• Don’t Click Here

cultural atheist

~ Rejecting the gods of our culture since 1998.

cultural atheist

Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

A Conversation

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Inspiration, Observations, questions, Spirituality

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Angels, Awe, Conversation, Faith, Fellowship, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love, prayer, relationship, trust

I stumbled across this and it’s too good not to share. The reference is at the end. I did a little editing so it makes sense out of it’s original context but the meaning is intact.

Imagine that our Good, Good Father appears visibly among us this evening. How would we speak to him? Or to make it more personal, let us say that he is willing to meet us in our living room. As many of us as could, would go over there and gather around him, just as the crowds did around Jesus—Mary loved to sit there at his feet.

Now, as we walk into the room, we know that God is the all-powerful Creator of the whole vast universe. We know that the mighty angels, sinless as they are, stand overwhelmed with awe and wonder at the majesty and glory of our God. Yet, though that all be true, if we are afraid to go in, then God has failed to convince us of the truth about himself. And Jesus has failed to convince us, not just with his words, but with what he has demonstrated to be true when he was here, that God is infinitely powerful, but equally gracious, and there is no need to be afraid. How could we turn down what he has paid such a price to reveal?

God is seated there and we are gathered around him. What should we say? Should we be the first to speak? Once we have started speaking, would we talk all the time? Or would we let God speak for a while? Normally, when we pray we do all the talking, don’t we? And then we say Amen, and go about our business, or go to sleep. It would be like meeting in the room with our Heavenly Father, and talking to him incessantly for several minutes, and then saying, “Amen, thank you very much,” and then going home. It wouldn’t make sense, would it? It certainly wouldn’t be conversation as with a friend.

Supposing we should have the inestimable privilege of talking there freely with God the Father for a whole hour; would it be appropriate at the end for someone among us to arise and say, “This has been such a special occasion, don’t you think we ought to close this meeting with a word of prayer?” Or would it be correct to understand that talking, conversing, having conversation with our God as with a Friend for that whole hour actually is real prayer, and we have been praying the whole hour long?

Conversation means at least two people speaking. But how do we converse with God when we can’t see him just now, because of the present emergency? We all understand that emergency and why in mercy he does not reveal himself visibly to us at this moment. And so, the Bible is called the Word of God—God speaking to us. If we wish to hear God speak, except in most extraordinary occasions, God speaks to us through the Bible. We speak to him in prayer.

Truly, as someone has said, “We commune with God through the study of the Scriptures.” I certainly find prayer much more meaningful while reading the Bible. Have you ever had the experience of talking to God while reading certain parts of the Scriptures? Have you ever found yourself talking out loud, “That’s magnificent!”? Who are you talking to? But that’s real conversation. We read, we listen in that way. And then we talk back to God.

Graham Maxwell. Excerpt from the audio series, Conversations About God, #15, “Talking to God as a Friend” recorded May, 1984, Loma Linda, California. 

 

 

Fundamental Content Problem

26 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Inspiration, Observations, Spirituality

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Church, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love, Sermon, truth, Ty Gibson, Witness

Recently, Ty Gibson, a pretty awesome guy I follow on Twitter (@tyfgibson or check out Digma) tweeted a sermon. Besides me thinking that tweeting a sermon is brilliant, his message was profound, transformational, a paradigm shift. So I asked him for permission to share it here so your mind can also be blown.

Sermon by Ty Gibson

I’ma preach a Twitter sermon this morning y’all. Opening prayer: Lord, wake us up to YOUR agenda. In the name of Jesus, Amen!

Scripture reading: Jesus said, “the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness ABOUT ME.”

And Paul tells us precisely what the Spirit’s mission is: “GOD’S LOVE has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Praying for the Spirit in “latter rain” power while fostering a dysfunctional spiritual environment is an exercise in “pagan” futility.

We have a fundamental content problem—not a power problem, a program problem, or a logistics problem. The WHAT must precede the HOW.

Will it ever occur to us that maybe God isn’t sending the Spirit upon us because we simply aren’t saying to the world what He wants said?

God won’t add supernatural power to the church until the gospel of His healing love defines our message & pervades our fellowship. Ouch!

We need to align ourselves with God’s agenda of non-condemning love (John 3:16-17) if we want God to take our voice viral.

So let’s pray for humility & repentance for making the church a place of controversy, argument, politics, personal agendas, and division.

Let’s pray God liberates us from our deeply embedded theological pride, legalistic coldness, lack of love, and missional narrowness.

And then, when it is evident that our message is Christ and Christ and Christ in all His unparalleled beauty…

…and when, in the light of His love for us, it is evident that we love one another more than our opinions, positions, & power plays…

…then, and only then, will the Holy Spirit descend upon us with latter rain power & the whole world will be lightened with God’s glory.

Closing Prayer: God, forgive us for expecting You to empower our agenda. May we humbly align ourselves with Yours. In Jesus’ name, Amen!

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 325 other followers

Categories

  • Beginnings
  • Discovery
  • health
  • Inspiration
  • Observations
  • questions
  • Rants
  • recovery
  • relationships
  • Sarcasm
  • Shared Post
  • Spirituality
  • Uncategorized

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog at WordPress.com.