I’m being chased. Recently, all of the material I’ve been reading (from four different books mind you) and listening to have been focused around a single theme: being filled with the spirit. I took a break from reading The King’s Daughter by Diana Hagee but picked it up again the day before yesterday. The next chapter in the book is entitled “The Holy Spirit and Me” There’s a prayer at the end of the chapter that I would like to share you.
Father, I ask that You reveal Yourself to me in a way I have never known before. If there is something You have for me that I have not expierenced, then show me now. I ask You to pour Your Holy Spirit into my heart. With this infilling, I ask you to impart in me the passion to witness as Your disciples did on the day of pentecost. I ask that You help me with my prayer life, lifting me to levels far beyond my natural strength and understanding. When I pray, I want the authority and the power of the living God. Guide me through Your Holy Spirit, in the path You would have me go. Father, I ask that you pour into my heart a love so rich that it can be described only as agape love. A love that is so pure that its only source can be the throne of the living God. Lord, if htere is more of You, then I want to have it. Amen.
Here are also a couple of things that I underlined in the chapter that really caught my attention:
1. First, the infilling of the Holy Spirit gives us added powere to be effective witnesses. Second, the Holy Spirit gives us the powere to pray according to the will of God. And third, the Holy Spirit becomes our guide and Teacher when we read the Word of God.
2. Salvation is your foundation. The infilling of the Holy Spiritand the fruit of the Spirit build your spiritual house. You live in this house; all of these parts make your Christian walk functional.
3. This is the response of an Orthodox rabbi when asked the question ‘What do you believe about the Word of God?’
“The Word of God is the protoplasm of all living things. It is the basis of all creation. The Word was spoken and life was. There is also a dynamic to the Word. It knows what you need at any given time. In Hebrew writing, the letters leap upward like cloven tongues of fire. This represents the dynamics of the Word. It is never stagnant. That is why you can read something one day and it means one thing to you, and you read the same passage of Scripture nthe next day and it means something totally different. It meets the needs of the individual at any given time. The Word has power. The Word has discernment. The Word of God is alive.”
If an Orthodox rabbi can feel so fervently about the lifing Word of God, how much more should we, as Christians know this fervor? “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us;” he taught us what to do and gave us the power to do it. If we are to be effective tools for a living God, we need to read his living and life giving Word and let His Spirit fill our lives like “a hand in a glove” so that we can do what we are being directed to do.
neumatikos 