Today is Monday, December 3rd, 2007; Karen's Korner #1201
I was working on something for our church in a segment titled "Alive!"
What does it mean to a Christian and to be more 'alive' than we are without being one? A portion of the 'aliveness' is being powered or empowered by the Holy Spirit. But what does that mean?
Just this week I caught a portion of a television segment by Dr. David Jeremiah (my apologies if I didn't jot down what he said totally correct):
Jeremiah used an illustration from his own life in which he had supernatural strength surrounding a childhood Halloween prank gone bad, which caused his miraculous escape. My husband, Jim, has his own story. Shortly before he graduated from high school, their neighbors' home burned one evening. When the call came to the Welds, the whole family flew down the road to help. Jim and his dad carried the freezer from the porch and out on to the lawn. When it came time to carry the freezer back into the new home, it took four men with special handles on the outside of the freezer and they struggled to carry it back to its new location.
How did they do that? Jeremiah said that it is fear and that rush of power and strength, we have no idea is available within us.
He went on to explain that each of us Christians have that kind of spiritual power packed inside us. So if we have that kind of supernatural spiritual strength, why don't we or can't we operate in the strength of the Holy Spirit? It is because the Holy Spirit takes up 'residency' in us at our 'new birth', but that Spirit wants the role of 'presidency'.
But how do you make/let the Holy Spirit be president and not just resident? According to Jeremiah::
1) We need to DESIRE it; we need to ask for it - "I am tired of working in my strength, God. I want your strength";
2) We need to DENOUNCE sin - "I don't like some of the things I think, say, or do, God. I want to think, say, and do the things which are pleasing to You, God! Help me."
3) We need to DEDICATE ourselves fully to Christ - "Some of things I do are pretty good, God; other things aren't so hot. I know that you have something better in mind for me. I give you both the good stuff and the badf. As the Creator and Designer of the Universe, I seek Your kind of thinking, power, and strength to carry out the tasks you have in mind for me, for my world, for Your World!"
Romans 8: 1- 4 says: "So there is no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit - and this power is mine through Christ Jesus - has freed me from the vicious cycle of sin and death. We aren't saved from sin's grasp by knowing the commandments of God, because we can't and don't keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours--except that ours are sinful--and destroyed sin's control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. So now we can obey God's laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us."
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