Set apart for Me"!
Set apart for Me"!
It was the Lord Jesus who poured out the Spirit of God on the waiting disciples when the Christian Church was born.
God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. (Acts 2:32,33)
If we keep the commands of the Lord, He will ask the Father to give us the Spirit of Truth.
If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)
When the Christian church was given birth, it was born speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues enables us to pray to God when the burden in us is so deep that we cannot give utterance to it in our own language.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. (Romans 8:26)
This is a great help to us during our discipleship, as those who are able to speak in tongues can testify.
Please let me digress for a bit. At the turn of the twentieth century the gift of tongues, along with other manifestations of the Spirit of God, was expressed in a number of Christians who were praying fervently for the restoration of this manifestation to the believers.
Speaking in tongues is a somewhat dramatic intervention of God. As such it has become a point of interest to Christian people. Some receiving this ability and others referring to it in a derogatory manner.
Speaking in tongues is not a fruit of the Spirit, as are love, joy, and peace, but if employed correctly along with a dedicated Christian life, speaking in tongues leads to the fruit of the Spirit.
Speaking in tongues is a God-given intervention to the Christian people, as is evidenced by the New Testament. Since the Spirit of God is a gentle Dove, and easily can be insulted, speaking in a scornful manner of tongues is injurious to Christian growth, as I have witnessed.
If a scornful attitude toward "tongues" does not cease, the believer will find himself or herself as a "Pharisee," stoutly defending the Scriptures but unable to relate to Jesus Christ personally. There is a real danger here and to despise what God has given has destructive results.
The purpose of praying in tongues it to help us live in the Spirit, that is, in the rest of God where we seek at all times to do what God has assigned to us from the beginning of the creation.
For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, "This is the resting place, let the weary rest"; and, "This is the place of repose"—but they would not listen. (Isaiah 28:11,12)
God has planned, from the beginning of time, works of righteousness for each of His elect to perform. We must cease from our own works and obey the Holy Spirit at all times. He will lead us into all Christ has determined for us.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
Notice in the passages below the role our mind plays in learning to live in the Spirit of God:
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
I commented previously about spending our time anticipating the results of a football game. Is doing this a sin? Not in the ordinary sense, as are fornication and adultery. But it is spiritual death to the fervent disciple who is seeking to learn to live in the Spirit of God.
To be engaged in the fleshly things of the present world is spiritual death, even though we are not committing what ordinarily are considered to be sinful deeds. Yet Christ is not building us up in His body and blood while our mind is occupied with the passing things of the world.
Living in the Spirit of God is extremely difficult in the United States because of the abundance of things and activities that may be harmless in themselves but which readily distract us from seeking the will of Christ.
Jesus always is standing at the door of our heart. He wants at all times to enter and feed us with His body and blood, which are our resurrection life. If we thus are not receiving that feeding, we will not be ready to be resurrected and caught up to Him when He appears.
It is our mind that is at issue here.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7)
We probably would not think of our mind being the enemy of God, but it is. God desires to be in all our thoughts and plans. But our mind seeks independence.
Do you know, the day will arrive when every saved person will be living in the Spirit of God. Every saved person will be obeying Christ completely. But there will be much turmoil and suffering before this becomes reality. Also, many individuals will find themselves in the Lake of Fire because they simply will not obey the Lord Jesus.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8)
I dare say the majority of Christian believers in the world today are "in the flesh." This is to say, they go about their daily business thinking their own thoughts; speaking their own words; and performing their own actions.
They do not know how to enter the eternal Sabbath in which our thoughts, words, and deeds are always brought before the Lord Jesus for His approval. Thus they are not pleasing the Lord.
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Romans 8:9)
It used to be said in the Pentecostal movement that if a believer did not speak in tongues he or she did not have the Spirit of Christ. Although I speak in tongues a great deal, and have for more than sixty years, I do not believe speaking tongues, as valuable as it is, is the sure indication that the believer has the Spirit of God.
There are people who speak in tongues who lie, cheat, steal, cause division, are immoral, and exhibit every satanic behavior one can imagine.
While these people may speak in tongues, they assuredly have not the Spirit of Christ and are none of His. "By their fruit you shall know them"!
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)
If Christ is living in us, feeding us daily with His body and blood, our spiritual nature is alive because of the righteousness of Christ attributed to us. However, our body is spiritually dead because of the sin that is alive and active in it.
The next four verses have to do with the resurrection of our mortal body, the filling of it with the Spirit of God. This is the redemption of our body and is our goal, as it was that of the Apostle Paul. Our goal is not eternal residence in Heaven. That is not scriptural. Our goal is the redemption of our mortal body.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is physical death. In order for our mortal body to be replaced with eternal resurrection life, we first must gain victory over sin and self-will. The Spirit of God helps us do just that.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Because we have the promise of an incorruptible body, we owe our present flesh nothing that we should satisfy its corrupt desires.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. (Romans 8:12)
By continuing to live in the thoughts, words, and actions of our flesh, obeying our sinful mind, we place in jeopardy our resurrection unto eternal life. Those who are trusting in correct doctrine to insure their resurrection unto life are deceived. It is not doctrine but the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ that will make us alive in that Day!
The following verse informs us of a practice that is to be part of our Christian discipleship until we die and pass into the Land of Light:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die" is looking back two verses. It means our mortal body will not be made alive in the Day of Resurrection.
Our body will be raised, in that Day. But it will not be filled with the incorruptible resurrection life of the Spirit of God. It will be brought back to life, animated and set on its feet, by Divine power, by the same power that activates the universe and the angels.
The eternal Life of the Lord Jesus is the very Life of God Himself. It not only continues for eternity but it continues in righteousness, love, joy, and peace.
Those who have killed their spiritual nature by yielding to the desires of the flesh will be raised from the dead and clothed with the corruption they have sown. As Daniel prophesied, they shall be raised to shame and everlasting contempt. The Life and Presence of God shall be denied to them.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:8)
As we continue to live in the Spirit of God, pressing forward in Christ each day, the Spirit points out to us the spiritual death that resides in us--all that is not in the image of God and does not behave like God.
We then, being guided and helped by the Spirit of God, confess our ungodly desires and actions accompanied by a fierce determination to never, with Christ's help, act in that manner again.
Upon hearing our confession, Christ will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This means He will weaken that area of darkness in us until the life has been removed from it. Also, Christ will put in our mind and heart a resistance to this behavior.
This does not mean necessarily that the evil spirit has been removed from us, only that the fire and life have been removed from it. It shall be removed totally in the Day of Resurrection if we have been faithful.
Should we turn back into sin, that spirit will revive and be stronger than ever. This tells us that we always are cycling upward in eternal life or spiraling downward in eternal death, eternal separation from the Life of God.
The wages of sin is spiritual death!
It is the Spirit of God who brings us to Christ, just as Eliezer, Abraham's servant, brought Rebekah to Isaac.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (Romans 8:14)
The Spirit of God always is leading us to increasing holiness, and holiness brings eternal life.
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Romans 6:22)
There is water to the ankles; water to the knees; and water to the waist. Then there is water to swim in, where we are part of the water and controlled by the water. It is at this level that we have become a tree of life, a source of eternal Divine Life for the dead nations of the world.
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)