Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

It’s a Virus and It Spreads – Part II

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From the book: It’s Still Relative (The Word of God for Today’s World)

I John 3:4 – 10 “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.  But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.  Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

The virus on my computer started turning my computer off when it wanted to and making decisions about which programs would function, when and for how long. It was as if my computer had a mind of its own and even though it belonged to me, it was doing what it wanted to do without my permission. There is not a computer system in the world that is designed to have virus running AND have a fully functional operating system.

It is the same with Christians and sin. God did not call us out of the darkness of the world into the light of His son Jesus, so that we could still operate independent of Him. We are no longer our own. We have been bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:19). Operating with sin in our lives is just like my computer trying to operate with a virus.

How do we know if the activity/behavior we’re engaged in is a sin? We should ask yourselves the following questions:

1. Did I pray about this activity/behavior and then WAIT until I received an answer from God?

2. Does the activity/behavior convey God’s character?

3. Does the activity/behavior glorify God?

If we answer “No” to any of these questions we are operating in sin.

When we operate outside and independent of God, we are operating by the pride of life, the lust of the eye and the boasting of what we have or what we’ve done. This type of behavior doesn’t come from God. It comes from Satan, who is the prince of this world (John 12:31). Satan already stands condemned, (John 16:11) and he wants to ruin the lives and testimonies of as many Christians as he can so our ministry to the world is tainted by our own behaviors and our own actions. Why does Satan want this? So we become ineffective in winning the lost to Christ!

Remember, we are in the world, but not of the world. Once we come to God through Christ, we are no longer of the world (John 17:14). We should strive to reflect the character of God in everything we do. Showing the love of God through our lives is what gives God glory and it is what draws the spiritually lost to us so we can tell them about Christ. (Ephesians 5:1 – 2)

Just like I had to get the virus off my computer before it would run correctly, Christians have to get sin out of our lives so we can run for God correctly.

It’s a Virus and It Spreads – Part I

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From the book: It’s Still Relative (The Word of God for Today’s World)

I John 3:4 – 10 “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.  But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.  Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

I have several electronic devises at my disposal on a daily basis. My home computers, table and my iPhone. Not to mention the electronic devises I have for work. All of my systems have different types of software installed but all systems, except my iPhone, are Window based systems. So all the electronic devises I use operate pretty much the same way.

One day I was working on my system at home when I received an email from an old friend. When I opened the email I realized it was a chain letter, so I deleted it and continued my work. But, my system stopped responding to my keystrokes and function keys. The computer just wasn’t acting right.

At first, it was small things that I chalked up to computer glitches. Then my sound system started fading and my computer started freezing. Then, some of my programs stopped working all together. I checked my configurations and made sure all my apparatuses were hooked up correctly but no matter what I did, my computer was acting as if it had a mind of it’s own. It was running a muck! The email I opened from my old friend had a virus and it was destroying my operating system.

Sin in the life of a Christian is just like the virus that infected my computer. It will destroy the renewal of your mind, corrupt your morals and ethics and, ruin your relationship with God the Father.

One “small” sin left unchecked will cause your walk with Christ to fall into a position of not being fully functional, which means your spiritual well being has been jeopardized. Sin left to grow and flourish will cause you to lose connection with the Holy Spirit because sin runs interference and doesn’t want you to remedy the problem. Our sinful man likes the sin but our spirit man is grieved when we sin.

As we start a new year, let’s examine our spiritual operating system. Do we have any sin that is causing a disconnect between us and God? If so, let’s deal with it for the truth that it is and get rid of it!

Going Scared

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“So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar,demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar! They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.” The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.” Judges 6:27 – 32 (NIV)

Gideon was scared. He was scared of his family, the townspeople and God. But in the midst of all his fears he didn’t allow his weakness of heart to stop him from obeying God.

Gideon made an adjustment. He was so concerned about the reaction of his family and the townspeople he obeyed God when the no one else could see him. He not only protected himself from the other people he protected his servants that he took with him. Gideon knew he and the servants would have been met with stiff opposition had they tried to demolish Baal’s altar and the Asherah pole during the day when everyone could have seen what they were doing.

Some say Gideon was a coward. I think Gideon was strategic. In verse 11 when the angel of the Lord came to Gideon, he gave Gideon specific instructions. Nowhere in the instructions did he tell Gideon what time of day the work had to be done nor who had to go with him to complete the job. Gideon came up with and executed a plan that kept him and his servants safe and allowed him to complete the assignment God gave him. Strategic!

Many of us would say that if an angel of the Lord came to us and told us what to do we would do it without hesitation. BUT WE LIE! We have the Holy Spirit living in us and we still are scared to do what God has told us to do. We have a better covenant with God than Gideon did, yet we aren’t obedient to God’s call on our lives.

If the members of the Body of Christ were obedient to the call of God and strategic in carrying out God’s requests, our neighborhoods and communities would change for the better. There would be effective ministries in our churches that would meet the needs of the community not just continues the traditions of a by-gone era.

If we answered God’s call on our lives our circumstances would be different and our focus would change from the temporal things of the world to the eternal things of God’s kingdom. But alias, too many of us who call ourselves “Christians” have decided to ignore God’s call on our lives,  to allow His call to go unanswered or to answer His call only when it’s convenient for us.

Remember, we are on our lives journey being led and and guided by God through the Holy Spirit. We can’t get where God wants to take us if we leave the road before we reach our destination. Afraid of where God may be taking you? It’s okay to go scared. Just GO!

Maturing into You

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Story is excerpt from my book: It’s Still Relative, The Word of God for Today’s World

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. We’ll call her Maggie. She was saying that her grown daughter sometimes act less mature than her six-year-old. It seems that no matter how much Maggie or her husband request their older daughter ACT like an adult, she just isn’t willing to take on the responsibilities of being a grown up.

My friend lamented, “‘I don’t think she will ever grow up. I don’t thing she will ever be a responsible adult. I don’t know what we did wrong, but obviously we didn’t raise her right or something. So, we’re just going to have to cut her off and see how she does. At some point, she’s going to have to stand on her own.”‘

As Maggie and I were talking a though struck me deep in my spirit. How many times has God said, “I wonder if she or he will ever spiritually grow up? I wonder when they will learn their lessons and start acting like the Christians I have raised them to be? I wonder if they will ever stop through temper tantrums when they don’t get their way or things don’t seem to be working out they way they want them to. I wonder if they will ever learn to trust me.”

Maturing is Christ as Christians is about trusting God; His word and the finished work of Christ Jesus. Without that trust, we can’t mature into the people God has called, anointed and appointed us to be for and in the Kingdom of God.

Maturing in our Christian walk is not easy but it is necessary and there’s no way around it. (Deut. 6:17 – 18). This blog is a part of my maturity. The daily prayers I send out are a part of my maturity. Starting a non-profit is a part of my maturity. These are things I never wanted to do, never thought anyone would read and under normal circumstances I would NEVER have the courage to do them but, God is maturing me.

So, over the next several days I’m going to use this blog to explore our spiritual maturity. You are welcome to join me!