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The Desert Fathers Series | The Letters Series | Following God in Low Seasons
When we look at how Jesus modeled the movement of the Holy Spirit we find some striking contrasts with our present paradigm. Jesus never once concerned himself with what particular gift he was operating. He simply went about the business of healing, setting free, and prophesying. No one miraculous encounter with Jesus saw less than three manifestations of the Spirit
When it comes to any semblance of understanding God, His plan, or his purpose for your life, we must begin by acknowledging all that we do not know. The place we most often begin when it comes to our attempt to understand how to live, move, and have our being in God (Acts 17:28) tend to be what we know, rather than what we do not know.
According to objection 3, the gifts were integral to demonstrate the power of the Spirit through the early church, but is no longer necessary for today because the church has been established. Once the church was established, the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit present in individuals was not necessary for continued church growth. The strategy of God changed. This wouldn’t mean that the ability of God to heal had ceased, but the metering out of a gift through individuals ceased.
Anyone who is attempting to grow in their understanding of the movement of the Holy Spirit in re-creating mankind will run into those who have a very different view of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A deep dive into this issue is not at the heart of this series, but an overview of some of the common arguments will be helpful and appropriate.
The gospel is not responded to in the head, it is responded to in the heart. It is not mental assent to a particular set of ideas (though that is an aspect of Christianity), rather, it is a life-changing encounter with the Spirit of the living God. If Christianity was primarily about engaging with a particular set of doctrinal beliefs, it would have been said that Christ dwells in the mind. But it does not.
As with many of you, I have been reeling in the face of the US news cycles these last few days. The violence is maddening, the anger and hatred are heart-breaking. As a leader today it can be difficult to even know what to say that won’t be perceived by someone as bitter and divisive. But speak we must.
What if, in all this talk about transformation, the whole point was not about making you more whole or healing past hurts, but preparing you to bring healing to others? As your heart begins to soften to the heart of the Father and you begin to look like him, you are drawn into the radical responsibility of embodying the heart of the Father to His creation.
Looking all the way back at the beginning of this series we said that when Isaiah caught a vision of the beauty of God it ushered him into a transformative journey. However, the place of undone-ness is not where Isaiah stays. He moves through catching the sight of the beauty of God (I saw the Lord), coming to grips with what his lack (I am a man of unclean lips), into brokenness (being undone), but that is not where he stays.
Jesus said something profound about the character and nature of God when he called Matthew to follow him. As he was sitting in the tax collector’s house, many people came to him. As the Pharisees watched this they questioned his willingness to meet with the lowest of the low. After all, if he was a great man, shouldn’t he only consort with great men?
No better place exists for being impacted by the heart of God than through Scripture. These PDF devotionals are intended to drive you deep into the heart of the Father. They are to be read slowly and deliberately, with the goal being a touch from God. Contemplative reading is not accomplishing something, but encountering eternal truth.
Once, three brothers caught a vision of God and dedicate their lives to serving Him. The first brother left for the city and dedicated his life to counsel people with broken relationships. He desired to take the words of Christ to be a peacemaker seriously. The second brother found many sick in the city and dedicated his life to caring for them. The third brother forsook everything and left for the desert to seek God in silence and solitude.
Transformation begins, is sustained, and ends with catching a sight of the beauty of God. Ah, life. That grand purveyor of untidiness and chaos. If it weren't for life, most of us would be perfectly happy. But then life happens. The thing about life is that if flows from the human heart, with all its wildness therein.
As we come into the realization that God is not some distant God, but that He is near, and that He longs to speak, we begin to make room to hear His voice. And to hear His voice is to be transformed, it is to sense the in-breaking of His presence into our everyday, mundane lives. To hear His voice is to acknowledge the nearness of His heart.
