Saturday, August 24, 2019

Spiritual Eyes of Reality

The same Spirit who enabled Jesus to see through the deceptions of Satan will also guide you through the temptations that confront you. Pray that God will fill you with His Spirit of wisdom so that through the decisions you make you can live your life effectively. - Blackaby

It is interesting to me how most people in this world don't see the Spirit as a person but rather as a power source.

Much is said by Jesus concerning the Helper, Advocate, the Spirit, the Paraclete.  Paraclete meaning one just like Jesus.

You can read in Psalms about the activities of the Spirit if you but look.

Throughout the Gospels you see the Spirit in action through Jesus.  In the beginning of His ministry, the Spirit descended upon Jesus.  Two of the Three parts of God reunited.  When in prayer, all 3 together again.  I believe that in the temptations you read of Satan towards Jesus, that it was the Spirit giving the words to say.

Where do I get that?  Scripture.

Luke 12:12 "for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."

In the early days of the Church it was the Holy Spirit who did the talking in other languages to reach the most people possible in the shortest amount of time.
That is the true meaning of 'speaking in tongues'. There's no longer a use for or need for that today because of two things.  One is practically any language today had the Gospel news translated to it already.  Secondly, Scripture says that God speaks to the heart of the believer.  God doesn't NEED any special 'language' to talk to you.  That is paramount to claiming that God is deficient in something or didn't plan for something.  That I will never say of my God.

On many occasions the Spirit does talk to me...and guess what? I completely understand Him without any help.  What He has to say may be incredibly important or difficult to take in but He IS speaking a language that I don't need someone else to translate. 

The Spirit is indeed a person.  Read on...
Acts 5:3-4  "But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back someof the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”"

The Spirit world is actually the real world.  This physical world is but a precursor to to the world that is to come.  The decisions you make in this life will have eternity spanning consequences in the next life.

Not choosing Jesus will have you spending eternity apart from God in the lake of Fire.  God has to deal with sin and rebellion.  The wages of sin is death.  That's what Scripture says.  It will not be some endless party.  The Old Testament refers to Hell as the pit. In what Jesus Himself described, it's a place of torment and pain.  There are absolutely no unbelievers in Hell. Everyone there chose to be there by rejecting Jesus.  Everyone there isn't having a good time at all. And yet that is just the precursor to the final judgment in Revelation where all those in Hell are tossed into the Lake of Fire.
All those whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of Life are sent there.
Why? Simply put, God's Universe, God's rules concerning it. God said that the wages of sin is death.  We are all born into sin and Jesus came that we may have life, that is, to be saved from death.  To spend eternity with Jesus.

The Spirit indeed does more in our lives than we know.  He brings conviction and confidence.  He brings knowledge and wisdom.  He is the mind of God and in us shows us what God wants of us.
In Christ He is the power of God, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is within every single believer.  The power that created the Universe is within each believer.  Death has no power over us.

The Spirit also prepares the way before us. He fights for us who believe that Jesus is our Savior.  In the Spiritual world there is warfare. 

Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."

War is real.  In this physical world as well as the Spiritual. 

But in the Spiritual world we aren't to engage the enemy. We are to, in prayer, ask God to engage the enemy.  If any physical description or comparison exists it is that we are forward observers. We have the binoculars and call in the strikes to the Heavenly host.

A day is soon coming when the Church will be taken up to Heaven.  That the end of mankind in this physical world will cease.  Soon after the Church is raptured, 7 years of God's Judgment is going to happen.  Literally Hell on Earth.  Billions dead.  The topography of thd planet twisted and marred.  Then, Jesus Christ Himself will set foot on this world again and this time He will rule this world from Earth.  For 1,000 years.  Then Satan, who was bound up in chains, tossed in a pit to deceive the world no longer, will be released.  He will mount one last fight against Jesus and will be defeated.  Final Judgment.  He and all who rejected Jesus are sent to the Lake of Fire.

That's what is coming.  Realize that movies, television, sports, wonders of this world really mean nothing in light of what is coming.  Of what is happening now.
We see evil on the rise.  Spiritual warfare has its feet in the hearts of mankind.  Those who reject Jesus are fighting for Satan. 

Satan uses everything from sports, politics, television, movies to technology to distract people from the real problem of needing Jesus.

The Spirit is there fighting back through the Church.  Through prayer.  Jesus spoke of heightened warfare that required prayer and fasting to defeat. 

All these pleasures keep people occupied and keep them from praying. 

So maybe now you have a better idea of your world.  I know Satan doesn't want people to know about it.  If people knew the truth, it would set them free. Jesus is the way the truth and the life.

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