3. Spirit-controlled (Ephesians 5:18; Galations
5:16; Acts 6:5)
When the disciples walked with Jesus, they
literally walked with Him! They woke up in
the morning, looked at Jesus, and thought, "Today, I'm with
Him!" In our day, in the Church
Age, God has left us the Holy Spirit, the One who comes alongside of us to help
us, to comfort, to convict, to guide, and most importantly, to manifest the
Person and Power and Purity and Presence of Jesus in, through, and around
us.
It is only the Christian who is
filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit who can please God. The fleshly, natural, carnal Christian cannot
please God. Only the spiritual man,
empowered by God's Spirit, can carry out the will of the Father. At salvation we get all of the Spirit of
God. The appropriate question then, for
the believer is not "Do you have the Spirit" but "Does the
Spirit have you?"
In the great Shantung Revival in
China, what some historians call the greatest revival and spiritual awakening
of Southern Baptist history, Martha Franks, Bertha Smith and others witnessed
that a key to that mighty move of God was when many believers realized that
they were not filled with the Spirit of God: He was not able to flow out of
their lives (John 7:37-39) because self was on the throne instead of
Jesus. The Spirit is poured out when
Jesus is on the throne! Bertha Smith
wrote, "If He sees that we are clean, and that He is in complete
possession of us, He will fill us just as He filled the tabernacle and the
Jerusalem temple when they were dedicated to Him."
Am I filled by the Spirit of
God? Am I walking under His direction
and in submission to His leading? Smith
said that "there can be no fullness of the Spirit without a life of
yieldedness." Am I yielded to Him? Am I resting in His ability?
4. Fruit-bearing (John 15:8,16)
In the Old Testament, the Lord
filled His house with His glory. And
that glory evoked tremendous awe and worship from His people. After God later removed His glory, it was not
until Jesus Christ came to this earth that the glory returned. Then, just before He went back to the Father,
Jesus explained how that glory would remain in this world: "This is how My
Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My
disciples" (John 15:8.) Today the
temple of the Lord is filled with glory through the process of fruit-bearing. Those Christians who are fruit-bearing disciples
bring the Father glory.
First, we can bear the fruit of
godly character. As the Spirit controls
us, He produces the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22-23) and the fruit of
righteous living through our lives. So,
when you bear patience, joy, love, gentleness, and when you obey God, the
temple is filled with glory. Second, as
you give witness to others of Christ's work, you are empowered to be His
witness, leading others to Christ and then helping them to be His disciples,
God is glorified. It is this process of
making disciples of other people, taking converts and teaching them to obey, to
walk with Jesus in the details of life, that brings the Father glory. And is that not the simple call of Jesus? Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Matthew 4:19 gives us this picture of disciples. They are abiding in the Word of God, that is,
they hear and appropriate what Jesus says.
Then, they are obedient, and their obedience is immediate. They are responsive to the person of Christ,
as today we are to be responsive to the Spirit of God. And they embark on the journey of becoming
fruit-bearing disciples, fishers of men.
Oh, Father, bring Yourself glory in and through our
lives. Teach us to be Your
disciples. And make us Your vessels
whom You use to make disciples both here
and around the world. And keep our nose
to that mandate. We love you. Thank you that as we obey you, you will make
us know you more and more. To your name
be glory.
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