoice in the One who came and became our salvation.

Psalm 118:19-23 – “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.  This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.  I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.  This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Matthew 7:13-14 – “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Acts 4:11-12 – “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

1 Peter 2:1-8 – “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:  “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”  So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”  They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”

Jesus did not die to make us “savable”; Jesus actually saved us on the cross.  Even the faith we have to believe was not our own, but was given to us by God, and was only available to us because of the blood of Christ.  This is the cornerstone of our salvation, that not in ourselves, but only in Christ do we have hope.  Therefore, as you have been redeemed by Him, continue to read the apostles of the New Testament, the Prophets of the Old Testament – dig deep to know the God of your salvation, and He will build you into His image.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

Philippians 2:3-8 – “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus came to suffer and die.  It was God’s pleasure that He would come in the form of a man, and ransom a people out of darkness to Himself through His blood on the cross.  Those of us who have believed on Christ, have Him with us, in us, in the form of the Holy Spirit every moment of every day, and His purpose has not changed.  God’s will is for us to continue to suffer and serve to call His people out of darkness, to show the infinite worth and glory of God.

Colossians 1:24-27 – “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

How do you serve those around you?  At work?  Your neighbors?  Your friends?  Your family?  If someone were to look at your life, would they have questions about why you serve others the way you do?  Why are there Christian marriages that are broken, when the purpose of marriage is to serve one another, not be served?  Why are there Christians who go hungry, need homes, and feel isolated?  People will sit back and ask why God doesn’t do something about these things.  The answer is God already has done something.  God’s answer and great desire is for the body of believers that make up the Church to serve as Christ served.

My exhortation then is to ask yourself if you are generally more concerned about whether or not you’re getting “what you deserve”, or whether you are seeking to serve others at cost to yourself.  Our Reward is not what we can take from this life, but in giving our lives away, we inherit a greater Treasure in Christ.

Be encouraged, none of us serve others like we ought to.  There is always more room to grow in our struggle to kill pride, and humble ourselves as servants.  This is why God, through Paul, was reminding us of our charge throughout the whole New Testament.  My encouragement then is the same as Paul’s as a way of reminder; only believers can serve unselfishly with joy because of Christ.  So then, because you are a believer, and have been reconciled to God through faith alone, and have Christ in you, strain forward to serve beyond your comfort zone.  There is nothing that is lost in this world that can compare to the riches we already have in Christ.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

This is another one of those days that I’m glad I’m not paid for what I do.  Haven’t you heard from others, or maybe have felt yourself that church is just a way to get at your money?  The pursuit of money where it becomes an idol before God is a great temptation in the US.  There are temptations on every side of our lives.  Especially in the US, money is a great temptation.  The truth is, money can buy you happiness… at least for a while.  What money cannot buy you is peace and lasting happiness.  Why not?  Three main reasons, 1) We are going to die, therefore whatever money could buy would only give us joy for a while 2) Everything that can be bought is decaying already, just like our bodies will deteriorate over time  3)  The happiness found in money is never fulfilling, it only desires more, and in the end we find that sin in us has an insatiable appetite, never satisfied.

God has ordained that even the creation, everything in the Earth point us to God.  We see from creation that everything around us gets old and dies, therefore, if we are truly to find lasting, fulfilling joy, it must be beyond what the world can offer.

Romans 8:20-21 – “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”

Jesus gives us instruction, which lays out a very simple point.   One will either pursue joy, in futility, by what the world can offer, or he/she will find that joy in the Lord.

