Ridding Sin of Existence.

We all can comprehend what it would mean to live with a puppet, a robot, something that has no independent thought, no power of choice. What person among us hasn't played with a doll or action figure, most likely both growing up? You controlled that toy's actions it never acted on its own. If you owned a wind up, or motorized figure you could flip a switch or turn a knob and that toy would seemingly move of its own accord. Playing with dolls/actions figures allowed us to use our imaginations as we manipulated those toys in scenarios of our own design. Back in the days before store bought dolls  people would go to toy makers, or make their own dolls and such to play with, they actually created them from various items- wood, cloth, metal, etc. These toys could never replace playing with an actual friend, a person like yourself. In fact playing with those toys was always more fun with a friend.

Where am I going with all this? A question was recently brought up about why God allowed sin, and why God allowed Satan to remain free after sin rose up in him? These are all very valid questions and seeking the answers isn't always easy, truly there are things of God we cannot know.

Deu_29:29  The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

1Co_2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Rom 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 

Rom 11:34  For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? 

Yes, there are definitely things of God we cannot know.

1Co_13:12  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Yes, we are looking through a glass, darkly-  glass so murky in that darkness we can't see through it clearly. There will come a day we see God face to face and everything will be clear.

And while knowing one day we will be able to know and comprehend the things of God doesn't always satisfy us now, so we try to figure things out the best we can through prayer and study.

Why did God allow sin?  Because to not allow that power of choice between good and evil would mean creating beings completely restricted in their existence, they would be mere dolls in the hands of God and God did not want dolls.  God knew of good and evil when He created the creatures that exist. When angels were created God who knew of good and evil allowed angels this knowledge as well. With that knowledge in them, angels shunned evil. But then one day - a mystery beyond our full comprehension- occurred and Lucifer a covering angel found himself becoming prideful, found himself desiring to be like His creator, but not only to be like Him but to take His place as a god in his own right. The created did not accept created status, it made him unhappy. Having the knowledge of good and evil but not being a god seemed somehow wrong to Lucifer and that dissatisfaction began to grow in Him.  The robot would rise up, only this wasn’t a robot but one able to choose between good and evil.  Lucifer as a sentient being demanded recognition, and if he couldn't be a god himself, with the power of a god to create new creatures, then he would attempt to destroy the things of His Creator.

That brings us to why God didn't just blink him out of existence, him and all his evil would then be gone and not able to corrupt human beings.

God wanted more than automatons.  Willing to chance evil rising up, He did not interfere with the tempting of Eve.

God wasn't playing with dolls, He gave the dolls life and once they had life they were allowed to make their own choices. Would Adam and Eve or any of their descendants have sinned without the influence of Satan to seduce them? The possibility was there. The tree of good and evil was there and as soon as it was placed there and they were informed of its powers they had a choice to make every day, every hour, every minute , every second to either eat from it or not.  They were told this-

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

They were told the tree would bring death into their existence where no death existed.

They had to choose to believe God and know the tree would bring death or else believe differently, believe other than what God their Creator told them.

And they did believe Him and chose not to eat and bring death to their lives.

But then… Satan lied to them and they chose to believe the lie rather than the truth.

Why did God allow Satan to tempt them with lies?

If God had taken Satan and chained him to the planet Mars void of human beings, what was God in essence doing? He wasn't eradicating sin that had been birthed into existence, He was binding it, not ridding existence of evil. And if we think that's a good thing then we need to ask ourselves, is it better to rid the world of a plague or simply bind it up? Everyone knows something that is bound is still able to be unbound, but something destroyed completely has no way of rising up again. 

Now before you say that it could, and I say I agree, let me just say one thing- this is why Satan wasn't chained, this is why Satan wasn't simply blotted out of existence along with all capability of sinning. Sin and Satan needed to be destroy in such a way that there would never be the choice to sin ever again or our Creator would keep creating various creatures of intellect and the cycle of sin would go on and on and on over and over again. 

How precious is eternal life in Christ? More precious than we can truly fully fathom.

Our Creator wants to rid sin of its existence altogether and have creatures who desire this very same thing with every fiber of their being. Every sin gone! 

Do you have any cherished sins? Or do you utterly despise all your sins? Do you have any pet sins you keep around telling yourself they aren't going to bite you, they aren't going to turn on you? Pet sins you tell yourself aren't really sins at all, do you have any of those? A single non-despised sin is you declaring you don't really want every sin wiped out of existence.

God wants sin gone and He wants human beings- like 2/3rds of the angels- to choose the same thing.

