Weekly Reflection 6/21/23

Fellowship With the Holy Spirit – “Much More”

• A.W. Tozer says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (The Knowledge of the Holy). 
• What we think about our heavenly Father says a lot about who we are. 
• Throughout life we entrust ourselves (thoughts, emotions, desires) to other fallen human beings, who are largely unable to rightly handle their own emotions, let alone ours. 
• We are loved, let down, cared for, hurt, abused, protected, disappointed, or nourished in these relationships. And then for whatever reason, we take the bad experiences from the bunch and project them onto God. 
• But if we take God at His Word, not our own, we hear a different reality.  
• If we let God define who He is, we resist the urge to make Him into the image of people who have failed us. 
• God really is who He says He is, and what He says about you is true. 

Humanity?

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word humanity?  
• It’s been shown that the overwhelming response to this question is primarily negative. 
• People say things like sinful, broken, or messy. 
• When we believe the core truth about humanity is negative we view humanity from Genesis 3 and not Genesis 1. 
• Rather than hearing “very good”, which was God’s perspective on humanity before sin entered the picture, we look at ourselves, and others, as being only “very broken”. 
• Yes, we’re broken. The fall of man is real, and we live under its effects all day long.  But this is simply not the whole picture.
• Instead of recognizing the impact of sin on our thoughts, emotions, and desires, we identify as our thoughts, emotions, and desires. 
• When the first descriptor we consider about humanity is sinful instead of loved, we are missing the very heart of God.
• Only when you believe this whole picture of both God and you, can you grow in spiritual maturity.
• And when you hear the lies start rolling in, remind yourself of this; if God the Father hated you, the person, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to save you, His Son wouldn’t have volunteered to do the job, and His Spirit wouldn’t desire to indwell you. 
• Yes, God hates your sin, He hates what you’re infected with, and He’s committed to getting it out of you.  Because He loves you, the person, who is made in His image. 
• He is more committed than we will ever know to transforming us back into the picture of what it once looked like to be human without the infection of sin. Transforming us back to “very good”.

Matthew 7:7-11

• Notice the promise in verse 8, “For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” 
• Everyone – means all believers, all children of God.
• What kind of father do we come to? 
• Look at verses 9-11. Jesus makes it explicitly clear. If human fathers and mothers who by God’s standards of righteousness can only be described as evil, if they know how to give good gifts to their children how much more will your heavenly Father who is good and kind and wise and loving, give to us what we need. 
• How much more if we being evil, selfish, ignorant to the needs of our kids can still find it within our hearts to do good to them when they ask, how much more will your heavenly Father do so generously and abundantly.

Luke 11:13

• In Luke’s gospel, he says, How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? 
• Come with confidence. God loves to pour out His Spirit. 
• This was spoken to believers, this is for an expansive experience, a deepening awareness of the Spirit’s work, and even more importantly, just like in Matthew 7, in Luke 11 the context is perseverance in prayer. 
• Don’t ever stop asking, seeking and knocking for a greater anointing, power and presence of the Spirit to do what God has called us to do. 

Consider

• Consider that God is infinitely strong and can do all that He pleases (Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 55:11, Jeremiah 32:17, Acts 2:23 + 4:28) and that He is infinitely righteous so that He only does what is right (Psalm 11:7, Psalm 145:17, Hebrews 4:14), and that He is infinitely good so that everything He does is perfectly good (Psalm 34:8, Psalm 119:68, Nahum 1:7), and that He is infinitely wise so that He always knows perfectly what is right and good (Psalm 147:5, Romans 11:33), and that He is infinitely loving so that in all His strength and righteousness and goodness and wisdom He desires to love you (1 John 4:7-21, John 15:9-17), and He is infinitely gracious so that in all of His desire to love you He freely gives that love (Romans 5:8, Psalm 145:8-9, 1 Peter 5:10) . 
• When you pause to consider this, then the lavish invitations of this God to ask Him for good things, for the Holy Spirit, with the promise that He will give them, is unimaginably wonderful.