Matthew 6:19-21,24 – “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…   No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

To a non-believer, obedience to God from His Word seems like the last place where joy would be found.  But for those who know God, and His infinite grace and mercy, the love of God is all we need.  My encouragement to you as fellow believers is to not look back to pursue joy in the world, but push forward into Christ where there is no lack.  Look to Christ and all that He is for us, and know that whatever joy you find today, will grow infinitely throughout eternity, when we finally see Him as He is.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

I often times am accused of fear mongering, of essentially being one of those street corner preachers who tells people to repent or burn.  I own that to some degree.  I think the reason I’m that way though is because more often in the US, people do not take seriously enough the claims of Jesus.  Jesus spoke of judgment often, and so if I’m speaking from the Bible, I’m going to have to talk about judgment.  My hope is to awaken an earnestness in pursuing the cross by juxtaposing our fallen condition and the coming judgment for sin against the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ extended to all who love and follow Him in faith.  We still struggle though, and today I want to lift up Jesus, a man acquainted with every form of temptation, from whom we can draw great strength daily.

I want you to KNOW, deeply, that as Christians we are no longer under sin and judgment, but we are in Christ.  Therefore, my encouragement is for us to press forward, straining  towards Him every day.  You have no hope in yourselves, but in Christ you are already more than a conqueror.  In Christ, every sin you are struggling with has been conquered on the cross, and every step closer to Him is a step towards putting sin to death in your own life.  Putting to death sin in our lives is not legalism, it is finding joy in Christ, the same joy that led Him to the cross.  You are accepted by God because of Christ, and His blood.  You are not alone in your struggles with sin, but the very same Christ dwells within you.  Keep pressing forward, and know that your Christian brothers and sisters here and around the world are with you and for you.

Hebrews 12:1-4 – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.   Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

 Grace and Peace,

Adam

If you see someone walking towards the cliff, about to fall over…dead, and you say nothing, that is not loving of you.  If your “tolerance” leads to someone’s death, that is not loving.  How much more hateful then, is it to see someone walking towards a spiritual cliff, where eternity holds in the balance, and to say nothing?  Many churches, many pastors, many people are afraid to call people to question their salvation, even though we are commanded to test ourselves Biblically (2 Cor 13:5)  If you claim to be a Christian, and you do nothing to encourage your brother or sister to repent in humble fear, and turn to God, you’re not being kind or loving – you are complicit in sending those people to hell.

We see this in dead churches all the time.  Where no one really gets to know anyone, and even if they do, they never love them enough to encourage them away from sin.  Now no one likes the person who really doesn’t know people, but always can find sin to point out.  Don’t be that person.  I’m saying people in your close community, these are the people that absolutely should be encouraging/challenging you in your struggles, and you in theirs.

Let’s get Biblical.  If you are truly saved, you will always be saved, but do you know how you know you’re saved?  If all you have to support your claim is a decision, or statement, or prayer in the past.. your faith is dead, and you are deceived.  The Bible does not talk about saving faith that way.  Yes, I know there are places where it says if you believe you will be saved, and that’s true, but that belief was defined as enduring belief that bears fruit until death by the rest of the New Testament.  How do you know you’re saved, and walking with God?  You know you’re saved because there is an ongoing work of the Spirit of God in you that manifests itself in your life in ways you can see/test, and in your heart you have a growing affection not for what God can give you, but for God Himself.  This isn’t true for everyone who claims Christ.  Some people leave/abandon their pursuit of God to follow after the world/sin.  They were never saved, and it wasn’t evident immediately.  (Read the parable of the soils from Matthew 13/Luke 8)

1 John 2:19 – “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

Here is my encouragement and challenge for you all.  Each day we make choices that harden our heart against God, or submit to Him as Lord.  Take these daily choices/struggles seriously.  How do you know whether God may want to use you to keep a brother/sister from falling away?  How do you know God doesn’t plan on using other people to sustain/save you?

Hebrews 3:7-14 – “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.  Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’  As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.'”

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.  But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”

Saving faith endures to the end, but God uses means by which to sustain our faith.  We need true, honest community to walk with us through life.  Do you have people who truly know you?  Do you have at least 2 or 3 people?  Love your brothers and sisters enough to have hard conversations in a loving way, eager to extend the grace of God through Jesus Christ, just as you have been forgiven much.  Today it may be them walking towards a cliff, tomorrow it may be you.  Church, and authentic Christian community where you are truly known by others should not be burdensome, but are gifts of God for you.  Embrace and fight hard for them, and God will greatly bless you.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

For many people who sit in church every Sunday, their faith is merely an intellectual decision to acknowledge a fact claim about Jesus.  There is no love, no powerful, life-altering force driving them towards Christ thereafter.  They simply come each Sunday, sit, sing, and otherwise go about their lives as if nothing has happened.  They are right.  Nothing has happened to them.

