Divine Monopoly
1 Peter 1:16 - "since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."
If you are a follower of Jesus, you need to know that God did not save you out of pity. He saved you to be holy. Because you were created to be holy. When the HS enters our life, his first priority is to make us holy. His holy agenda encounters two very stiff challenges: 1, it is challenged by our distorted idea of what holiness means (our spiritual sight), and 2, it is challenged by our stubbornness (our spiritual desires). We want to have the control of the steering wheel. And, both of these issues constitute a challenge for us to understand the power of the HS. We can’t hit a target we don’t see and we won’t pursue a goal we don’t desire!
What do we mean by 'becoming holy'. To be holy is to be whole or complete – lacking nothing. (1 Peter 1:15-16). Everything he made is pronounced good. He does not produce anything bad. However, we do not remain good. We end up damaged by the ripple effect of a spiritual rebellion. That's why we all begin life infected with sin and we live in the tragic effects of sin. That's why human hearts are perpetually filled with unrest. We have this sense that something is missing. We feel incomplete. We do not feel whole. The spiritual blindness that is a symptom of our sin virus causes us to seek for wholeness, but we are unable to see it. We seek wholeness in stuff, status or sex. These are three bins in which every idolatry can be put in. These just act like narcotics on our soul. It just dampens our sensitivity to God. We just end up less and less and less whole while we are seeking wholeness.
But the good news of scripture is that God wants to rescue us. Wholeness isn’t found in an addiction to over-hyped substitutes for God. It’s found in the adoration of God Himself. And adoration begins with surrender (Proverbs 14:12; Matthew 22:37).
When we hear the word surrender, we tend to attach negative thoughts and response to it. We associate surrender with failure and weakness. But when we attach God's holy spirit with surrender, we realize that surrender is the key to recovery. We are bonded to a dehumanizing sickness called sin. Until we realize what the HS can do in our lives. God’s calls to surrender are more offers than demands (Matthew 16:24-27).
When we usually hear demands made on us, we tend to push back. We always like offers. In fact, God's call to surrender are more about offers than demands from us. When we usually hear a commandment from God, we tend to push back because we hear demands. But in actuality, these are offers from God. Offers to restore you. To make you whole. God is not calling you to the same amount of moral perfection as His. In fact, that's not possible. It simply is God's way of saying, as your creator, I am complete. As your creator, I want my creation to be complete (1 Peter 1:16). I desire you to be complete. The call to be holy is the most incredible offer you’ll ever receive! (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
You can learn about surrender by reading about Moses. His first 40 years of his life, he was taught that he was someone special. The second 40 years were spent out in the wilderness. Going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. God taught him that he was nothing special. The final 40 years, when he liberated the people of Israel, he realized that God was special. When that happened, special things happened in his life.
To surrender is to: 1, reject all substitutes for God, 2, acknowledge our need of total dependence upon God, and 3, invite His restoring work (Acts 5:32;Galatians 5:16).
Surrendering is like a marriage covenant. There is an initial never repeated covenant. But it is followed by almost daily re-confirmation and re-commitment. Day by day I commit all I know of myself to all I know about God. I keep learning more and more about myself as the HS opens up new things about myself, and offer myself to God more and more every day. That's what it means to live a surrendered life. It does not mean instant perfection. It means reinforced growth.
Committing all you know about yourself to all you know of God - that's what it actually means by the phrase, 'filled with the HS'. It's a very common phrase that's misunderstood. HS is not an 'it'. Not a commodity. He is a person. And therefore, you either have him in you or not. He's not like petrol where you can have half tank or full tank. You either have him or not. If you do not have the HS, you do not even belong to Christ. If someone tells you, you are a Christian, but do you have the HS? That's a ridiculous question. It's un-biblical. The moment you step out as a Christ follower, you have the HS. It is the HS who makes you take that step in faith. It is the HS that carries out the new birth in our life. Filled with the HS does not imply that you get more of the spirit. It means that you give greater control of your life to him. You are under a divine monopoly. Areas of your life that you controlled and closed off for the HS's authority, you are increasingly giving it to the HS's control.
