Contracts

Matthew 3:13 ¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  (NIV)

When we buy a house or car we sign our name on a contract.  This does 2 things.  Our signing our name identifies who we are.  It also says we will fulfill the contract.  Baptism is the same thing.  It is saying we are a child of God who will fulfill our contract of worshiping the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and live in obedience to all He says.  Jesus found it necessary to “sign” this contract of baptism at the start of His public ministry.  Quite often we must have our signed contract confirmed by a notary.  Jesus’ signed baptism contract was notified by the Holy Spirit descending on Him and His Father speaking out saying, “This is My Son in Whom I love and with Whom I Am well pleased.”  Jesus totally fulfilled His contract.  He never varied from the goal of the cross.  He never took a side track.  Unfortunately, we are prone to take many side tracks forgetting the instructions in our contract.  Avoiding these side tracks takes regular study in the instruction book (the Holy Bible), and paying close attention to the voice of the Teacher, the Holy Spirit.  Let us learn to continually keep our eyes and therefor our path on the goal of our contract.

Start the Engine

1 Corinthians 12:3 ³ Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.  (NIV)
Acts 19:2 ² and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” (NIV)

Acts 9:17 ¹⁷ Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” (NIV)

When we accept Jesus as the Lord of our life we do so because the Holy Spirit has come into our minds and hearts to open up to Him.  There is no way to accept Jesus as the Lord of our lives without the invite and power of the Holy Spirit for our normal, sinful, human nature is opposed to anything or anyone other than ourselves being Lord.  However, like putting gas in a car and never turning on the engine – the gas does no good and is powerless without us turning on the engine – so it is with the Holy Spirit Who entered into us when we opened our hearts to Jesus.   We need to be awaken to the fact that the Holy Spirit in us with all His power and wisdom is really in us.  Many people call this the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  What it really is. is the awareness of the Holy Spirit within us and allowing the Holy Spirit to speak in and through us and to work in and through us.  In so many denominations and churches little is said and even less taught about the Holy Spirit.  May I suggest a word study on the Holy Spirit to learn how He speaks in and through us and how He works in and through us.  Without allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us we can only be lukewarm like the church in Laodicea.   Let us all learn how to let the Holy Spirit speak and work in and through us with all His wisdom and power.

Pray, Go, Do

1 Thessalonians 5:17 ¹⁷ Pray without ceasing  .(NKJ)

Matthew 28:19 ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (NIV)

John 4:34 ³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (NIV)

As believers and followers of Jesus, Christ, the Son of God, we are to continue the ministry of Jesus since we are joint heirs with Him.  We are not to just sit around doing our own thing feeling smug because we have the promise of eternal life with God.   we are instructed to do 3 things.  First we are to pray.  As we pray we are to ask for His instructions and listen for His instructions.  God has a purpose for each and every one of His children.  If we don’t ask and listen we miss out on the blessing of being part of His ministry on this earth.  After we hear His instructions we are to go.  We must put our feet into action.  We can’t put our feet into action if we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit giving us step by step instructions, We must more than pray unceasingly and going.  We must also do.  Jesus said we are to do the Father’s will and finish the work Jesus began.  What is the work?  It is making disciples of all nations, meaning all people of any nation, race and gender.  If we fail to pray unceasingly, actively listening to the Holy Spirit within us, we will not be successful in our work.  We cannot make a disciple of anyone.  Only God the Holy Spirit can make disciples.  We are to tell others about Jesus through our words and our actions.  We start right in our ow families, then our neighborhoods.   The Holy Spirit may be calling someone right next to you.  Are you alert enough to Him to tell that person about God’s love and call on their lives?  Let’s never miss an opportunity to do the will of the Father Who sent Jeesus.

Just Like Us

Hebrews 2:17 ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.  (NIV)

Many think walking this earth without sin was easy for Jesus.  Afterall, He is the Word of God in flesh.  The verse above tells us Jesus put off His Godness and became fully human in every way.  Notice the words “every way.”  He experienced all we experience.  He had feeling like us.  His feet could hurt from walking so many miles.  He experienced hurt, disappointments, anger, rejection.  He experienced all we could ever experience and then some.  He had to shed His God nature to experience life as we must walk it. Let’s not think He didn’t struggle.  Read His last prayer in the Garden before He was taken by the guards and mob.   The difference was He knew and loved the Father and chose to be totally obedient to the Father’s will regardless of the physical pain or what His flesh desired.  Therefore, He was able to resist the temptations we quite often fail to resist.  God knows we are week in this area so He sent us a Helper to help us resist the temptations of the flesh and to desire to be intimate with our heavenly Father, God.  The Helper’s name is Holy Spirit.  He comes into us the moment we invite Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who walked this earth without sin, into our hearts, minds and lives as our Lord and our Savior.  He can’t be our Savior unless we also look to Him as our Lord.  God looks on our heart and knows when we mean what we say.

