Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
June 11 - August 3, 2018
benefactor,
parent,
lifeguard,
By viewing the Spirit personally, as the Spirit of the God we know in Christ, our concern should be to let the Spirit control our lives.”
the more externally stimulating our worship has become the harder it seems for us to focus on the internal work of the Holy Spirit.
The glory of Christ is best facilitated, and the work of the Holy Spirit best communicated, when we teach clearly and reiterate regularly the truth of the indwelling Spirit, not some “surrounding” presence that becomes associated with the tools themselves.
We need a clear new covenant understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in our lives and in the church today.
The Indwelling Spirit Empowers Me to Worship as the Church, Not Just at Church
The “Lord’s house” is ultimately the people, not the building.
(John 4:21–24)
“What does God want me to experience in worship?”
worship focused on physical objects is tantamount to idol worship and is not only irrelevant but an insult to the very nature of God.
Only a Spirit-transformed life can worship from his spirit.
The temple is my heart. The temple is the gathered church. Jesus did not die to sanctify a building or an atmosphere. He shed His blood to redeem, transform, fill, and empower human lives by His indwelling Spirit.
Because of the economic investment in church buildings, the heart and attention of people can become focused on real estate, facilities, and the physical tools that we use to try to enhance our worship.
(Acts 7:48–50)
(Acts 17:24).
As new covenant believers we must renovate our thinking about the church.
Christ, the Temple, is in me. I am indwelt by His Spirit. I am also part of the church—a collective temple.
Misrepresentation is one of the most frustrating dynamics in the human experience.
There is no new covenant teaching I can find that compels us to look for the Holy Spirit in the atmosphere.
much heresy, aberrant Christian practice, and even our mainstream pursuits of some new and novel experience are rooted in a diminished view of the supremacy of the person and work of Christ, and a misguided understanding of the sufficiency of the indwelling Spirit in our lives.
The glory of God is Jesus in us—not floating above us, around us, hovering in the building or waiting in the lobby until we find the right formula to coax Him in.
We must use biblical language to describe a biblical work.
Manifest presence is not the mystery we have made of it. It is about a commitment to mutual ministry where many parts of the body contribute to the glory of Christ by allowing the Spirit to use them in building up one another. This is new covenant manifest presence.6
We long for a deep, transforming sense of the Holy Spirit and the Word when we gather. But somewhere along the way it seems we have downplayed the avenues where the Spirit works freely, even spontaneously, through the gifted and gathered believers.
There should be some space for the informal contributions of members.”
In the Scriptures it is also obvious that an important part of fellowshipping was to be mutual exhortation, not just public exhortation by a preacher but each one exhorting the other.
It is clear to me that in New Testament times, the leadership of the Holy Spirit was much more dynamic in and through the body than it is today.
Perhaps the manifest presence of God is much more clear and practical than we think.
Rather than being compelled to see the manifest presence of God, we should be committed to be the manifest presence of God.
One of the real tests of a pastor’s belief in the power and sufficiency of the Holy Spirit is a commitment to free the people up to do more ministry, based on their gifts, even in the general assembly of our Lord’s Day gatherings.
Rather than praying for the arrival of a “manifest presence,” we would do better to facilitate the New Testament approach for the promised “manifestation of the Spirit.”
We cannot promote and pursue old covenant ideas and expect a real new covenant work.
Jesus did not die to sanctify an atmosphere. He shed His blood to sanctify—and fill—hearts.
There was something very powerful about the Spirit that indwelt Peter, gifted him, led him, and ministered through him. Here is the good news. Empowering news. That same Spirit lives in you.
This is the truth of the new covenant. The indwelling Holy Spirit wants to manifest the excellent power of His life through you.
Instead of singing for the Spirit to “fall afresh on” us, we should pray that He would work afresh within us.
The Spirit fills His disciples so that they can fulfill the gospel mandate to proclaim truth and make disciples of Jesus Christ.
“The power which the Holy Spirit brings to us is first of all power to be, and then power to do and suffer.”
“Being filled with the Spirit is meant to be a constant permanent condition which does not vary and which does not change.”
Our ideas about being “filled with the Spirit” go entirely wrong just because we have forgotten that He is a Person.16
Instead of anticipating what the Spirit might do to us, we would do well to focus on what Spirit is wanting to do in us.
So rather than our common appeals for the Holy Spirit to “fall” or bring down some kind of spiritual rain from heaven, our cry should be, “Holy Spirit, take complete control of my mind, my heart, and my will.
Three outcomes are clear in the text: Christ-centered singing, Christ-centered gratitude, and Christ-centered submission.
When we reenact old covenant approaches, we overshadow new covenant promises and power. We end up with a Spirit who comes and goes rather than one who indwells and transforms.
We must be careful and vigilant to embrace music as a means by which the Holy Spirit achieves His
purpose: to glorify Christ.
God is honored when mankind is creative.
“C. S. Lewis spoke about how dogs generally won’t look to what you point at with your finger, instead, they go sniff the finger, missing your intentions. Worship, for many, is like that. They begin to focus on worship itself, rather than the God to whom all worship belongs.”
