JOURNEY OF FAITH
Day One Hundred Forty-four
WHY DO I EXIST
CHAPTER TWELVE
POWER OF THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT
Friends & neighbors; brothers and sisters…
If you remember nothing else from the pages of “WHY DO I EXIST”…never forget this: GOD LOVES YOU.
God’s Love 4 U is…
Unconditional
Unfailing
Unchanging
Unending
Beloved…I love you because of Who I am…not as a response to who you are, or what you do, or what you refrain from doing.
If only you would know in the depths of your soul, if only you would just fully embrace, the greatness of My love I have lavished upon you…that the most intense desire of My heart is to gather you to Myself as one of My Own children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. That is the depth of My love for you.
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TWO OPERATING SYSTEMS
My beloved child…there are two operating principles out of which you can live your life…
The power of the flesh, or
The Power of the Holy Spirit.
Those whose lives are under the guidance of the flesh…their sin-enslaved human nature…set their mind on and pursue what that nature desires; but those who live guided by the Holy Spirit set their mind on and seek after what My Spirit desires.
When you choose to live controlled by the power of the flesh, you live your everyday life in reliance upon your human capabilities and capacities, by your own efforts and in your own strength, according to your own wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
Those who choose to live controlled by the Power of My Spirit live their everyday life in reliance upon His Divine capabilities and capacities, by His efforts and in His Omnipotent strength, according to His Divine Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding.
LIVING IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT
My child, have you yet to fully embrace His Divine Power that has given you everything you need for life and godliness through the knowledge of the One Who called you by His Own Glory and Goodness? Through these He has given you His Own very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the Divine nature now dwelling within you, and thereby escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Living in the Power of the Spirit is a life of watching and waiting upon God, looking off unto Me and listening for My voice…
for Me to place you where you are to be,
lead you where you are to go,
show you what you are to do to participate together with Me in My work,
give you the thoughts to think and present,
the words to speak or write.
This was the life of My Divine Son Jesus when He lived on this Earth. You are to live your everyday life by the example set by Christ Jesus, Who said, “I only do what My Father shows Me to do; I only speak the words My Father gives Me to speak.”
LIVING IN THE POWER OF THE FLESH
Life in the power of the flesh is characterized by trying rather than by trusting. It is a life requiring your continual striving and struggling; all of your efforts, redoubled efforts, and strength; all of your commitments and resolutions; all of your pledges and promises. Even then…the absolute weakness of your sin-enslaved human nature guarantees you will utterly fail!
My child…a life of trying in the power of your flesh ignores My Eternal Provision for your living a holy and righteous life: the Eternal Gift of My Holy Spirit given to dwell in you, and His Eternal Power made available to you. It disregards My command to keep on being continually filled with My Holy Spirit, giving Him free reign over the conduct of your everyday life.
POWER OF THE FLESH: SELF RELIANCE
Trying in the power of your flesh to do My work and My will presumes that you are fully capable of doing so, and do not need Me. It is an assertion of your self-reliance and self-sufficiency, and that you have no need for dependence upon My Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding. It is not well-pleasing to Me; it is a life of utter failure and spiritual bankruptcy!
Even just trying by your own efforts and in your own strength to live a holy and righteous life is in itself presumptuous…it presumes that you can actually do so, that you can be well-pleasing in My sight in the power of your sin-enslaved human nature. The truth of the matter is… apart from Me you are hopelessly powerless, hopelessly impotent, hopelessly helpless to do anything that is good, or pleasing, or acceptable to God!
POWER OF THE SPIRIT: CHILD-LIKE DEPENDENCE
Beloved, life in the Power of My Spirit is characterized by trusting, and not by trying. It is a life of…
unwavering child-like trust, prompting you to look to My Holy Spirit with an
unreserved child-like dependence for His leading and guiding, to show you what you are to do and when, so that you may then respond with an
unquestioning child-like obedience.
BREATH OF LIFE
Continually and unceasingly throughout the day and night, your heart needs to breathe in that breath of life that comes from My Holy Spirit and sustains your spiritual life…just the same as your lungs need, continually and unceasingly, to breathe in that breath of life that comes from the outside air and sustains your physical life!
CHILD-LIKE TRUST
Trusting implies that you know beyond the shadow of a doubt you cannot satisfy your spiritual needs trying by your own efforts and in your own strength. Trusting is a conscious decision to live your everyday life in reliance upon the Power of My indwelling Spirit. It is an expression of death to self, and absolute reliance upon the sufficiency of God.