Sin is insidious, and we can put spiritual blinders on our eyes and tell ourselves some sins aren't so bad and convince ourselves they are even good, but deep down we are allowed a chance to realize that all sin is worthy of death eternal. If we shun that truth, we will be allowed spiritual blindness.

Sin's destruction is God's design and His reasoning for allowing it and for allowing us to be influenced into sin is for this end.  Do we understand it all, probably not, but Eve and Adam chose not to believe words that came from God's mouth, and we too must make choices all the time whether to believe the words of God's mouth.

May God help us in our search for TRUTH, may we always TRUST in Him and know God only ever desires the best for us- for us to ultimately live with Him in eternity, an eternity that will never be curious about sin again.

Please bless us with Your mercy and grace, with Your will, Your truth, Your amazing love all through our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ our LORD now and forever!

God's Will, Our Will, Satan's Will.

Have you ever thought about the will of Satan?

We are constantly as Christians desiring God's will to be done in our lives.  We read this--

Mat 6:10  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 

Mar_3:35  For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Act_13:36  For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption

Rom_1:10  Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

Rom_8:27  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Rom_12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

And there are still more verses like those.

The will of God is a reality.  But as the following excerpt states, not all is the will of God.

We tell ourselves in many of our situations in life that - it is God's will and we do this to believe that we must accept everything that occurs.

God doesn't will sin and yet sin exists.

God doesn't will pain and agony, yet it exists.

God doesn't will heartache and sorrow but it is everywhere.

Satan wills all things evil. God WILL utilize situations that occur to bring about our ultimate good, but He does not will that we sin or are victims of sin in any way.

Rom_8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

And God purpose in calling us is to be saved through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

More on all of this tomorrow by the grace and yes, by the will of God.

*******

'God’s Ordering

We know that besides man’s will there are two other totally antagonistic wills in the world.

God calls us to obey Him and to resist Satan.

Twice in the Bible do we find these two sides mentioned together:

(1) “submit yourselves therefore to God,” exhorts James, and then he follows immediately with “resist the devil” (4.7);

(2) “humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,” enjoins Peter, and continues by charging his readers to “resist (the devil), firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5.6,9).

This is the balance of truth. A believer certainly must learn to submit himself to God in all  matters, acknowledging that what He orders for him is the best.

Though he suffers, yet he heartily submits to the will of God. This, however, is just half the truth. The Apostles understood the danger of being lopsided; hence we find them right away warning the Christian to resist the devil once he submits to God. This is because there is another will besides His, that of Satan’s.

Frequently the devil counterfeits the will of God, especially in the things which happen to us. If we are unaware of the presence of a will other than God’s, we can easily mistake Satan’s to be God’s and so fall into the devil’s trap. For this reason God wants us to resist the devil when we submit

to Him.

Resistance is done by the will. Resistance means our volition opposes, disapproves, and withstands. God wishes us to exercise our volition, therefore He exhorts us to “resist the devil.” He will not

resist for us; we ourselves must do so.

We have a will; we should use it to take heed to God’s Word. So teaches the Bible. Thinking that

God’s will is revealed in His orderings, the Christian may accept anything which comes to him as His will. In that event he naturally will not employ his volition to choose, decide or resist. He just quietly accepts everything. This sounds good and appears right, but it contains a serious fallacy.

Now we do acknowledge the hand of God behind everything, and we do confess we must submit fully under His hand. But the point at issue here is more one of attitude than of conduct. If what happens to

us is the direct will of God, would we object to it? This is a matter of our heart intention. But after we are assured of our obedience to God we should inquire further: does this emanate from the evil spirit or is it but God’s permissive will? If it is His commanded will, we have no objection; if otherwise, we will resist it together with God.

Hence this never implies that we should submit to our environment without daily examination and testing. Our attitude remains the same at all times, but our practice comes only after we are sure of God’s will, for how could we submit to Satan’s will?

A Christian ought not act as one who is without a brain, passively driven by his environment. He actively and consciously should examine the source of every item, test its nature, understand its meaning, and decide the course to take. It is important to obey God, but not blindly. Such active investigation is not a sign of rebellion against God’s ordering, because our heart’s intent continues to be one of submission towards God. We only wish to be sure that in our submission we are verily obeying God.

A definite lack in an obedient attitude exists among believers today. Though they perceive God’s will, they nevertheless fail to yield. Contrariwise, those who have been broken by God run to the other extreme by unquestioningly accepting whatever occurs to them.

The truth lies in the center; obey in heart and accept after being assured of the source.

