SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/21/2014 9:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Do not
quench the Spirit PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 5:19
Message of the
verses: “19 Do not quench the
Spirit;”
We began to look at this verse in yesterday’s SD, but I
wanted to look a little deeper into the ministry of the Holy Spirit. First of all the Holy Spirit of God is God,
the third member of the trinity, and is as much God as the Father and the
Son. We first see Him in the first chapter
of the book of Genesis where we read “The earth was formless and void, and
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving
over the surface of the waters (Genesis 1:2).”
By the way when we read that He was moving over the surface of the
waters the Hebrew word is the same word we use as when a chicken is setting on
her eggs to incubate them, which is what the Spirit of God did to the earth to
make it have shape and form. Now the Spirit
of God is seen in the OT, but not as much as seen in the NT. Today when a person becomes a believer they
receive the Holy Spirit as a “down payment” to what they will receive some day
in heaven, and the Holy Spirit cannot be taken away from a believer. However in the OT the Spirit of God could
come and go as we read in Psalm 51: 11 “Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”
We also read from 1 Samuel these words in “1Sa 16:14 Now the Spirit of
the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him.”
Now as we move into the NT we see that our Lord Jesus
Christ comes upon the scene to accomplish the work that He Father planed for
Him to accomplish from eternity past, that is to pay for our sins by taking our
place on the cross. He spent three years
with His disciples and they did not understand that He was going to die on the
cross, and when they finally began to understand that He was going to leave
them they became frightened. This is
when we learn that our Lord was going to send the Holy Spirit to be with them
so that they could accomplish the work that He had for them to accomplish. Jesus tells them that the Spirit would be
like Him, that is He was God and would indwell and fill them so that they could
accomplish His work on earth. “15 "If
you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16
"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that
He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him
because He abides with you and will be in you (John 14:15-17). Now the work that the Holy Spirit does in a
believer can be summed up with the word sanctification or holiness, for that is
what He does in the life of the believer.
Believers are to be different that those of the world and it is the joy
of the Spirit to make them different, to make them more and more like our Lord
who sent Him to us. However we can
quench His power in our lives by continuing to sin and not follow the things we
are suppose to do.
We can learn more about the work of the Holy Spirit in
our lives by quoting the following from John MacArthur’s commentary where he
writes: “That Jesus promised to send all
believers the Holy Spirit—as a Helper to assist them in ministry and
progressively sanctify them is another crucial reason not to quench Him. And that sanctification process comprises a
variety of Spirit-initiated works.
We will now look at five of these works that the Spirit
does in a condensed form from MacArthur’s commentary.
First, the
Holy Spirit illuminates the Word of God.
Just as a person cannot live without food, so a person cannot grow
without the Word of God. Jeremiah writes
“Jer. 15:16 Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me
a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD
God of hosts.” There are other places in
the Scriptures where we find similar things, but the point is that we need to
feed upon the Word of God and it is the Spirit of God who will illuminate it so
we can understand it. MacArthur writes
“Believers can quench this aspect of the Spirit’s work by failing to study
Scripture or misinterpreting it, by not receiving it with humility and applying
it to their lives, by failing to hide it in their hearts, by not searching it
diligently, and by not letting it dwell richly within them.”
“Second, the Holy Spirit brings believers into intimacy with God.” Romans 8:15-16 says “15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery
leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by
which we cry out, "Abba!
Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we
are children of God,” We can see by
these verses that God loves us and this is what the Spirit does in our lives,
He assures us that we are loved by our Lord.
MacArthur writes “Believers can, however, quench the Spirit-prompted,
intimate knowledge by not accepting God’s purpose in life’s difficulties, by
not being prayerful and worshipful, by not casting their cares upon God, by
operating in their own flesh rather than trusting God’s strength, by not
trusting God’s supply, and by not trusting God’s love.”
“Third, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ to believers and makes them more like
Him.” Let us look at 2 Cor. 3:18
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
from the Lord, the Spirit.” Believers
today can look into the mirror of the Word and see the glory of Christ, and
this is unlike what the children of Israel could do when Moses had to veil his
face after being in the presence of God on the mountain. MacArthur goes on “But believers also can
quench the Spirit’s efforts to make them more Christlike; for instance by
neglecting the reading and studying of Scripture, or by merely reading the
Bible for information rather than allowing it to reveal Christ to them. Or they can proudly refuse to admit that they
need to see His glory and become more like Him.”
“Fourth, the Holy Spirit helps believers know God’s will.” “17 So then do not be foolish, but understand
what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:17).
“James 1:5 “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who
gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Ezekiel 36:27 “"I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to
observe My ordinances.” This shows us
that we as believers know and obey the scripturally revealed will of God. “Second, the Spirit leads believers more personally
into God’s will concerning issues that are not specifically revealed in
Scripture. The Spirit provides believers
with a level path of guidance as He operates through providence and helps them
make decisions in accord with the Father’s will. Believers can quench this element of the
Spirit’s work in sanctification through self-will, stubbornness, pride,
indifference, and insensitivity regarding God’s will.”
“Fifth, the Holy Spirit grants believers inward strength to help them stay on
the path of progressive sanctification.”
“In no respect can Christians walk obediently with Christ unless they
rely on the Holy Spirit’s strength by the indwelling Word. Through the Spirit’s sealing, they can know
the security of their salvation. Without the Spirit’s strength, they could not
have victory over sin and the flesh.” We
cannot effectively wittiness to unbelievers without the help of the
Spirit. The Spirit can be quenched by a
proud believer, thinking they can do things by themselves and doing them in
human resources.
As we look at the life of Christ in the New Testament we
can see that His work was done in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we saw that
the Spirit came upon Him at His baptism when we studied the book of Mark. “2 The
Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
LORD (Isaiah 11:2).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have seen many
ways that I can quench the power of the Holy Spirit, and one of them that has
brought conviction to my heart is my motive for the study of the Word of God,
and that motive should be that I want to see Jesus in all of my study, that the
Spirit of God will show me the Lord Jesus just as the Lord Jesus did to His two
disciples in the 24th chapter of Luke. “Then beginning with Moses and with all the
prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the
Scriptures 32 They said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning
within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the
Scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24:27,32).”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Holy Spirit to work in my life to
give me power overs sin and to see Jesus in His Word.
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:1-6.
1 Therefore if you have
been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set
you mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you died and your life is hidden with
Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our
life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. 5 Therefore consider the members of your
earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed,
which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is
because of these things that the arath of God will come upon the sons of
disobedience,
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Sleeping” (Luke 22:45),
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said, ‘Sirs, what must I
do to be saved?’”
Answer in our next SD.
8/21/2014 10:19 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment