Sunday, May 7, 2017

The Holy Spirit Does Not Control Our Actions, We Choose.

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 
Php 2:14  Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 
Php 2:15  That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 
Php 2:16  Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. 
Php 2:17  Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. 
Php 2:18  For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me. 

We are told God will work in us to will and to do His good pleasure- and then immediately we are told - 'DO all things…' We are given an instruction on what to DO, and action we are to commit, WE have to act. God WILL work in us, but He will NEVER control us!  We can never ask God to work in us and then believe we are to do nothing. God wants us to 'Do all things…'  And when we do ALL the things we do, we are to do them WITHOUT murmuring or disputing.  Clearly murmuring and disputing is not something God wants us to choose to do and it's us who makes the choice to murmur or dispute. If we find ourselves murmuring or disputing then we have to ask ourselves if we are doing God's will, because it is Not his will that we murmur or dispute.

Eph_1:13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise

Eph_1:17  That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him

Gal_6:8  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

Gal 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 
Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 
Gal 5:18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 
Gal 5:19  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
Gal 5:20  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 
Gal 5:21  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 
Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 
Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 
Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 
Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. 

 
'2. The Rule of the Holy Spirit.

We will recall from our past discussion how God rules our spirit through the Holy Spirit and how our spirit rules our body or the entire person through the soul (or will). This may sound simple, yet the spiritual implication is enormous.

The Holy Spirit influences our intuition alone to make His will known. Only our spirit does he fill and nowhere else. Never does He control or fill our soul or body directly. This point should be carefully underscored. We should not therefore expect God’s Spirit to think through our mind, feel through our emotion, or decide through our volition. He makes His will known to our spirit’s intuition in order that we ourselves may think and feel and act according to His will. It is a grave blunder to think we must offer our mind to the Holy Spirit to let Him think through it. The truth is He never uses man’s mind directly instead of man. He never asks him to offer himself passively to Him. What God wishes is cooperation with him. He does not work for man, because even His movement in working for him could be quenched by the believer. He never forces anyone to do anything.

The divine Spirit does not directly control man’s body either. If man desires to speak he has to engage his own mouth—to walk, his own feet—to work, his own hands. The Spirit of God never interferes
with man’s freedom of will. Aside from working in man’s spirit (which is God’s new creation), He does not use any part of man’s body apart from the consent of the latter’s own volition; nay, even if man is willing, He does not exercise any of his bodily parts for him.

Man should be his own master. He must exercise his own body. This is God’s law which He will not violate.  We often say that “the Holy Spirit rules over man.” By this we mean He works in us to make us obedient to God. But if we should mean that He directly controls our total being we are in complete
error. We can distinguish right here between the work of the Holy Spirit and that of evil spirits. The Holy Spirit indwells us to witness that we belong to God whereas evil spirits manipulate people to reduce them to robots.

God’s Spirit asks for our cooperation; evil spirits seek direct control. Hence it is plain that our union with God is in the spirit and not in the body or soul. Should we misunderstand the truth and expect God to move our mind, emotion, volition, and body directly, we open wide the door to the counterfeit of evil spirits.

While a Christian should not follow his own thought, feeling or preference, nevertheless after he has received revelation in his spirit he ought to execute with his mind, emotion and will this charge
which has come to his spirit.'  Excerpt - 'The Spiritual Man' By Watchman Nee


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