How sad, though, that many fully consecrated believers do not discern this difference. Such a Christian therefore passively submits to his environment, surmising that everything happens to him by the

order of God. He gives ground to the evil spirits to torment and hurt him. These spirits provide environment (their snares) by which to trap the saint into performing their will or raise up circumstances to trouble him.

Believers may misunderstand this to be what Matthew 5.39 enjoins when it says “do not resist one who is evil,” not recalling that God summons them to struggle against sin (Heb. 12.4). By overcoming environment they are overcoming the spirit of this world. The factors in such a misapprehension of God’s ordering are that (a) believers do not use their will to choose and decide; (b) God certainly does not oppress them with environment; and (c) the evil spirits utilize the environmental circumstances as a substitute for their passive will. Rather than obeying God these believers actually are obeying the evil spirits.'

Excerpt from 'The Spiritual Man' by Watchman Nee

Humble Us.

Humble-


Definition of humble
1. 1:  not proud or haughty :  not arrogant or assertive
2. 2:  reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission a humbleapology
3. 3a :  ranking low in a hierarchy or scale :  insignificant, unpretentiousb :  not costly or luxurious a humble contraption


From <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humble>



*
We know pride is evil. Pride is what caused the covering angel to sin. Placing self-importance above other-importance, in place of God-importance is wrong because esteeming ourselves great as if we have power in and over ourselves to give ourselves life. Just because we can control various parts of our lives we have to comprehend that ultimately we have very little control over life in general. We like to take on importance as if we are creators of ourselves, when in truth we create nothing, we give life to nothing that isn't beyond our comprehension in so many ways. Pride destroys, being humble lifts up God to His proper place in our lives, it lifts up others in their proper place and keeps us in ours- comprehending truth, knowing the love of God, knowing God.

We need to be humble but not in an outward manner to reap pride to ourselves which can be done and all too often is done.


By the grace of God may we all be humbled, knowing humility in HIS way, not man's, all through our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord!


(Excerpt follows--)


5. Humility. Text: “Not that we venture to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves” (2 Cor. 10.12 ff.).


2Co 10:12  For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. 


Believers misjudge this long passage from verse 12 to 18 as signifying a call to hide themselves to the extent that they are left without a proper self-regard, one which God unquestionably permits us to have. Not a few instances of self-abasement are essentially a disguise for passivity. Consequently: (a) the believer effaces himself; (b) God does not fill him; and (c) evil spirits exploit his passivity to
render him useless.


When the Christian is self-abased under the enemy’s penetration his surroundings appear entirely dark, hopeless and desolate to him. He gives the impression of being deadly cold and dishearteningly
melancholic to all who are in contact with him. He himself easily faints and is discouraged. At critical moments he deserts the fight and withdraws, thus embarrassing others. God’s work is not too
important to him. In speech and work he tries hard to hide himself, but this only manifests his self the more—to the great sorrow of the truly spiritual. Due to his excessive disregard for himself he stands
by watching when there is such great need in the kingdom of God. He exhibits perpetual inability, hopelessness, and wounded feelings. While he may envisage this to be humility he does not realize it is
but the work of the evil spirits. True humility is able to look at God and proceed on.'  Excerpt - The Spiritual Man- by Watchman Nee


1Pe_5:5  Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.


Col 3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 
Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 
Col 3:14  And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. 
Col 3:15  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. 
Col 3:16  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 
Col 3:17  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. 

Teacher- Holy Spirit, Love Through the Holy Spirit.

Excerpt -

(The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee)

3. Memory. Text: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14.26).

Christians do not grasp that this verse means the Counselor will enlighten their mind so that they may remember what the Lord has spoken. They instead think it instructs them not to engage their memory because God shall bring all things to their minds. They accordingly allow their memory to degenerate into passivity; they do not exercise their wills to remember. And what is the outcome?—

“(a) the man himself does not use his memory; and (b) God does not use it, because He will not do so apart from the believer’s co-action; (c) evil spirits use it, and substitute their workings in the place of the believer’s volitional use of his memory.” (Penn-Lewis, WOTS,121)

4. Love. Text: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom. 5.5).

Believers misconstrue this to signify that they are not themselves to love but to let the Holy Spirit dispense God’s love to them. They petition God to love through them that His love may be supplied

abundantly so as to fill them with divine love. They no longer will love for hereafter it is God Who must make them love. They cease to exercise their faculty of affection, permitting its function to sink into

total paralysis. With the result that (a) the believer himself does not love; (b) God will not bestow supernatural love upon him in disregard of the man or the operation of his natural affection; and so

(c) evil spirits substitute themselves for the man and express their love or hate through him. And once he has abandoned the use of his will to control his affection the evil spirits put their counterfeit love

in him. Thereafter he behaves like wood and stone, cold and dead to all affections. This explains why many saints, though holy, are scarcely approachable.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” says the Lord Jesus (Mark 12.30). Now whose love is this? Exactly whose heart, soul, mind and strength is brought into view here? It is of course ours. Our natural life needs to die, but these natural endowments and their functions remain.'

