I've been absent from my blog for four weeks now, while I was rebuilding my barn. The weather has been holding here and I need to finish it before everything broke loose for the winter. God has been very gracious holding back snow and cold, until I was done. We moved the chickens into their new home on Thanksgiving Day and hopefully will be moving the horses into their home soon. Thank you Mr. Walker for all your help and the use of your trailer. Thank you Bob and Danny and everyone for being patient in my absence.
We've been speaking about and learning about the Holy Spirit. I will continue doing so here, so let's get brought up to date here. Many things we've learned throughout the years hasn't been given from the Holy Spirit. In fact, in many Christian circles, the Holy Spirit has been left out completely from their teachings. We recognize that He is here, but then deny His presence and His Super-natural power in the Church.
The greatest part of His ministry is the building and bringing the Church, the Body of Christ, into unity. Only the Holy Spirit can bring the revelation to the Church. Some of the teachings and direction we've received over the past two-thousand years, has come from man's carnal knowledge without the revelation from the Spirit. Proverbs 20:27 (Amplified) says, "The spirit of man (that factor in human personality which proceeds immediately from God) is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts."
It has been mostly the soulish or carnal part of man that the Church has ministered to. And, we've neglected to train and teach the spirit of man. In these last days before Jesus returns, the Holy Spiirt is revealing the revelation of Jesus in the spirit of man. Carnal teaching and thinking says that the power of the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives, is for when we get to heaven. We've expected people to believe what we preach and teach, without any evidence of what we're telling them. Even Jesus has to present "signs and wonders" to reveal God to the people. In John 14:11 (Amplified) Jesus says, "Believe Me that I Am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the (very) works themselves (If you cannot trust Me, at least let these works that I do in My Father's Name convince you)."
The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 15:18-19 (Amplified), "For (of course) I will not venture (presume) to speak thus of any work except what Christ has actually done through me (as an instrument in His Hands) to win obedience from the Gentiles by word and deed (Even as my preaching has been accomplished) with the power of signs and wonders (and all of it) by the power of the Holy Spirit, (the result is) that starting from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel (faithfully executing, accomplishing, carrying out to the full the Good News) of Christ (the Messiah) in its entirety."
1Corinthians 2:1-6 (Amplified) Paul tells us, "As for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery and secret of God (concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men) in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom for I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified." Verses 3 says, "And I was in (passed into a state of) weakness and fear (dread) and great trembling (after I had come) among you And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in the demonstration of the (Holy) Spirit and power, (a proof of God, operating in me, and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them)." Paul continues in Verses 5-6 saying, "The reason that this demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power was So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy) but in the power of God. Yet when we are among the full grown spiritually mature Christians (who are ripe in understanding), we do impart a (higher) wisdom (the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden) but it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away."
The world and its way of thinking, cannot accept the revelation of the Risen Christ, except by the Holy Spirit. Even the Church, with man's idea of Christianity, cannot receive the real revelation of who we are in Christ, except through the Holy Spirit. Mans way of thinking has made the real "demonstration" of the Holy Spirit difficult to be accepted, even in the Church.
We've been preaching to the world and expecting them to simply believe all we say, without any demonstration of Life in our words. We should always expect the Super-natural power of the Holy Spirit to confirm what we preach, according to Mark 16:20 (Amplified) which says, "And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the message by the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied (it) Amen (so be it)."
Only the Holy Spirit can bring forth the "confirming" signs and miracles that accompany the Gospel. We, the Church, must have the accompanying signs and wonders of God in order to reveal Him as He truly is, to the world and the Church. We serve a supernatural God and we must allow the Holy Spirit to reveal Him to and in the world as He truly is. Otherwise, we are just another religion, no different from the rest, in their eyes. The Holy Spirit will proclaim to the world, that our God is not dead, but He is alive and still full of power. Through the Holy Spirit, we are to not only tell the world about Him, but show the world that OUR GOD LIVES.
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