Let me ask a question.  If someone came up to you and asked you if you’d received the Holy Spirit, how would you answer?  Most people would assume that because they have said they believed on Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit.  Would it surprise you to know, that the Bible doesn’t make that assumption?  Would you be able to say how you have experienced the Holy Spirit in the last year, the last month, the last week?  The American church has long downplayed the role of the Holy Spirit, because it does not know how to deal with people who claim to believe on Christ, but have not knowingly experienced the Holy Spirit at work in themselves.  Some for sure are due to false professions of faith, but others are simply because they do not know what is of the Spirit vs. of themselves.   So you have some churches, where everyone in the church claims to be able to speak in tongues as evidence of the Holy Spirit, and you have other churches that never bring up the Holy Spirit’s work at all, because they don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Well, my goal today isn’t to ruffle feathers, although that may be God’s plan anyway.  I simply want to show 3 things Biblically:

1)       The Holy Spirit’s indwelling should be experienced, not merely assumed based upon a proclamation of faith

2)      What are the evidences of the Spirit that can be experienced?

3)      How can we gain more of the Holy Spirit/experience Him more fully?

This is a lot of ground, but I’m going to try to move quickly.  First, what evidence Biblically, do we have that the Holy Spirit should be experienced?  (ans.  The entire New Testament)  We know that the Holy Spirit is given to all who truly believe on Christ and the gospel, but what about false professions?  Could there be some who claim to have believed, but do not have the Holy Spirit?  (hint.. yes.)

Acts 19:1-6 – “And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.”  On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.”

Paul’s question is interesting here.  Paul assumes that the men he was talking to would know whether or not they received the Spirit.  When they did receive the Spirit, their experience was manifested in speaking in tongues and prophesying.  How would these men answer Paul’s question now?  Clearly what would be foremost in their mind would not be understanding that the Holy Spirit exists and is given to all who believe on Jesus, but their own experience of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in power.

So what are some of the evidences of the Spirit that we can see from the Bible?  It’s important to know that it is very unlikely that one will see all of these in their life personally, but everyone who is truly saved should see some.

1)       Fruit of the Spirit (in one’s heart/life) – Galatians 5:22 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

2)      Giftings of the Spirit – 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 – “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”

Lastly, how can we gain more of the Spirit in our lives?  Prayer and obedience to the Word of God.

We are commanded by God in Ephesians 5:19, not to be controlled by wine, but by the Spirit.  The verb tense used, is essentially saying “keep being filled by the Spirit”.  This implies a daily filling, and for that we need prayer, and God’s always faithful grace and mercy.

Ephesians 5:18 – “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,“

Acts 5:32 – “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Ok, now that I did we did a whirlwind overview of the Holy Spirit, I realize I likely created questions for you.  Why did I want go through this, knowing I would only have time to skim the surface of this topic?  My hope is threefold, one that you will recognize and give praise to God for the work of the Spirit in your life now, second is that you would draw assurance of your salvation from the Spirit’s work, and lastly, that you would begin to pray daily for the Spirit to come in power to lead you in every way.  My encouragement is to be a Berean (Acts 17:10-11), and search the scriptures yourself to see if what I’ve said is true, and to fill in gaps.  I’ve enclosed below links to a few articles that might be helpful as well.  May the Holy Spirit have His way in us, to the praise of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/what-does-it-mean-to-receive-the-holy-spirit

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Study+Guides/40-5215_Security-in-the-Spirit?q=evidence+holy+Spirit

http://www.gotquestions.org/Spirit-filled.html