Sunday, May 16, 2010

Find the Spirit of God

Recently I believe the Lord impressed on me the need for us to be seeking..daily for the Spirit of God. Why, you might ask, do we need to "find him" daily? Because our God is doing new things daily, that's why. Our God is moving and doing in marvelous new ways each and every day, but the people who become mired in their ways, also known as "ruts" and "denominations" and every other organization made by man, they tend to find something, even things of God, then build walls and trenches around it and denominationalize it. This is especially true of the "non denominational" churches who like to point the finger at everyone else and say "see! We aren't like those old fogey methodists or lutherans or catholics, no...we're different see!" Different? Not really, all toay's "non denominational" churches have done is build "micro denominations" around their rock star "pastors" or whatever they call themselves these days, then proceed to build the same walls and fences around themselves to glorify themselves and whatever truth they may have found in our God.

The Spirit of God is living and active, and we must find him. Really? Yep, read this:

Romans 8:14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

To be led, means you are going somewhere...and todays micro-denomination "non-denomination" churches have walls and trenches dug around them so nobody will escape them. What happens when the Spirit of God wants to do something new, somewhere else? Then what? Then the walls of todays churches become tombs where the living dead meet where the Spirit of God has gone somewhere else, doing something else. The nicolatian pastors and priests find themselves trapped by this because to say that the Spirit has moved on to do something else, somewhere else, would be to collapse the walls of their multi-million dollar buildings and "their" ministries, and "their" kingdoms etc etc. When the Spirit moves on, the people who have set themselves up as leaders must become followers again, which results in a loss of pride, money (oh no!), glory, etc etc. Which is why these people build walls, and which is why they inhabit grave yards. Humility is one of the keys to being accepted by our God, without it, the race is over before it started:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, these O God, You will not despise." (Ps. 51:17)

We must find the Spirit of God, we must maintain humble and contrite hearts before him so we are not despised of the very God we seek.

Prov 8:34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.

We are to be watching daily at his doors...why? Why wait at his doors and not our doors? Because when his door is opened and he goes one way or another, we need to be there to see what he's doing and where he is going. It is true that the Lord may pitch a camp for a time and stay in one place doing a certain thing, but he can "pull up stakes" and move down the road to do something new at any time. He can do this and He does do this.

This leads me to a second point that the Lord has impressed upon me recently. That is, how can it seem like the Spirit of God is speaking and moving amongst apostate churches? Is it true that the Lord still walks and talks among churches who are filled with people that will not inherit salvation, will not be counted worthy of the escape from all (luke 21:36) etc etc?

It wasn't until recently that the Lord showed me that he indeed does work in churches that are completely apostate from the ground up. That was a real revelation to me, and it is not an endorsement of apostate christianity today, rather its a terribly frightening warning. What kind of deception is it when people can "go to church" and see the real, true, authentic Spirit of God moving among them, and yet their souls are in real danger of being lost forever? It looks real, sounds real, feels real, but its not real. The Spirit is real, but everything else is not..how can that be?

There are many places in the bible where we are shown how this works:

Matt 13:24Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

29“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

Notice the words Jesus uses here, let them both grow together until the harvest, the good and the bad...Now notice specifically, they both grow together. If they are both growing together that means that the same sun, water, fertilizer, etc is used on both the wheat and the tare. The same Spirit of God that waters and gives light to the wheat, is also given to the tare.

Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect--if that were possible.

Now this is going to take us right back to a foundational issue for why this writing was started years ago. It began with a question "WHY will so few be saved?" WHY is the road so narrow? WHY will MANY go through the wide gate that leads to destruction? WHY was only a remnant saved out of Israel again and again and again throughout its history?

How deceptive is it when the true Spirit of God speaks through wicked men? Go back and read the story of Balaam, he started out decent enough, he refused to curse the people of Israel, but eventually his story ends up with us reading this of him

2 Peter 2:15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to ... They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

What happens when people follow men instead of the Spirit of God? Balaam spoke with the very Spirit of the living God speaking through him, but what would happen to all those who followed BALAAM instead of the Spirit of God?

For those who would argue, "but that was Old Testament brother D, that can't happen to us anymore, we're different!" I submit this for your consideration:

Rev 2:14Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. 15Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

Wow, double whammy here, the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans, the Lord does not appear pleased....these are not separate problems, they are two sides of the same coin, following MEN instead of the Spirit of God will cause you some real trouble at some time in the future..

Find the Spirit of God

The sons of God are led by the Spirit of God. And what if the Spirit tells you to leave your "church" or your "social circle" or any of a number of other things that may be putting you in danger of being cutoff from the vine (John 15)? Then what?

Find the Spirit of God, wait daily at his doors. You owe it to yourself and others to do this. It is in your own best interest to do this, not because you "have to." The word of God and the Spirit of God are the lights of mankind. Do a bible search on the words "lamp" and "light" because that's an entire study of its own. If we want that light in our life, if we want life, then we must find the Spirit, what is He doing today? Where is he going? What is He saying? Seek, ask, knock and the door will be opened to you....In Him, we find everything that our soul thirsts for today. In him we find peace, and joy. Everything that mankind does today is a search for something, anything to fill the void within, to somehow with sex, money pleasure, things etc to "be happy." Our God offeres us joy and peace right now, for the small price of waiting at his door to see where He is going and what He is doing, for the price of following the Spirit.

Small Conclusion

We covered two things here: the great deception that exists today in the churches, that is, the Spirit of God speaking even in dead churches and the false confirmation it gives to men

and

Following the Spirit of God. The sons of God are led to the Spirit of God.

Sorry for the long post, may the Lord bless you and keep you and may his face shine upon you....grace and peace