Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is: Psalm 119:1-88, 1 Thessalonians 5
Happy Holiday Monday Everyone!
Warning ahead - this post is personal... God highlighted a passage today that was just for me.
1 Thessalonians 5:19 "Do not quench the Spirit". (ESV)
In all honesty, this has been something I've been struggling with lately. I've been at a point where I truly have been running from God. It's been difficult for me to pray, focus on the Bible readings and honestly, the only thing that's been bringing me back to the bible on a regular basis is this blog. I feel unworthy of even posting here weekly, but know that this is the line keeping me from running altogether!! There is no particular catalyst for my struggles, other than I have been feeling like am literally quenching the Holy Spirit in my life.
Enter today's Bible reading and this verse! - "Do not quench the Spirit". So what's a girl to do as a next step of study of this passage?? Go see what our buddy John MacArthur has to say. The beginning of this sermon is interesting because he states his case against psychologists and therapists in the church and we should rely on the Holy Spirit instead - which is an interesting topic of discussion. But further on in this message there was quite a lot that stood out for me.
What does the Holy Spirit want to do in me that I can quench? Very simply stated, He wants to move you along a path to ever increasing holiness. Did you understand that? He wants to move you along a path to ever increasing holiness. What does holy mean? Separate. He wants to separate you further and further from sin and the further you get away from sin the closer you get to God. It's just a process of separation. He wants to produce in you the decreasing frequency of sin, the decreasing frequency of sin, the decreasing power of temptation, the decreasing preoccupation with the world, the decreasing victimization to the flesh and increase your longings for God. That's the progress of sanctification. That's a movement toward holiness. That is His work.
I struggle with being so far off the mark of holiness that often I feel like "why even bother". There's much work to do in the life of this sin-filled girl that I feel overwhelmed by all the work He has to do in me.
So, the Holy Spirit wants to move you from where you are to being like Christ...along a path of ever increasing holiness, that's sanctification. It's just a separation process, further and further separation. That's what He wants to do. Holiness was like a seed planted at the time of your salvation that grows. And as it grows it bears more and more and more and more fruit and that's the working of the Holy Spirit.
John Owen the great Puritan writer had some rich insight. He said this, "Sanctification is an immediate work of the Spirit of God on the souls of believers, purifying and cleansing of their natures from the pollution and uncleanness of sin, renewing in them the image of God and thereby enabling them from a spiritual and habitual principle of grace to yield obedience unto God according unto the tenure and terms of the New Covenant by virtue of the life and death of Jesus Christ."
It's a work of the Spirit on your soul purging, purifying, cleansing from the pollution of sin as you move more and more toward the image of God. Or more briefly he said it this way, it is the universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus Christ.
Now, that's what the Spirit desires to do. Psychology can't do that. Human wisdom can't do that. Nothing can do that but the Holy Spirit. The only agency that can do it is the Holy Spirit. You can quench the Spirit in the progress of that sanctification by substituting ecstatic experiences, emotions, feelings, methodology, therapeutic methodology, gimmickry, formulas, whatever...pragmatism, mystical intuitive self- authenticating experience psychology, emotions, feelings, all of that will never do what the Spirit is to do and alone can do.
I am realizing that much of my faith is built on feelings. I depend on "feeling close to God" as my measure of faith and closeness to him. That is not truth. What MacArthur has to say in another part of his message has hit home for me this morning.
You do not come to the truth of God by having a feeling. You do not come to the truth of God by having an emotion. You do not say, as so many people say, "Well I just know what I believe." That has no correlation with truth, necessarily. You cannot know the truth of God which makes you grow which is the very food of your life which sanctifies you, which moves you in that separation process closer to holiness, more like Christ, you cannot know it through external observation and you cannot know it through internal intuition. It's not available. The only way you can know it, verse 10, "For to us God revealed it through...whom?...the Spirit." The Spirit of God not only wrote the Scripture, He illuminates the Scripture and He quickens it to us. There is no legitimate experience, spiritual experience, no legitimate Christian spiritual experience that is not an emotional response at one end of the scale or the other to truth revealed in the word and quickened to the heart by the Spirit.
