“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (Job 42:5).
When Jesus becomes real to a person everything changes. Being baptized regularly into the implications of who Jesus is to you is one of the great secrets of enjoying the Lord’s presence in your daily life.
Several years ago, while waiting on the Lord for direction in some meetings we were conducting I heard the phrase, “The Holy Spirit has come to make everything new, fresh and alive again.” This statement has become the anchor of our ministry since then.
When the Spirit of God begins moving and breathing on humble repentant hearts then the simple things of our faith become dear and precious. The basic doctrines of Scripture become new to us. Through the operation of the Holy Spirit Jesus becomes real and alive in our hearts. The joy of meeting together in worship, in prayer and in the Word becomes a pure joy. Gladness and gratitude for our salvation fills our hearts, and compels us to tell others of our wonderful Savior.
When the familiar things of our faith are touched by heaven they lose their staleness and become fresh again. Listen to this beautiful quote by Winkie Pratney: “The things that touch us in a true revival are not strange and mysterious things made clear, but plain and simple things made central and old things made new.”
Don’t seek the mystical and the spectacular from God but seek to see Him through new eyes. Spiritual things become dim when we fail to experience regular renewals and refreshings. This can happen corporately in our times of assembling with other believers and/or individually in our own private times with the Lord.
” He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:29-31).
Notice the great benefits listed here that come from waiting on the Lord such as power, strength and renewal. We need continual renewals in the Spirit to avoid weariness and fainting. It’s after you’ve been filled by waiting on the Lord that your strength is renewed and your spirit refreshed. The stale familiarity of Scriptures makes believers dull, passive and unresponsive, but old things become new, fresh and alive in the Lord’s presence.
We are living in a day when pastors and church leaders are bringing people into their churches through another door instead of trusting fully in the work and power of the Holy Spirit. Many are toning down on real prayer and the genuine move of the Holy Spirit. Often this has the opposite effect of equipping and maturing the saints, and instead produces carnality and weakens the spiritual appetite for God in people. Without the working of the Holy Spirit, people tend to grow weary and tired and go through the motions of living out their Christian lives. It results in a forsaking of their first love (Rev. 2:4). At its worst this creates a barren place for believers to even revert back to their old lifestyle and ungodly habits.
How grievous it is to the Lord that pastors and church leaders think they can go on without the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Why are men minimizing the work and power of the Holy Spirit when He is the one who has been sent to the earth to make all things new, fresh and alive again?
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