For This Reason 45

[HKHaugan]

For This Reason 45

Now that we know the Holy Spirit is our personal trainer let's look at the program He works through to mature our spirituality. Remember, it started with our spiritual birth in Jesus, having a relationship with Him and being given the Scripture as His written authority. In Scripture we find three maturing practices to build spiritual insight and stamina: prayer, spiritual gifts and being united to the Body of Christ. They are the framework containing our spiritual training program. Obviously there are more but these three get us rolling.

The Word is the source that gives our mind, heart and spirit the realization of who and what we recognize. What comes through the power of the Holy Spirit connects our mind, heart and spirit to their Creator. No other document can do that. No other medium of communication, movie, play or work of art can accomplish that. Even as this is being written the Scripture is informing its writing. Scripture contains everything we need to know about God and everything we need to know about ourselves. All other works are supplementary. It is Scripture that determines the validity of all non-biblical communication. If the Bible were a pot of tea and we were cups it would pour the Holy Spirit into us with an already precise addition of cream and sugar according to our individual taste. Cookies and pastries are enhanced by the flavor of the tea they accompany. That's why we call it tea time. Hope you get that analogy.

So let's look at the first of the three training venues, prayer. By the way, I call them venues because our mind, heart and spirit are involved in a physical place (our bodies), relationship (with others) and gathered experience (in worship). Prayer takes place within these precincts. These are where we have accepted the Lord to live after He knocked on our door (Rev.3:20) and we received and believed Him (Jn.1:12). Prayer opens our 'within' to the Lord. We talk to Him, think about Him, reason with Him, feel His presence, lift others to Him and build our consciousness of Him.

When Jesus confronted the moneychangers in the Temple He drove out their sheep and cattle then overturned their coin changing tables with these words, “It is written, 'My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers (Lk.19:46).'” Usually you just think 'temple' or 'church building' and leave it there. But apply it to our body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor.3:16) and it takes on a whole new dimension. The doves, the cattle, the money changing and what they represent in terms of what occupies our mind, heart and spirit. Hmmm. Each of us has some self-inquiry to consider. Does prayer take precedence in what we invite within? Is our mind, heart and spirit our Father's house? Do our gatherings in relationships and worship show them to be the Father's house (Rom.12:5)? Just who are the real robbers anyway?

The second venue we want to visit is relationships. If we can visualize them as a kind of house they are relational structures in which believers bring the Lord to give them meaning, balance and purpose. Each of them is shaped like our Trinitarian God; the concept, the persons and the spirit that binds them, therefore spiritual by definition, each needing nourishing. There are different kinds. We have marriage, family, sibling, church, friendship, professional and casual. Each has a different demand since each functions differently. But in each it is our relationship with the Lord Jesus that sets the tone for how we approach them. For each Scripture in prayer has the perfecting direction. Prayer is the means Jesus taught to give Him first place in them, to bring the insight and power necessary to make them work. Prayer takes belief, trust and faith to a new level. Relationships become more honest.

Realizing the Holy Spirit's presence brings us closer to Jesus and one another. This is why the Lord Jesus chose twelve to pour Himself into. It was His praying for them that made the difference. All you have to do is look at the example of the substance of His prayer time in John 17. He is the prime example of what it means to be in a small group, to pray and share spiritual life together. The Word was always their guide. They learned what it meant to trust and how a relationship with Jesus made them one. Their response was to share Jesus with the everyday world in which they found themselves. When you are in a small group sharing, being transparent and praying with one another, you are no longer just a spectator, a church member, you are a participant in the life of Jesus. It's from the small group that all the other relationships from marriage, to family, to friends, to work, begin to have spiritual meaning and substance. It's prayer there in that relational house that causes change to happen in each believer's daily world. It's there that all kinds of healing can occur from the physical to the spiritual. Personal and interpersonal growth is its maturing feature. It is in the small group through sharing and prayer that the Holy Spirit inspires ministry and mission. As you pray in that 'house' the effect of being spiritually fortified gives you the bearing necessary to enter family, church, professional, friend and casual acquaintance ties.

The third venue is our worship in the Body of Christ when everyone from small groups to individuals gather in praise, thanksgiving and communion with the Lord. This is when we experience the power of the Holy Spirit blending praise, music, prayer and the Word. Worship takes the solitary mind, heart and spirit into another dimension. Here the unity in something beyond our horizontal world life enters us. We are no longer just involved in 'me' and 'my' issues. True, we don't escape them and they may come into our consciousness during that time but its the vertical reality of the presence of God in which we gain our balance. In worship it's like we regroup, we rebuild our confidence, renew our standing and understanding, allow the Holy Spirit to lift us to the realization of our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. In worship we have the opportunity to give God the glory, bow before His holiness, yield to His Word, join our spiritual family in the shared consciousness of the magnificence of God. Worship is allowing the wordless, the non-verbal, the spiritual to penetrate the mind, heart and spirit to bring us at one with our Father, His Son our Lord and the Spirit of all that is Holy. It is the time when His gifts come collectively together to raise us to Him.

If we look at the form of worship as it was shaped in Acts 2:42 we see there are seasons, a season for teaching, a season of fellowship, a season of breaking bread and a season of prayer. 1Cor.11:17:34 indicates that the Lord's Supper was characteristically a part of worship which is why many of us find it to be the invitation the Lord wants to use as a guarantee of His presence. Just as He became flesh and dwelt among us so He provides a physical way for every succeeding generation to assure His continuing presence in worship. It's not just His presence that is signified here it is the reminder of what is central to being a disciple of Jesus, His Cross. The Cross is the lifestyle He set for everyone everywhere for all time.

What He sacrificed for us was His life. He died on the Cross to forgive sin and that one sacrifice, that one act on His part when He took our place, our punishment, the penalty we deserved, that lonely death on the Cross was His final guarantee that spiritual life in Him was what we were created to experience and experience forever. There He forgave sin, canceled its power and defeated the devil and his kingdom of evil spirits and demons.

That is why we are given the Lord's Supper, to remember what He did to secure us to Him and to know He is always with us whenever two or three are gathered in His name (Mt.18:20).

So the three venues of our personal prayer, small group sharing and worship in the larger collected Body of Christ, all modeled by Jesus and His disciples, move us to our next expression, spiritual gifts.