08-12-24-DAILY READING-ENG.

EXPERIENCING THE SPIRIT

                                     NO LONGER DORMANT

All that we've been talking about is the active work of the Holy Spirit in your life. If God had not sent the Holy Spirit to open your eyes, you wouldn't see Him. If the Holy Spirit hadn't opened your ears, you wouldn't hear Him. If the Holy Spirit hadn't touched your heart, you wouldn't have the slightest desire to know Him. We've all been taught that we have five senses—sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. By using them, we can apprehend most realities. But when it comes to apprehending God, we struggle. We don't see Him, smell Him, taste Him, hear Him, or touch Him. But there is within us another sense by which we can know God as certainly as we know material things by our five familiar senses.

Because we're spiritual creatures created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), we have spiritual faculties that allow us to truly know Him. We can apprehend Him; we can experience Him; we can love Him. In non-Christians, this faculty lies dormant. It's asleep in their nature. For all practical purposes it is dead because of sin. But this faculty is quickened to life by the work of the Holy Spirit when we're born again. The sending of the Spirit was part of God's plan from the beginning, and that plan was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. In fact, the sermon delivered by Peter that day was focused primarily on God the Father working in and through the life of His Son, Jesus. This brief selection from that sermon shows Peter's emphasis:

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. (Acts 2:22-24) Notice that God the Father was the one who orchestrated the events in the life of Jesus. In the same way, the Father brought forth the dramatic coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It's true that Jesus sent the Spirit, but only after He had “received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:33). So we see that the coming of the Holy Spirit was in the heart of God from the very beginning. Furthermore, the text of Peter's sermon that day was from the Old Testament prophet Joel.

Peter said, But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass in the last days,
    says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all
    flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall
    prophesy, Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.”
    (Acts 2:16-17; see Joel 2:28) Long before Jesus arrived in the flesh, God the Father was talking about this day. It was always planned as the next significant event after Jesus died and rose again—as the necessary event to bring the work of Christ to bear upon those who would believe. Why then do many Christians fail to experience the depths of what God has purposed for their lives? The reason is their insufficient personal dealing with God. When our faith is based primarily on the wisdom of men and not on the power of God, we've just nullified most of what God intended for our lives.

When our faith is built only on a collection of doctrines, we miss out on the Person who wants to be our life. Like all personal relationships, this spiritual relationship is activated through faith. When faith is defective, the result is numbness toward spiritual things. Some have never given their whole heart to God yet wonder why they haven't experienced Him. To live the Christian life in its fullness, you must have faith. “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17), Paul said, and in Hebrews we read, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Hebrews 11:6). You must take God at His word! Every positive response to the Lord will open up new opportunities to know Him more and more. The more you pursue Him, the more He'll reveal Himself to you.