Wednesday, July 20, 2016

How To Avoid The Pain Of Bad Choices - Wait On The Lord - Yield To The Spirit

My Utmost For His Highest
 
Those who wait on the Lord…shall walk and not faint. —Isaiah 40:31
 
“When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up “with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality. […] Having the reality of God’s presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence.”  CHAMBERS
 
When Jesus gave instruction to His disciples before He ascended into heaven after His resurrection, (Acts 1:4-5) “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”  The disciples had been with Jesus in His absence, but in His absence God was going to send the Spirit.  They should not attempt to do anything until they had the Spirit to help.  (John 14:26) “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”  The success of this new life that we live is totally dependent upon the Spirit of God.  Like electricity in a light bulb, the Spirit enables us to live and do as God has purposed.  (John 15:5) “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” 
 
The disciples had been trained for three years.  They knew a lot but were incapable of doing anything, spiritually speaking, on their own.  And so it is with us.  We must “switch” the Holy Spirit on in our lives. Let His light shine in us. We must wait on, yield to, the Lord through the Spirit and then we can walk and not faint.  We can live and do in the manner that God has purposed.  We do not get to make the rules for our new lives, God, the creator, has already done that.  The mess we call the natural life happened because the creation thought it knew better than the Creator.  There were two buzzards sitting on a limb.  They were waiting for something to die.  And they waited.  Finally one said, “I am tired of waiting, I am going to go kill something!”  When we try to do it on our own, it never ends well.  And we then add the complication of trying to fix what we caused to happen because we did not want to wait on God.  I see the pain that people endure from the consequences of their unwillingness to wait, every day. Wait. CHARLEY

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