I'M Pushing Spiritude

[HKHaugan]

Spiritude vs. Attitude

 

I’m pushing Spiritude. Spiritude is the result of my personal Pentecost. When I accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord, I was given a new way to be human, a spiritual mindset that got me to see things in the spiritual perspective of Jesus. Spiritude is thinking, trusting and acting as the Holy Spirit leads. However, I didn’t grow a Spiritude overnight. It’s an ongoing process of facing temptation and sin, their effect on me, the attitudes they forge, being corrected and redirected by the Spirit as I face every new moment. Like Paul says, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Php.3:13-14).” Spiritude gets me to face my pride and fears, replace the attitudes they fuel and frees me to share the truth of Jesus and His Word in a new way. Before Jesus, I developed a lifestyle to protect and promote myself. It was filled with attitudes that needed shedding. Spiritude replaces attitudes.

 

I’ve had a lot of time between my new spiritual birth and now to realize we grow spiritually if we do what Jesus says and accept the Kingdom of Heaven like a child. That’s when the Holy Spirit does His best work. Spiritude is being humble before God in the presence of others. I dumped a whole set of attitudes about people, places and things and let the Holy Spirit rearrange the relational opportunities placed before me. The Holy Spirit makes Jesus the focus for every choice and decision. Spiritude is trusting Jesus’ presence in the heart and the motivation for what we think and do. Spiritude is the Holy Spirit motivating our mind, heart and spirit. Spiritude is going through the life process led by the Holy Spirit in every moment, event and circumstance. The Holy Spirit is our only motivator. Spiritude is totally different from attitude. Spiritude replaces attitude of which there are many.

 

Just what is an attitude anyway? An attitude is a personally derived and developed way of judging the character and behavior of another person, an event or circumstance based on external appearance. It’s a self-promoting internal conclusion made apart from God based on an external observation or experience. Fueled by the spirits of pride and fear, it is usually accompanied by ‘they’ or ‘it.’ ‘They’ are all like that (blame them). ‘It’ let me off the hook (blame circumstance). Self-justification and rationalization are attitudinal strategies.

 

Experience of pleasure or pain can cause an attitude of repetition or avoidance. Any conclusion made apart from God shapes how we react to other people, events and circumstances. The modern word is ‘profiling.’ This means that most of us as we grow up develop attitudes to cover ourselves relationally. We reflect on our heritage and identify ourselves with it to give us an acceptable identity in the world. We develop relational attitudes to explain circumstance like: the rich always get away with it, I never had a chance, they are all the same, the bully, the meek, the noisy , the quiet, the upper and lower classes, the ignorant and undeserving, the optimist and pessimist, the greedy and the poor, they, them and those, in the midst of ethnic dependence. Severe attitudes become mental issues like phobias, depression, abnormal behaviors and other psychological disturbances. The majority of attitudes need forgiveness and shedding.

 

The severe need prayer and therapy. Spiritude is attitude redeemed. Being born again means we have a Spiritude given us to reduce the past and bring newness to the moment we are in.

 

Spiritude is an external ability given by the Holy Spirit through Scripture to determine reaction to an internal perception. Spiritude immediately senses the need to listen, discern what is underneath a perception, pray and respond scripturally. Spiritude is God’s love in action. When the observation is made that someone comes across with an attitude, it is usually one of many that must be discerned.

 

Before I continue let me digress into a moment of incredible reality. Looking out at the clouds moving through the valley, below the deck I’m standing on, surrounded by mountain after mountain and the sky above and the enormity of the universe, it is hard to understand how the God who created it all could localize Himself in Jesus and, through faith in Jesus, me. God localizing Himself in me? You’ve got to be kidding! No, I’m not   I’m serious. Then I look around me and see others. They too are breathing and living by the will of the One Creator God who localizes Himself in people, His images.

 

All of this is the visible expression of how we are called to see Him, beyond our understanding yet available in His Son locally by the Holy Spirit He has given us. Called to experience His Son through the simplicity of faith is to begin a walk into the spiritual reality that is eternal yet local and personal, literally ‘down-to-earth,’ even down to the individual cells that make up our bodies and the larger universe. Tell me that’s not Spiritude. Faith is our Spiritude.

 

In it all we are given the Holy Spirit to relate as individuals, to think, create and work spiritually, ‘Spiritudinally.’ Every mission and ministry brought into existence all around the world since the arrival of Jesus, is the product of the Holy Spirit because believers were led Spiritudinally. It was those believers having developed their Spiritude through Scripture, that brought Jesus into every corner of the world.

 

If you’ve got Spiritude, you don’t need to develop an attitude. If you’ve got one, drop it, If you start a pride slide or slip into the fear gear, the Holy Spirit will nudge you to drop the effort and let Him do the work through you. Hear what Jesus says,

 

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you (John 16:13-15).”

 

Why rely on attitudes when Spiritude is all you need? If Spiritude was good enough for Jesus, well…….?

[JAMES TURNER]

Yes, Whitey, if Spiritude was good enough for Jesus, then count us “IN.” Your teaching on Spiritude vs Attitude seems of paramount priority of every next new moment if we are to be effective examples of His in a world that is falling apart. Your teaching provides a navigational compass for a horizontal / vertical map of making “The Way” more clear as the Holy Spirit leads.

Was not this transformational mindset for which Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17:20-23. And, why He told His disciples these things, so that “we may have the full measure of joy within us” John 17:13?

Thank you for describing your “mountain -top” epiphany. The words “God localizing Himself in Jesus, and through faith in Jesus, you” imparted a vicarious and profound inkling of just how that is possible. It brought up Col 3:10 ERV, “And have put on the new man, which is being renewed into knowledge after the image of him that created him:”

My fervent prayer is for the ability given by the Holy Spirit to better discern within myself and others of Spiritude vs Attitude.

Fran Turner