The only way to live your everyday life in the Power of My Spirit is to trust Me to do this in you. With an unwavering child-like trust…watch for Me and wait upon Me, look off unto Me and listen for My voice. I will lead you and guide you, I will show you what you are to do and when. When you hear My voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it,” you need only respond and cooperate.
You respond in obedience; you cooperate with the power of My enabling grace. My Spirit is at work in you, working in you both to will and to do. My child…don’t run ahead of Me, or without Me! Walk in lock-step with My Holy Spirit!
POWER OF MY ENABLING GRACE
The Power of My enabling grace can not…can never…be manifested and exercised in you by your sin-enslaved human nature! Only My Holy Spirit can make My enabling grace effective in you. Don’t you understand? It is My work, not your work; your place is to cooperate and to respond.
You live a life of trust not by trying to do what I show you to do, but by cooperating with My enabling grace manifested through My indwelling Holy Spirit to do so. You are not trying by your own efforts and in your own strength; you are cooperating with My strength, My Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding, with My capabilities and capacities. It is My work, not yours; and the results belong to me, not to you.
SPIRITUAL ACT OF TRUE WORSHIP
Your place in My work is to attentively and diligently look for the leading and guiding of My Holy Spirit in everything concerning your everyday life, and to cooperate with the power of His enabling grace to do all that He prompts you to do, or say, or think. He is the One Who produces fruit in your life; you are simply to be a branch that bears His fruit! Branches don’t produce fruit; branches simply bear the fruit My Holy Spirit produces.
You participate in My work by making the members of your body and all your faculties available to Me as instruments of righteousness, leading to holiness. Offer yourself to God as a living sacrifice, a vessel dedicated for My honor and well-pleasing to Me. This is your spiritual act of true worship!
LONGING FOR PERFECTION
Blessed Jesus…You assured me, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be fully satisfied. Abba Father… this is the most intense desire of my heart, above everything else: my heart is inflamed with yearning to be holy as You are Holy, to be perfect as You are Perfect.
HOPELESSLY POWERLESS TO ATTAIN PERFECTION
Father, I understand; I realize and acknowledge: I cannot literally be holy and perfect as You are. It is not humanly possible while I am still living in this body of flesh, and subject to the insistent desires of my sin-enslaved human nature. In the power of my sin-enslaved human nature, I am hopelessly powerless, hopelessly impotent, hopelessly helpless to stand against the onslaught of temptations and sins…or to completely free myself from these sins.
SIN-ENSLAVED HUMAN NATURE
The overriding characteristic of my sin-enslaved human nature is that it is enslaved by sin. Why would I ever think that the powers of my sin-enslaved human nature would voluntarily choose to deny its own self and put forth effort to give the Holy Spirit free reign over the conduct of my life? That is absolutely contradictory to my self-serving human nature! It not only does not have the power to do this…but in no way would it even want to! My human nature is held captive by sin, imprisoned by sin, in bondage to sin, enslaved by sin…and it has no desire whatsoever to be free of sin. It likes sin, wants to continue living in sin, and refuses to give it up for You! And it can’t be fixed; it must be crucified.
LIVING BY FAITH IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT
Abba, Father…it is not humanly possible for me to be delivered and set free from my human emotions…that I would never experience those feelings ever again. Emotions…my feelings…are spontaneous and involuntary responses within me to circumstances, events, and things that touch my life…things of the literal physical realm or of the imaginary realm that rises up within the hidden life in my heart…in my mind, my thoughts, my imagination…things that come into my sphere of awareness that insist that I respond with an action in accordance with its dictates and demands. Emotions have an insistent desire to be the controlling mechanism for the behavioral responses of my life. Emotions desire to rule and reign on the throne within my heart…and usurp the rule and reign that rightfully belongs to Your Holy Spirit Who was given to rule and reign upon the throne of my heart. Emotions insist…demand…that my will makes decisions in accordance with its dictates. My emotions can’t be fixed; it can only be crucified and no longer allowed to come down off that cross and usurp rule and authority over the conduct of living out my every day life.
And so, there are these insistent voices that demand my will to make decisions concerning the conduct of my every day life:
- My emotions with its feelings;
- My body with its desires and cravings;
- My mind with its human wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
The indwelling Holy Spirit was given as God’s Eternal Gift; He is the One Who leads and guides me in accordance with the plans, purposes, and will of God. He must be given free reign to rule and reign over the conduct of my every day life. And so I embrace as my own this same mind that was in You, Lord Jesus: NOT MY WILL, FATHER, as determined by my sin-enslaved human nature, BUT THY WILL BE DONE as determined by God.
