Devotional 090109

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. May this gorgeous day bring you great excitement and passion for living! Even though we should not allow the environment to dictate our feeling, we will certainly enjoy a beautiful day like we have today. The goal of spiritual formation should be to train our soul and spirit to submit under the work or leadership of God. But in practicality, this goal could be too profound or abstract for many Christians to understand.

"May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess 5:23b). What Paul said here, "Your whole spirit" is beyond the philosophy of Science and Psychology can explain. The great mystical work of the Holy Spirit is in the dim regions of our personality, which we cannot get at. Read the 139th Psalm; the Psalmist implies - "You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late at nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea; but, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature - You Who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot trace, dreams I cannot get at - my God, search me out."

Do we believe that God can garrison the imagination far beyond where we can go? "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin" - if that means in conscious experience only, may God have mercy on us. The man who has been made insensitive by sin will say he is not conscious of sin. Cleansing from sin is to the very heights and depths of our spirit if we will keep in the light as God is in the light, and the very Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirits. It is only when we are garrisoned by God with the awesome sanctity of the Holy Spirit, that spirit, soul and body are preserved in unspotted integrity, undeserving of censure in God's sight, until Jesus comes.

We do not allow our minds to dwell, as they should on these great massive truths of God. I believe the problem we usually have is to reduce God to the level that our imagination or reason can reach. We don’t allow God to be God. We can’t accept the awesome sanctity of the Holy Spirit to reach our spirit beyond our rational mind can comprehend. Have mercy on us O Lord! Give us the serenity or security to dwell in you, even though our mind cannot comprehend or fully grasp the way You work in our spirit and soul. It reminded me of what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Whoever is born of the Spirit inherits the DNA of the Spirit, and lives in accordance to the work of the Holy Spirit. We will see and hear the fruits of the Holy Spirit even though we can’t fully comprehend nor explain how He works. This is the kind of obedience by faith that the Bible talks about from day one. Hopefully we learn to allow this kind of ‘faith’ to lead our ‘reason’ in our daily walks with Christ.

Love you in accordance to the Spirit,
Lawrence