I have recently finished a book by Jim Cymbala called Fresh Power. It is meant to be about the Holy Spirit but it spoke to me more about prayer and waiting on God. Let me explain…
Essentially the author, the senior pastor at Brooklyn Tabernacle, is saying that in the modern western church we are missing something (this of course is a generalisation). We are missing the Holy Spirit. He suggests that we rely too much on programs and professional productions, basically ourselves. We limit the Spirits work.
He goes on to suggest that it is the work of the Spirit that actually attracts non-believers. It is the miraculous that caused the 3000 to come to see what was going happening on the Day of Pentecost. Then when they hear the gospel, Jesus amazing message of love, forgiveness and salvation, it is the Spirit that causes them to accept this message and rejoice.
He says that we have become too busy and we are not prepared to wait on God as the disciples did after Jesus ascended. We need to get back to being a praying church, where prayer is where we start. We need to wait expectantly in prayer for the Holy Spirit to refresh the church, not try to do it ourselves with our multitude of programs, flashy singers, slick and eloquent speakers and our flashy church buildings. We should desire to see the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit both in our own lives and the life of our church community.
To be perfectly honest, I agree with him.
For me this book has been part of a journey I am on at the moment.
It starts with getting back to the basics. The refreshment of the realisation that God loves me and there is nothing that will cause that to cease. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!
Next is a comprehension that we are amazingly blessed that we have God’s Word, the Bible. It reveals God’s heart and speaks into our lives with both specifics and principles.
Following that, the thought that real spiritual growth comes through outworking my faith. It is not about becoming the wisest, most bible knowledge guru dude around. Faith without good works is dead. If I want to become more “spiritually mature”, closer in relationship with God, this is done through doing His work.
And now to here where it has become real that through my own strength, this is just impossible. I am dependent. I am depended on God for my existence, on Jesus for my salvation and on the Holy Spirit for the way I live. To live as Christ I need to get myself out of the way and let the Spirit fill me. I need to open up those ‘closed rooms’ and let the Spirit fill every void of my being.
So back to the book…
Well that seemed a lot about the Holy Spirit. So why did I say it spoke more about prayer and waiting on God?
Well, prayer and waiting are the two things we need to bring into our western culture, our western church culture to invite the Holy Spirit in to work. We are just so busy. How can we know what the Spirit wants when we are so busy doing so much? We leave no time for the God.
Seriously… look at the time in your day. Look at your bank statement. Look at who your friends are. Look at all you have. Tell me… who is more important in your life??? Jesus or yourself?
If you don’t believe in Jesus, then that’s fine (actually, not really but that is a whole different issue – e-mail me if you want to discuss). If you do however, what’s up????
2 comments:
Interesting thoughts.
I certainly agree that our busyness today gets in the way of our spiritual lives and our ability to share our lives with our church family.
I also think that one of the main purposes of this life is to teach us that we are reliant on God for everything. That is probably one of the main reasons that God chose to save us from our sin the way that he did. (On the basis of faith in Jesus Christ and not on the basis of anything that we do).
If we put our trust in the programs we have in place then God may well not bless those programs and productions because he wants us to understand that we need to trust in Him, not in the quality of the programs we run.
Still, it is helpful to be organised. We have a role as God's stewards of this world and using our time efficiently is a big part of that.
Maybe one of the reasons that God wants us to pray unceasingly is so that we are constantly reminded that we are dependant on God.
I agree with Kris Morrison and Sym, of course. We had an interesting talk at the Bible-in-schools AGM, given by one by the name of Wayne Johns (Bible Society Rep, Northland) based on the parable of the sowing of the seed. Luke 8 5-15 -He entitled his talk(or actually it was a study) 'The Battle to become
Fruitful' Briefly, the third group )(Luke 8 vs 7-14)i.e.Believers who have received the truth into their hearts and have not turned back through temptation ) begin to grow in their faith. The devil's strategy outlined here is targeted specifically at them. His goal is not to snatch seed out of their hearts. That has failed....His goal is not to cause them to backslide. That too, has failed. If you are a maturing believer then he has another goal for you. What is it?? To cause you to become UNfruitful (v14) this is a very disturbing revelation. Note: the tools Satan used here,
cares, riches, and pleasures of this life Mark 4 vs 18-19 describes these tools as the cares of this world, the deceifulness of riches and the desire for other things.Satan tries to make these worldly priorities the focus of our lives. As a result the heart becomes filled with them and many spiritual priorities are ignored. The beliver finds that there is no time to really develop in the things of God because life is taken up with worldly pursuits.
I was brought up with a sharp jolt - must be because of mid-life or something - it's so easy to 'sit down' and not 'do' so much. God Bless, Doreen
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