- I am to live by faith, not by sight…reliance on my human mind;
- I am to live by faith, not by my emotions…what I feel;
- I am to live by faith, not by my flesh…the desires and cravings of my body.
SANCTIFICATION: WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Abba Father, I know I can never attain righteousness by trying, by my own efforts and in my own strength…that any efforts on my part only serve to hinder Your Spirit from working righteousness in me. Sanctification is the work of Your Holy Spirit, not mine. My place is to hate sin, love righteousness, and cooperate with the work of Your Indwelling Holy Spirit, Who is the One Who works in me both the desire to obey Your will and the Power to do Your will. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of exultant joy and gladness above and beyond Your companions.
My beloved child, I counsel you to live your everyday manner of life in the Power and under the guidance of My Holy Spirit; then you will not gratify the desires of your sin-enslaved human nature. Your heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked…your sin-enslaved human nature has a strong desire for its own will to be done and so to suppress My Holy Spirit, and My Spirit constantly has a strong desire for God’s will to be done and so to suppress your sin-enslaved human nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are hindered by your sin-enslaved human nature from freely doing what you desire to do in obedience to My will.
But if you are living your life guided by My Holy Spirit, your life is no longer under the guidance of the demands of the Law, which has no power to suppress the desires of your sin-enslaved human nature. For the Law of the Spirit of life in My Divine Son Jesus has set you free from the Law of sin and its resultant death. The fruit produced by My Holy Spirit dwelling within you is: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no Law prohibiting such things as these…rather, they fully satisfy the demands of My Law. Those who belong to Christ My Son have nailed the passions and desires of their sin-enslaved human nature to His cross and crucified them there.
Since you earnestly desire to live your everyday manner of life under the guidance of My Holy Spirit, be careful, then, to follow the Spirit’s guidance in every part of your life.
PERFECTION OF HEART
Purity, holiness, and righteousness…first of all and above all…is a matter of the heart. It is in my hidden life within my heart…in my mind, my thoughts, my imagination…where a pure, holy, and righteous life has its roots. The only righteousness acceptable to God is purity of heart.
Without that purity, the outward physical life makes no difference. God’s Divine evaluation takes place in the heart. He judges the source and origin of sin, not its manifestation or lack of manifestation.
True Christianity lies in the heart, in the purity of heart; the washing of the heart from wickedness. Those who truly belong to God will be motivated to purity. The deepest desire…the consuming desire…of the redeemed is for holiness, even when sin hinders the perfect fulfillment of that desire. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. [Rom 6:19] Intimate knowledge of and fellowship with God is reserved only for the pure in heart.
THE ALMIGHTY ONE
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. [Isa 40:31]
THE EVERLASTING ONE
My beloved child…Your watching and waiting upon God, looking off unto Me and listening for My voice, will depend greatly on your faith of Who I am. It is as I reveal Myself as the Everlasting and Almighty One, and that revelation enters your soul, that your waiting will become the spontaneous expression of what you know Me to be…a God altogether worthy to be waited upon.
My children are to “mount up with wings as eagles;” you are to live a Heavenly life, in the very Presence and Love and Joy of God. You are to fully embrace My Eternal Promise prepared for My children, resting in Me with an unruffled child-like rest and abiding in Me with an unclouded child-like carefree joy all the days of your life on the face of the Earth, and then afterwards together with Me in Heaven for all eternity.
Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the Everlasting One… the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the Earth…fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding. So far from it…He giveth Power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths…the glory of young men is in their strength…even the youths shall faint, and the young men shall utterly fall: all that is accounted strong with man shall come to nought. But they that wait upon the Lord…on the Everlasting One, Who fainteth not, neither is weary… they shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and…listen now, they shall be strong with the strength of God, and even as He…shall not be weary; they shall walk and…even as He…not faint. [Isa 40:28-31]
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the LORD alone did lead him. [Deut 32:11-12]
To whom then will you liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number. He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His Might, for that He is strong in Power; not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, “My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?” [Isa 40:25-27]
A CHILD OF GOD HAS EAGLE WINGS
Precious child! You are born of God; a child of the Most High God! You have the eagles wings! You may not have fully known it; you may not have yet used them; but I, your God and Father, can and will indeed teach you to use them. I will stir up your nest. I will disappoint your hopes. I will bring down your confidence. I will make you fear and tremble; as all your strength fails, you will feel utterly weary and helpless. And yet, even so, all the while I am spreading My strong wings for you to rest your weakness on, and offering My Everlasting Creator-Strength to work in you!
