Wednesday: Conditions – Part 2
Read Acts 5:32. Why is obedience to God’s Word an important condition for receiving the Holy Spirit?
Then, as now, the Holy Spirit is granted to all who obey God. In the Bible, love and obedience go hand in hand, and true faith is expressed in obedience.
Image © Phil McKay Goodsalt.com
If we trust God with all our hearts, we will obey His commandments. Jesus said: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23, NASB). Obedience is a choice leading to a lifestyle that follows God’s will as expressed in His law. We must continue in obedience if we want to acknowledge Jesus as our Lord (Luke 6:46). In 1 John 2:4-5 we are told that “the one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected” (NASB). Those are strong words. From John we also know that “the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24, NASB). When we do what God has commanded, we will have peace of mind.
Read Jude 18-21. Why do we need to avoid all impurity if we want to be filled with the Spirit?
The fire of the Holy Spirit cannot keep burning in our lives when we are worldly-minded. The Holy Spirit reacts very sensitively to the existence of all sin and worldliness in our lives. Therefore we need to keep ourselves in the love of God and be connected with God through prayer so that we will shun all impurity and display a spirit of power, love, and discipline (2 Tim. 1:6-7). Only through a close and fierce battle with self can we be the kind of people we should become. Of course, we can’t do it ourselves; the battle comes in our choice of either surrendering our wills to the prompting of the Holy Spirit or allowing the flesh to dominate. The choice is ours.
| “There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God.” – Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 250, 251. How can you apply these words to your own spiritual life? |
(21)
To respond to EGW's quote and the question about how to apply those words to my spiritual life - I say the answer is "daily (or maybe hourly) by the promised power of the Holy Spirit!!"
How to apply those words of Mrs. White to our spiritual life:
This comes the minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, sanctifying process of the Holy Spirit into our lives as we ask Him daily to infill us. This is called "the work of a life time." But one thing is paramount that we must do daily, we find this is Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast Spirit within me." Oh God Amen. I did paraphrased: And "allowing God to remove your stone heart and giving you the heart of flesh filled with the Holy Spirit daily" (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Now that we know the Holy Spirit is God himself, we cannot afford to ignore his pleadings, his calls to repentance, daily he communes with us and mostly to no avail. Therefore it is only obedience that cultivates his continued presence, disobedience eventually chases the patience of his pleading and only to leave perpetual consistence to evil. God help us to yield our will to the influence of the Holy Spirit, that where he directs we go, what he condemns we condemn, what he says we do
Isaiah 27:5. By obedience to the Holy Spirit we have a purification of our soul which brings us to a peaceful and mysterious supernatural connection to the world around us so that we will always be at the right place at the right time. We will always get the right hints to give us an upper hand over the events in our lives for God dwells in us. It is such a privilege to be a partaker of the divine nature through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that makes us a peculiar people. However we must actively sustain His presence in us by choosing Him all the time because the devil through the flesh is always there asking for the same place. This power of choice is ours alone and it is the ultimate gift of God to mankind.
Jackson, what do you mean when you write:
Do you mean that if we are connected to the Holy Spirit, no bad things will happen to us? Or?
Bad things may happen but when they do we handle them with confidence knowing there is a higher purpose to the challenge and this alone brings peace. Sometimes verbal opposition comes from men led by satan but they quickly falter away when you speak just a few words filled with the Spirit. About 'hints' you will get answers, clues and assistance from unexpected avenues to help you solve day to day problems. All these and many more i experience in my life.
Finally, we have got it right. "The choice is ours". The Holy Spirit within us requires our choosing to have him. But again, who gives us that desire for him? He guides/prompts/helps us to make that choice. My question then is, "which comes first"? The Holy Spirit prompting,leading and helping us to choose Him or us choosing Him initially even in our natural sinful state?
The Holy Spirit has always been there but the relationship begins with our consent. We do not call. We respond. Everything we do is a response to the call that was made when man sinned and that call is still there and it should continue through us to others.
Georgia, the gift of the Holy Spirit has already been given to us to inspire, guide, teach convict etc. The problem is with us who choose to ignore Him and instead practise a lukewarm type of life just like the Laediceans. It is us after being convicted to choose Him and live an obedient and faithful life.
From what I am reading above it sounds as though the Holy Spirit causes us to quote more texts about spiritual living than anything else. While that is ok, I think the real work of the Holy Spirit is to encourage us to share and expand our Christian experience. Christianity is about "going into all the world" and that means at least going out into that little bit of the world near you and making a difference to the people you are familiar with. Are the people closest to you encouraged; have you done something that made someone else's life a bit easier; did you spend a bit more quality time with your wife/husband/children today; did you forgive that person that irritated you yesterday; did you seek forgiveness from the person you offended last week?
If you are ignoring these little things then maybe the Holy Spirit is telling you something and you are not listening. Remember the wind!
Thank you Maurice. This is the important thing of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. He wants us to choose His way and have what we are, changed, so He is lifted up and draws all people to Him
Thank you so much this sharing has been very helpful.my question is that without this condition of obedience one can not receive the holy spirit?is it the only condition