Tag: Holy Spirit

Asking, Seeking and Knocking Like Jesus

There is progression of intimacy in the ask, seek and knock passage that is missed if we don’t consider the whole context of the passage.

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depositphotos Image ID: 30835131 Copyright: kevron2002
depositphotos Image ID: 30835131 Copyright: kevron2002

And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend[1] will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence[2] he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent[3]; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:5-13)

Reading through Luke recently this passage impressed me in a way that hadn’t occurred to me previously. We often remember things out of context, but context is important and provides insight, and sometimes even changes what we think we know of the verse, standing alone.

It seems that the ask, seek and knock passage is often remembered for the proposition that God, our heavenly Father, will give us the good things for which we ask, seek and knock[4] because a natural father doesn’t withhold good things for his children. But that isn’t the central point of the passage.

This passage is beautifully laid out in a progression of intimacy that I had not seen before.

Continue reading “Asking, Seeking and Knocking Like Jesus” →

Tuning In To God’s Frequency

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(c) Can Stock Photo
(c) Can Stock Photo

When two tuning forks are tuned to the same frequency, they harmonize with each other. More than that, when one is vibrating, the other will begin to vibrate. This phenomenon is called “sympathetic vibration”. 

This is the phenomenon to which Ted Dekker alludes in this short passage from The Forgotten Way:

“When you have two tuning forks in a room and one begins to vibrate the other will also begin to vibrate if it’s tuned to the same frequency. They resonate. They abide in each other’s frequency.” 

Even if the two tuning forks are at the same frequency, however, sympathetic resonance does not happen unless two additional factors are present: the tuning forks are close to each other, and one of the tuning forks is quiet (not already vibrating).

The tuning fork illustration is very apt for understanding our relationship to God. If we are tuned to God’s frequency, we will resonate with Him and abide in Him. When we are tuned to God’s frequency, “the Spirit Himself bears witness[1] with our spirit that we are children of God.”[2]

God’s Spirit and our spirit are like the tuning forks. When we are on the same frequency with God, we resonate with God, but only if we are close enough to Him, and only of we have quieted ourselves. (“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10))

Such a simple truth, but we struggle so mightily with tuning to God’s frequency, getting close enough to be affected by Him and quieting ourselves.

Continue reading “Tuning In To God’s Frequency” →

Catholics, Pentecostals and the Body of Christ

God’s sheep hear His voice. God knows His own. They sit in the whole spectrum of churches on any given Sunday morning or Saturday night, and some of them do not visit churches very often at all.

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A Sheperd by Lauri Heikkinen
A Sheperd by Lauri Heikkinen

The article, A Classic Pentecostal Encounters Charismatic Catholics, takes me back to the early days of my Christian walk. I was raised Catholic, but I found little attraction to church as a child. We went to church religiously, a practice I later came to appreciate about my parents, but there seemed to be nothing in it for me. I even felt uncomfortable in church.

I went through some very rebellious teen years, wandering lost through the haze and fog induced by alcohol and drugs, drifting to the edge of the precipice, before I woke to the emptiness that I had inexplicably been embracing. That was not my conversion, but just the beginning of walking in a new direction.

Fast forward just a short while to college where I entered like a kid in a candy store with a new found passion for knowledge and truth. I thought I had left religion behind. Actually I did (and have never returned). What I did not realize is that I would discover the life that religion seemed to enshroud like an empty tomb. Continue reading “Catholics, Pentecostals and the Body of Christ” →

Sealed with the Holy Spirit

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lightstock_108943_xsmall_user_7997290In Ephesians 1:13-14, Paul says that we have been “sealed in God with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of inheritance”.

We might be tempted to read this simply as flowery, but dogmatic language. I believe nothing could be further from the truth. Paul is talking about an act of God by which HE puts His stamp on US in a real, personal way, and even more than that….

Christians often talk about the promises of God that are in the Bible, but Paul talks about the “Holy Spirit of promise”. Continue reading “Sealed with the Holy Spirit” →

Holy Spirit Come

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:15-16)

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Into the Son

These are the words I read from a story about one of our presidents: “[He] talked about the absolute need to believe that with hard work and faith in God there is every reason to start each day in the Oval Office with hope.”

After I read those words I found a thought creeping into my head – when was the last time I told a client or a business associate or anyone in my day to day business world something like that?

I wrote the italicized words and left them up on my computer for a week, unfinished. Just a thought that impressed me.

In the White House, with the awesome responsibility that rests on the most influential nation in the world, a president must surely feel the import of that office and the weight of that responsibility. Relying on God must be real, immediate and present with that kind of responsibility. I can see how God’s presence and my reliance on Him would be so immediate in that kind of position.

How immediate is the presence of God in your life? Do you wake up each morning filled with faith and hope for the day ahead? I don’t. Continue reading “Holy Spirit Come” →