Prepare for Life

I had been taught that experiences with the Holy Spirit were not for today, that we have the settled Word of God and do not need supernatural experiences. But I felt so dry inside, like a gear grinding against metal needing oil. I read the book of Acts and saw the amazing activity of the Spirit there. I began to wonder what happened to the Holy Spirit? Was He on break? Is there more to the Christian life than what I know?
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What if I told you the Lord wants to bring you someone who will comfort you when you are sad? He will bring guidance when you don’t know what to do. He will never deceive you. He will always bring you the truth. He will teach you and give you the very words you need to say. He is your advocate, your counselor, your helper. He prays for you and through you so that your prayers are effective. He initiates your salvation and then cleans you up and empowers you to live a life that pleases God. He discloses the future to you. He always glorifies Jesus. He strengthens your inner man. He is the One who floods your heart with God’s love, so that you know the God of the universe actually loves you and you can live out of that love. He will never leave you. He will go with you through all your life.

The amazing thing about the holiness of God is that He isn’t just holy, He calls us to be holy too! In fact this is explicitly spelled out for us in I Peter 1:15-16, Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior because it is written, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” We are clearly called to be holy. Wow. Is that even possible?

The short answer is yes, but only through the blood of Jesus. When we come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ many wonderful things happen to us. For instance, our eternal destiny is changed, we have eternal life, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us AND we become holy in the eyes of God. We make a divine transaction, we give Him our sins and He gives us His righteousness. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, II Corinthians 5:21. When we turn to Jesus in faith and receive the gift of salvation, His blood covers us so that God the Father declares we are righteous. This is our position before Him. This is why we can approach our holy holy holy God with confidence.

As we walk on the ancient paths with the Lord we are learning more about God and how to relate to Him. This week I want to focus upon something we don’t hear much about these days: God is holy. He is not just holy, He is holy, holy, holy. We sing about His holiness in our worship songs, we call the third person of the trinity the Holy Spirit, we use the words holy and holiness, but what exactly does holy mean?

Many of us have a negative concept of holiness. Someone who is holy sounds like someone who has no sense of humor and looks down their noses frowning on all of us because we are having fun. I think we are getting holy confused with “holier than thou.”

As we walk with the Lord on the ancient paths how we perceive and respond to Him are all important. We all probably know the child’s blessing that begins, “God is great, God is good and we thank Him for our food”…such a simple prayer, such a profound prayer. God is good AND God is great. These are two very different concepts about God and they elicit two very different responses. God is good, He is full of mercy and compassion, He forgives, He is patient and long-suffering, kind and gentle. We respond back to His goodness with love for Him. God is great. He is all powerful. He reigns above all. He is sovereign. He is our creator. We respond to His greatness with respect, reverence, fear and awe.

We all need hope. I think we are hard-wired for hope. When we go through tough times we need hope so we can hang on and persevere. Hope anchors our soul and keeps us steady, helping us to persevere when things look bleak.

I have one more key for you. This will be your go-to key. You will use this key every morning and evening and several times a day as you walk on the ancient paths with the Lord. It is the key of having a grateful heart.

Before we move on, I want to focus for another week on that big key on your key chain, the key of forgiveness. There is one more person you may need to forgive. You may have overlooked this person; you may need to forgive yourself!

I have shared with you that after I came to know the Lord, I basically decided that I wanted to go to heaven some day but that I wanted to run my own life in the meantime. It turned out running my own life did not bring joy or satisfaction, I was miserable. I also shared with you how the Lord deeply touched my spirit and I began to turn back to Him.

I remember talking about the importance of forgiveness one day in Bible study. After class I visited with some friends and was late leaving. As I walked to my car I passed two women sitting in a suburban with the engine running. The driver’s side window rolled down and a woman with tears in her eyes, sobbed, “Do I really have to forgive him?” My heart broke for her. I didn’t know her story but I could only imagine the suffering that whoever “he” was had put her through. I told her that yes, the Lord really is serious about forgiveness, we really are instructed to forgive everyone of everything and that sometimes the first step is simply to ask the Lord to make you willing to forgive. I invited her to do that.

Today I want to give you another big shining key for that key chain I gave you recently. These keys will help you as you walk on the ancient paths with the Lord. This key is important. It has to do with our personal relationships. This key will keep you out of one of the sneaky traps of the enemy of your soul, it is the key of not seeking your own revenge.