For example, if you are in a time of unusual abnormal what I would call transcendent joy, you're overwhelmed with joy, you're exhilarated, you're singing psalms and hymns and perhaps shedding tears of joy, you are overwhelmed with the sense of well being. Your emotions have reached the peak, as it were, in rejoicing that you're saved. The reason is not because some intuitive thing flowed up from within you, but because you know the truth that relates to your responses and the Spirit of God has quickened those truths to your mind and that has exhilarated your emotions. That does not happen in a vacuum. And the kind of emotional experiences that are nothing more than emotions in a vacuum are not truly Christian spiritual experiences.
On the other hand, looking at the other end of the scale, if you have times of deep sadness and sorrow and crying and tears, it is because you know there's something in your life that is not right and the Spirit has quickened that to you and your emotions have run to their limits trying to deal with the quickening of the Spirit of God along those lines of conviction. And so, the Spirit of God wrote the Word. The Spirit of God as the unction interprets the Word as we faithfully study it, and the Spirit of God quickens the Word which produces in us everything from deep anguish over sin to transcendent joy and praise because of the exhilaration of truth. This is His work and this is how He moves us along. And it's the Word at the heart of it all.
In Psalm 19 it says that the Word transforms the whole person. The Word makes the simple person wise. The Word rejoices the heart. The Word enlightens the eyes. The Word endures forever. The Word produces comprehensive righteousness. It does it all. It is given that it might teach us, instruct us, correct us, train us that we might be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The Spirit then moves into the Word as the author, moves into the Word as the interpreter, moves through the Word as the applier and quickens our heart. That's what He's doing to move us away from sin toward holiness by quickening the Word to us. That's His work.
But you can quench it. How? Fail to study the Word to show yourself approved unto God. Mishandle the Scripture, don't rightly divide it. Don't receive it with humility, as James 1:21 says. You can quench the Spirit by not applying it in your life so that you become a hearer and not a doer. You can quench it by not hiding it in your heart, by not searching it diligently, by not desiring it and you can quench it by not letting it dwell in you richly, as Paul said in Colossians 3. (all emphasis mine)
My heart is humbled and my eyes are opened. Can I ask for you guys to pray for me in this area? I am not good at being transparent, I want everyone to think I've got it all together, but this is one area where I don't, but I desire to keep striving. Somewhere, I lost the desire to pour myself into the Word, I've lost the desire to pour myself into prayer. I really do appreciate all of you and the wisdom you bring to my life everyday. Thank you.
Father God. Thank you for the Holy Spirit. Forgive me for quenching your work in my life. Give me the desire and the discipline to allow Your Word to change my whole being. Take me beyond being a "hearer" and turn me into a "doer". Thank you for this amazing group of women with whom we share you as our common denominator. Thank you for their faithfulness to You and for bringing them into my life. Amen.
Tomorrow's passage: Psalm 119:89-176, 2 Thessalonians 1
4 comments:
Something we need to remind ourselves is this - Satan is not happy that we have decided to do this, study the Word together and grow stronger in Christ. And so he is fighting it, and it should not surprise us to feel those attacks.
Now, most of your post about your struggles seemed very God-led to me - God opens our eyes to our flaws and humbles us, and creates in us the desire to change and to continue to transform through His power.
But the paragraph about - why bother? That feeling is not from God. And, just like our Thessalonians passage today reminds us - that means we need to put on the armour of God - put on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet, and all the other armour referred to in Ephesians 6.
But most importantly, remember v24 - The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. He will do it. You are His and He won't give up on you!
I do think it's awesome that Psalm 119 was paired with this passage because it's all about the Word!
Thank you for your transparency Jody - praying for you my friend!
Thank you for your honesty. I know that I have felt the "why bother" in my life too. I struggle often with being a much better "hearer" than a "doer". I think praying for each other to be drawn closer to Him is something we can all benefit from because we are all on this journey. It's a journey because we have not arrived (and we won't until we get HOME) and we are all working towards Him.
Thanks you guys!! Your encouragement and prayer mean the world to me.
Thank you for your honesty, Jody. I struggle with that myself at times, and in spite of the fact that I can see and hear the changes in myself since starting with regular Bible reading, I still find it easy some days to just not do it because "I'll do it later... I don't feel like it right now," or "I have to do such-and-such first (which I don't REALLY have to do first)." I KNOW I benefit from it, and yet it's still sometimes like a chore I have to get done. Like working out, or cleaning the bathrooms. It sounds terrible saying that, but it's sometimes how it feels.
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