The True Enemy

Romans 8:35 ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  (NIV)

Romans 8:37 ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (NIV)

We can’t be conquerors if there is nothing to conquer.  In this life there is a lot to conquer.  Satan and his cohorts are always active trying to separate us from our relationship with God through Christ.  We see our hardships and troubles as physical and material problems but in actuality the battle is a spiritual one.  God has given us the weapons need to conquer any problem or trial we face.  We have a sword sharper than any sword mankind can create.  Our sword is the word of God.  Jesus used that sword quoting scripture to Satan during His 40 days of fasting afteher T

Totally Human

John 5:30 ³⁰ By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.  (NIV)

This seems like an odd statement or Jesus Who is the Word of God, the Son of God, One with God to say.  Why can’t He, Himself, do everything since God is all powerful and all knowing?  When Jesus came to put on the flesh of mankind, He left His God-nature so He could experience all we experience, ,fell all we feel.  If He was still full of the Oneness of God’s nature He wouldn’t feel as we do.  Yet, He never did sin.  Sin is a separation from God.  Even though Jesus was fully man, He showed us how, as a person, we could still be one with God.  He demonstrated how to think, act and love.  Never did he shy away from the sinner, the lame, the sick, the poor nor those who seemed to have it all.  He treated all equally with love.  Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit as He was baptized by John.  He demonstrated how we, also, can be full of the Holy Spirit.  Our problem is in being willing to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit within us as believers and followers.  As we read, meditate and study on the written word of God, the Holy Bible, we learn how Jesus demonstrated thinking, speaking and acting as one with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  Let us choose to read, study, listen and learn that we may truly become one like Jesus prayed for us in the Garden just before He went to the cross for us.

Proof of Grace

Luke 23:43 ⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (NIV)

If anyone needs proof that it is only the grace of Jesus Christ that opens our door to heaven it is this statement Jesus made to one of the thieves on the cross.  There is no way for this thief to change his life.  He has no time to do good works.  He has no time to obey the 10 commandments.  He has no time to be baptized.  He has no time to partake of the communion of the Lord’s supper.  He only has time enough to ask Jesus to forgive him for living apart from God.  The reason we obey the commandments, the reason we attempt to do good works is because we love God and want to please Him, not because we are earning our way to heaven.  What a comforting statement Jesus made to the thief.  The moment we ask Jesus to remember us, to live within us, we are guaranteed a place in heaven.  We can relax.  We don’t need to work ourselves in a frenzy trying to be do-gooders or legalistic.  We need only believe, receive through faith by grace and desire to live each day pleasing to our Father.

Holy Spirit is Here

Acts 10:44 ⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. (NIV)

Many Christians falsely believe that receiving the Holy Spirit is a separate event sometime after conversion.  They falsely believe that miraculous signs should accompany the receiving of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit enters the believer the moment the believer opens their heart to Jesus as Lord and Savior.  The Holy Spirit came to this earth on the day of Pentecost in the upper room to those waiting for the promise of His coming to be filled.  When we lead someone to Christ, when they open their heart to Him, we must tell them about the Holy Spirit Who now indwells in them.  Our problem is not in the receiving of the Holy Spirit but in the recognizing of His dwelling within us and our opening up to learn to listen to Him and allow Him to flow through us.  If you’ve opened your heart to Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the door to the Father’s presence you have the Holy Spirit within you.  Learn to listen as you read the written word and as you converse with the Father.  It is a matter of opening our mind and our ears.

Lesser or Greater

Acts 1:8 ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (NIV)

There is one reason and only one reason we have the Holy Spirit within us.  This is to enable us to be witness of Jesus to the ends of the earth.  It is not to show how spiritual we are by laying hands on someone for healing and seeing them healed.  He is not residing in us for us to look spiritual.  He is not in us to do our bidding.  The Holy Spirit is in us so that we can do His bidding.  When someone tells us to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to “come upon us” so we can see miracles, they are off base.  The Holy Spirit wants us to look to, praise and worship God the Father.  Yes, He will do miracles through us but not for show or for us to look good.  All things the Holy Spirit does are for the purpose of bringing glory to God.  John the Baptist had the right idea.  He said he was to become lesser that Jesus becomes greater.  All things we say and do should point to God.

Free Reign

Acts 19:4-6 ⁴ Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied (NIV)

John was baptizing (the correct translation is immersing) before the ministry of Jesus.  His immersing was an outward sign of repentance from a life of sin.  After Jesus’ ministry the immersing was and is done in the name of Jesus.  It is more than a public sign of repenting from a sinful life.  It is, in the name  of Jesus, a public sign of following Jesus, believing and trusting Him.  At the time of immersion, we are now filled with His Holy Spirit.  This couldn’t happen until Jesus returned to the Father and He sent the Holy Spirit to the believers.  It is only with the Holy Spirit that we are able to fight the natural tendency to sin and walk our own way without God.  Our problem lies in recognizing the Holy Spirit’s presence in us and allowing Him to work in and through us.  All followers are filled with the Holy Spirit but not all give reign to the Holy spirit within our lives.  Let us learn to give free reign to the Holy spirit within us, to teach us, lead us and speak to us that we can be pleasing to God and glorify Him.