And all I ask is that you should sink down in your weariness and wait upon Me; and allow Me in My Jehovah-Strength to carry you as you ride upon the wings of My Omnipotence. You need only lift up your eyes, and behold your God! You need only listen to Me Who assures you that I never grow tired or weary, Who promises that you too shall not faint nor be weary, Who asks nothing but this one thing…that you should wait solely and only, wholly and always, upon Me! Oh beloved child, with such a Father…so mighty, so faithful, so tender…why would you not set your heart to continually wait only upon God?!
PROMISE TO RENEW MY STRENGTH
Abba Father…oftentimes I am so tired, so weary, so worn. Oftentimes I have so little energy, so little strength, so little stamina. But Father, You promised!…if only I would just wait upon You, that You would renew my energy, my strength, my stamina. You assured me that I shall mount up with wings as eagles; that I shall run and not be weary; that I shall walk, and not faint. You assured me that, as Your child, I indeed have the eagles wings, and that You will indeed teach me to use them.
TRUE HUMILITY
Abba Father…I understand. I am just the paint brush in the hand of the Master; the pen in the hand of the Author; the bow in the hand of the Master Violinist.
I am just the instrument of Your Righteousness…a vessel set apart for noble purposes, holy and consecrated to the Master, prepared and ready to be used for Your every good purpose.
The all-prevailing, all pervading, atmosphere in which my soul lives and moves and has its very being is an unwavering child-like trust in You, Father.
The underlying foundation for my unwavering child-like trust is that in the very depths of my being I have embraced the reality of Your fathomless love for me, and Your absolute Sovereignty over all Creation. Hallelujah!
And so, Father, in the Power of Your enabling grace I embrace this blessed life:
my waiting upon God…watching and waiting, looking off unto You and listening for Your voice…with an unwavering child-like trust and an unreserved child-like dependence, with a joyful expectation and an excited anticipation…
for You to reveal Yourself to me ever more deeply and intimately, and Your plans, Your purposes, Your will for me…
SO I MAY THEN RESPOND, with an unquestioning child-like obedience, to every leading and prompting of Your Holy Spirit, cooperating with the Power of His enabling grace Who works in me both to will and to do.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!
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If you have never been born again,
or you are not sure whether you have been born again,
or you have been living your life as a lukewarm Christian and would now like to recommit your life and enter into a deep and intimate relationship with Christ Jesus in preparation for the soon coming marriage supper of the Lamb…
then I counsel you to get alone with God, read the solemn marriage vows presented below you must make to become the bride of Christ and thereby be born-again, and with sincerity of heart from within the depths of your being, acknowledge before God, “I DO.”
MARRIAGE VOWS
SPIRITUAL BRIDE OF CHRIST
- Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Divine Son in the Triune God, the Lamb of God Who came into this world to become the One only, all-sufficient, atoning sacrifice through His death on a cross and subsequent resurrection, thereby securing forgiveness for your sins and restoring your relationship with God that had been severed by sin?
- Do you now solemnly vow before God to give yourself to be the bride of Christ, receiving Jesus the Christ into your life in a spiritual marriage, promising to honor and obey Him as both Lord over your life and Savior of your soul?
- To be joined inseparably together with Him in a Sacred Covenant relationship…an Eternal living union of oneness through the new life to be conceived in you by the Holy Spirit…
- To have and to hold Him, above all others and above all else this world has to offer, as the choicest, most precious treasure of your heart…
- To love and to cherish Him, above all others and above all else this world has to offer, reserving for Him alone your sweetest, most tender affections…
- For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, all the days of your life, until death of this body brings you to be together with Him in Heaven for all eternity?
God Himself has given this testimony concerning His Son: I have granted you eternal life, and this life is given through union with My Divine Son Jesus.
Whoever is joined together with My Son in a living union of oneness
possesses that life;
whoever is NOT joined together with My Son in a living union of oneness
does NOT possess that life.
I have written this to you so that you who place your trust in Christ My Son will know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that you do now indeed have eternal life. [1 John 5:9-13]
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ENDURE TO THE END
Behold, I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will deprive you of your crown. Everyone who overcomes by means of their faith…I will make a pillar in the Sanctuary of My God. Never again will you leave it. I will write on you the name of My God and you will be a citizen in the city of My God…the new Jerusalem…which will come down out of Heaven from My God; I will also write on you My Own new name.
Holy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcx2O9WXvn8&feature=youtu.be
Preserve Christian Family 