KEEPING IT FRESH
“‘Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes’” (Deut. 11:18).
The Israelites were in covenant with Jehovah through their father Abraham. Having been in captivity for over four hundred years The Lord provided a way for them to experience ‘days of Heaven upon the earth’ (Deut. 11:21) by keeping their eyes, minds, and hearts on His Word (their covenant with Him). Time went on and the miraculous interventions of God somehow slipped away from their thinking; walking with God had become mundane among them and the old ways of living in Egypt had crept back up in their thinking. They started complaining about their circumstances and the supernatural activities Jehovah had used to deliver them fell away (possibly becoming a distant fable to them than the truth of His involvement in their lives).
Mankind is no different today; the supernatural is relegated to ‘times past’ and God no longer performs miracles, healings, or raises the dead according to religious tradition. Because this attitude prevails among the church-world fear of what the enemy is doing has gripped the Body of Christ! I have a major announcement: God is NOT dead, He has NOT changed (nor will He ever change), His ability to save to the uttermost is STILL available to all who call upon Him out of a pure heart! What has happened? The pattern has always been believe and you shall see the Glory of God (John 11:40).
Think about it, even with “frontlets between your eyes and a sign upon your hands”, we can all get used to what’s right in front of us and come to the place of no longer seeing what is plainly there. The writer of Hebrews says it like this: “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away” (Heb 2:1, underline mine). The Amplified Classic Edition puts it this way: “SINCE ALL this is true, we ought to pay much closer attention than ever to the truths that we have heard, lest in any way we drift past [them] and slip away.” One more then I’ll comment: “For this reason we ought to pay the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, for fear we should drift away from them” (Weymouth New Testament).
Now I’ll paraphrase this to get my point across: ‘We must pay close attention to the Word of God, and the instructions He gives us, so we do not let them slip away from us and we do not slip away (or, drift away) from them!’ The Lord illustrates it this way to me – we humans (Mankind) are like colanders (a kitchen utensil that allows water to drain from cooked noodles) – WE LEAK! We get up in the morning, have an awesome time of fellowship with the Lord, get full of His Spirit and His Word and go into our day ready to raise the dead (you know, like some sort of super-anointed minister). Situations arise that aren’t necessarily on our day-planner, but that’s okay because we’re still pumped-up with His Strength. What we don’t realize is those ‘bumps’ deplete some of His Strength from us. Maybe a co-worker is having a bad day and they decide to take it out on you; or, your child missed the bus and now you have to interrupt your day to take them to school – the Bible calls things like that ‘little foxes that spoil the vine.’
My point is if we’re not careful (mindful), these ‘depletions’ can render us weakened, and now the Power to resist sin has waned. Symptoms of sickness might come knocking on the door of your life and the Power to resist them is reduced to a simple memory of “I am healed be the stripes of Jesus”, which is Truth, but the Spirit-Power to back it (enforce it) is missing. Perhaps your secretary is wearing an unusually provocative outfit and the Strength to resist her alluring advances has weakened (I’ll not proceed further, we get the message).
GRACE
Others have addressed this, but, perhaps this audience hasn’t heard what I’m about to say. There is a demonic doctrine that has crept into the Church lately which says ‘grace covers all sins, past – present – and future, so live your life anyway you want, God’s grace has got you covered.’ [There’s far too much to comment on that adequately here.] The Bible STILL says “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1Jn 1:8-10). The very next thing John says is: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin” (1Jn 2:1a). This is saying (Mike Leach paraphrase) ‘by reading the things that have been written to us we will be empowered to not sin.’ That’s what grace does – it empowers! Yes it is the favor of God, but it’s by His favor that He extends to us the Power to live above sin (and everything else associated with it).
Now for the icing on the cake: How can we KEEP IT FRESH; how do we live above the dictates of sin; how do we maintain spiritual Strength? [You know, the Bible says “the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom 8:19). AMPC rendering: “For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship]”] – All of creation, and everyone living on this planet, are waiting for the Body of Christ to rise up in the Power of the Spirit and push back the Satanic oppression that has had it bound to the works of darkness!! We need to stop dividing, and start unifying; we need to stop ignoring the wooing of the Spirit of God and start cooperating with Him!
The major KEY is found in Ephesians 5:17-21 “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”
- Do not be unwise – understand what the will of the Lord is.
- Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation (overindulgence in the pursuit of physical pleasures) (Encarta Dictionary).
- BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.
1) speaking to one another in psalms AND
2) hymns AND
3) spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord –
4) giving thanks always (or, always have a thankful attitude)
- submitting to one another in the fear of God
GREEK PLAY ON WORDS
The phrase “be filled with the Spirit”, in the Greek, is better rendered: be being filled with the Spirit. It’s a continuous action of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember the analogy: we leak? Life, on a day to day basis, has a way of draining our spiritual Strength, so we need to be constantly ‘being filled’ with the Spirit. Let me illustrate: you drive your car from here to there and eventually you need to visit the gas station to replenish the fuel that has been expended. The action of putting the nozzle into your car’s fuel tank and squeezing the handle to dispense gas into your car can be called “being filled” – your fuel tank is being filled with gas (the fuel – or “Strength” it needs to go on). This scenario could be called: your car is ‘be being’ filled with gas. I know it seems I’m hitting this idea over and over, but I’m making a point.
Just because we’ve gone to church and the pastor’s message really inspired us – now we feel we can ‘take on the world’ (we had been ‘being filled’) doesn’t mean the next day, or so, we have the same amount of Strength to face the challenges of the new day. What do we do? We have to be filled with the Spirit again (the Book of Acts indicates the believers were filled with the Spirit more than once). How is this done? Well, we broke down the list in Ephesians – most of which included speaking something. Let me suggest the ‘something’ to speak would be the Word of God. Either reminding each other (or, oneself) of the Promises Jehovah has made (which Peter said we would become partakers of the Divine Nature through them [2P1:2-4]) through speaking them to each other in person (or, in a phone call); singing them during a time of fellowshipping with the Lord; one of my favorites is tuning in the Victory Channel® which has faith-building content 24 hours a day. Put on a tape/CD (or, pod-cast) of your favorite preacher and let the message inspire you. These are all ways of ‘be being filled’ with the Spirit.
Another way one can get inspired (fired-up) is by reading other content in my website cspub.org. The entire site is designed to build-up the Body of Christ. I believe we are in the very last days of time. I was granted a vision many years ago of planet earth covered in a thick darkness; bubbling-up, then bursting forth, were shafts of Light (like lasers); I knew it represented the revival (Awakening) that was to take place before the Rapture of the Church. I believe this process of ‘being filled’ with the Spirit will result in those ‘shafts of Light’ exploding on the scene! Let’s turn the tables on the devil and terrorize him with that Light, driving him out of our lives and the lives of those around us! Remember, Jesus is coming for a Glorious Church (Mike Leach: a church full of the Spirit (Light) of God!). We can hasten that coming by KEEPING IT FRESH.