The Rest ... Part 3
It is difficult to comprehend the mystery
that it was to our benefit that Jesus left us and went back to heaven.
My mind rebels at this thought, because I would like so much to walk side-by-side and talk face-to-face with the Master as I go through this broken, messed up life. Still, He said it was better that He go, so that He could send us a Helper – the Holy Spirit. In what ways the presence of the Holy Spirit is better than the physical presence of Jesus while we traverse the face of this broken planet is a subject too broad for the substance of this book. We will leave it to another to explore that. But we must believe it, for Jesus said it. Most of us yawn at the thought that we have the Holy Spirit living in us. Yet Jesus said that that fact is better than walking side by side with Him.
Look at it this way.
Most of the nation just saw one man win the largest lottery take in history. How fun for him! Unfortunately, about 300 million others lost their two dollar ‘investment’. Well, if salvation is a lottery ticket that God issues to every person on the planet (It IS His will that ALL come to the saving knowledge of His Son! 2 Peter 3:9), then every one of us has the winning number. Unfortunately, even though every ticket is a winning ticket, about 90% of the population leaves the ticket in their wallet, never redeeming it for the prize.
Furthermore, once a person turns their ticket in for their salvation, they are given a handful of other tickets – one each for healing, protection, prosperity, wisdom, victory, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and so on. Again, every one of these tickets are winners, but most Christians leave them in their wallets, passing over their opportunity to live in the fullness of the abundant life Christ died to purchase for them.
A few of these other factors: healing, the power of the spoken word, the Law of Sowing and Harvesting, prayer, and the interwoven and underpinning truth of the Law of Jurisdictions –
these are what I would like to address. So in the next 4 chapters let’s explore how these facets of the full gospel of Jesus can be used to avail us of a truly abundant life.
While these biblical concepts are well documented in the written Word, they have been discussed and debated for nearly 2000 years now. I want to clarify two thoughts here. First, that I do not claim to have the final word on these topics. And second that this is relatively new truth in my own life. I was raised in a church that tended to interpret these factors of Christian life through a lens of “That was for the early church,” thought process. This conviction about the end of the active gifts of the Spirit was explained in light of 1 Corinthians 12 where it says that once the perfect has come, the imperfect will be done away – Jesus or the completed written word being the ‘perfect’ that was referred to there, and the “apostolic gifts” being the imperfect.
I am not sure, but I think that it was necessary
to explain away the miraculous gifts because those gifts were so rarely seen in experience, even by the leaders – the ‘saints’ of the church.
Still, though I have come to believe that these gifts are still active, I have had very little experience in practicing them. So these next chapters are a compilation of what I have been learning, and continue to learn, about believing what God says in His Word about living in faith. I hereby testify that I am seeking earnestly the gifts. I want to function at a level that cannot be explained away by any human talent, skill or technique. I would like to have people look at my life and say, “Only God could do that!” I refuse to explain away truth just on the basis of my lack of experiencing them in my own life.
I choose to believe that He meant what He said,
and to seek to have my experience match that truth hereafter.
So let’s dig in. Let’s seek the greatest gifts. Let’s ask God to use us in ways that we have yet to experience.
It is a matter of biblical record that these are available to us. We know that they are important, for Jesus paid a dear price for them. Let’s not ignore them, but use them as intended for ministry, for the kingdom, for influencing the lives of patients entrusted to us for care.
This is another excerpt from "The Rest of the Gospel".
If you simply can't wait to read the whole book, you can find The Rest of the Gospel at:
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