"Filled with the Spirit” doesn’t imply you get more of the Spirit; it indicates the Spirit gets greater control of you! (Galatians 5:16)
Spirit-fed believers will demonstrate the fact that they are spirit filled by their increasing progress towards holiness. The HS gives us power for ministry. So a spirit filled believer can cast out demons from another person. But the first thing that a spirit filled believer would do is to cast out demons from your own life. getting the junk out of your own soul. I'm always suspicious of people who want a fresh wind of the HS to 'do' things to show-off. Do people do that? Yes, it happens all the time. The church is a great place to be a celebrity. People do a lot of wrong things in church including pursuing the HS for the wrong reasons. The primary reason to pursue the HS is so that he can make us whole, as is intended for us.
Holiness should precede mission. We can’t make holiness attractive to others if we aren’t modeling it ourselves (Matthew 5:15-16). You can't lead people to surrender to God, if you are not surrendered yourself. You cannot lead people to a place where you have not been. If we aren’t governed by God’s supernatural Spirit, we can’t possibly do God’s supernatural work (John 6:63). God wants to get you to do supernatural work - something not possible with your own ability. In order to do mission, you have to have an awareness of the HS's leading in your life. You have to have the power to engage in a intense spiritual conflict.
Once we submit our lives to Christ, the HS enables us to do two things for ministry.
1. To discern God's plans and timing.
2. To do his work effectively.
That in short is what ministry means - discerning and doing. Ministry = Discerning and Doing.
It's not forming your own strategies and plans and holding it up to God and saying, God please bless it. Make it work. Ministry is about listening until the HS reveals God's strategies. Once that is revealed, you align your activities with the strategy that God has revealed. That's spirit-led spirit-filled ministry.
Now, God won't address every tiny matter in our life. He created us with brain. He wanted us to use them. Every large matter of strategy will come from the HS. And some small matters will also come from him because the HS knows that such a small decision could have a major impact on the ministry. How can I tell the difference? Train the senses. If you listen for the Spirit you’ll hear Him, and if you obey you’ll see Him (Hebrews 5:14).
Train your senses through practice (see portion above). Practice listening to the HS's leading. Practice obeying the HS's leading. Then I see the HS working. That does not work in all believers. In some cases, we do not listen to the HS. God has revealed everything to us in the form of scripture. He has revealed his heart and his purpose to us. In terms of working out the principles of scripture in the moment by moment experience of life, you need the HS to reveal the truth from the word of God. To take the principles of scripture and show how it applies to your situation for that day. You need the spirit to lead you to applying the principles of the scripture. Or else, you have a lot of principles but no applications. Even for the assurance of salvation, you need the HS to reveal it to you from the word of God.
The spirit is speaking. But we are not listening. Sometimes we listen, but we do not obey. Therefore, we do not see the miracles in life.
Scripture talks about the burden of the Lord. (Pastor gives an example of how he heard from God in a specific way and counseled a couple). You will feel in your soul, the strong burden of the Lord when the HS is speaking. Your gift may be different form mine. I have prophetic and word of knowledge gift. I may not have something you are gifted. We have to discover and listen and obey to use the HS's power in your life.
Let me tell you a story about D. L. Moody, the mightiest evangelist of the 19th century.
D. L. Moody was being considered for an evangelistic campaign in England, and one of the organisers asked somewhat sarcastically: 'Does D. L. Moody have a monopoly of the Holy Spirit that we're just thinking about him and nobody else?'. The answer came back very quickly: 'No, D. L. Moody does not have a monopoly of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly of D. L. Moody'.
God wants to have a monopoly on you. Jesus cannot be a value added commodity. Normal christian life is a life surrendered to God. He has a monopoly on you. Ask yourselves - "Does the HS have a monopoly over my life?"
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