Spiritual Misconceptions.

God please help us as we seek a deeper, richer spiritual walk with You. We want ONLY Your truth! Guide us in Your way, and keep us from the evil of deception.

Psa 139:23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 

Psa_139:24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Excerpt to consider, to study, to pray over)

'Among the various misconceptions relating to spiritual life can be found the following.

1. Speaking.

The text used is Matthew 10.20: it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

(Mat 10:20  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. )

Christians often assume that God will speak for them. Some imagine that while delivering a message in a meeting they must not employ their mind and will but simply offer their mouths passively to God,

letting Him speak through them. Needless to say, however, the words of Jesus recorded in this particular passage are to be applied only to the time of persecution and trial. It does not suggest that the Holy Spirit will speak instead of the believer. The experience of the Apostles Peter and John in the council fulfills this prediction.

2. Guidance.

Text: “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it’ “ (Is. 30.21).

Isa 30:21  And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. 

Saints do not perceive that this verse refers specifically to the experience of God’s earthly people, the Jews, during the millennial kingdom when there shall be no satanic counterfeit. Unaware of this fact they view supernatural guidance in a voice to be the highest form of guidance. They esteem themselves more spiritual than the rest and hence receive supernatural guidance of this type. They neither listen to their conscience nor follow their intuition; they merely wait in a passive manner for the supernatural voice. These believers hold that they do not need to think, ponder, choose or decide. They simply need to obey. They permit the voice to be substituted for their intuition and conscience. And the consequence is that “(a) he does not use his conscience; (b) God does not speak to him for automatic obedience; (c) evil spirits take the opportunity and supernatural voices are substituted for the action of the conscience.” (Penn-Lewis, WOTS,121) The outcome is that the enemy gains more ground in the

believer. And “from this time (forward) the man is not influenced by what he feels or sees, or by what others say, and he closes himself to all questions, and will not reason. This substitution of supernatural

guidance for the action of the conscience explains the deterioration of the moral standard in persons with supernatural experiences, because they have really substituted the direction of evil spirits for

their conscience. They are quite unconscious that their moral standard is lowered, but their conscience has become seared by deliberately ceasing to heed its voice; and by listening to the voices of the teaching spirits, in matters which should be decided by the conscience in respect to their being right or wrong, good or evil.” (Penn-Lewis, WOTS,121-22 )'  The Spiritual Man- by Watchman Nee

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

Common Misunderstandings and the Work of the Holy Spirit

How truly easy it is to be deceived. Being led by sensations rather than truth is so easy. Allowing our senses to determine our walk with Christ is a huge mistake. We are allowed to experience horrific things- mentally, spiritually, physically and all our senses will scream out we don't deserve to be treated this way. It is our will with God's will that must overlook our senses and believe when we have NO reason by all outward appearances to believe that all things WILL work together for good, if we love God.

Rom_8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

'The Work of the Holy Spirit

Those believers are numberless who have plunged into passivity and enslavement because of not understanding the work of the Holy Spirit.

What follows are some of the most common misunderstandings.

1. Obey the Holy Spirit.

 Believers think Acts 5.32 suggests that they must obey the Holy Spirit—“the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

(Act 5:32  And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. )

But they fail, according to the command given in the Bible, to test all the spirits to see if they are of truth or of error (1 John 4.1,6 ).

(1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 

1Jn 4:6  We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.)

They instead accept as being the Holy Spirit every spirit which comes to them. They think this obedience must be highly pleasing to God. What they do not know is that the Scripture here does not teach us to obey the Holy Spirit but to obey God the Father through the Spirit.

In verse 29 of Acts 5 the Apostles when under questioning by the council replied that they “must obey God.”

(Act 5:29  Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.)

Should anyone make God the Spirit his object of obedience and forget God the Father he tends to obey the spirit in him or around him instead of obeying through the Holy Spirit the Father Who is in heaven.

This will set him on the road to passivity and in addition provide the evil spirits the chance for counterfeit. Overstepping the bounds of the Word of God ushers in countless perils!'  Excerpt 'The Spiritual Man- Watchman Nee

More tomorrow continuing with common misunderstandings and the Work of the Holy Spirit.

All by the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!