come, Holy Spirit

I am so grateful for this online journal – whether it is read a great deal or not is of little importance at this time – it is a place to muse.

I have been reading the gospel of John – at the moment chapters 4 and 5 and have been deeply moved thinking about the zao hydor – the living water which is part of the Gift of God of which Jesus is speaking about to the woman by the well (John 4:10).  He’s telling her that there’s so much more than her drab existence – her dependency on men – the religious tug 0’war between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Look up!  Look up!  Look up!  He’s telling her that there is the Spirit of the Lord who can dwell in her and turn her world upside down.

He announces to her that He is the Messiah and the source of living water, a well springing up from within that leads all the way to eternal life.  Everything in this life for which we clamor – all the cheap bargains and hustles and betrayals with which we absorb ourselves  – nothing compares to his zesty, bubbly water which He gives freely.  She gets it and leaves the water jug in her joy – to run to a bunch of other Samaritans who get sold on the number one surpassing greatness of Jesus to all else and declare Him the Savior of the world.

Chapter 5 gives us a picture of more of these living water encounters.  Now a man is by a pool having been laid up and miserable for 38 years.  He’s trying to take the cure from the waters of the pool of grace (Bethesda), but he has the Living Pool of Grace right by him who contains the stirred up, healing waters in His very Person, His monumentally compassionate heart. ” Just encounter me and you will be well.”  He is saying,  “I am the Living Waters.  I have the Living Water.  Look up!  Look up!  Look up!”

If we do not have the Spirit of Christ, we do not have Christ.  (Romans 8:9)  And if we have the Spirit of Christ, it changes everything – what we desire, what we crave, how well we weather struggle, how we love others…everything changes because we have Him in us and His holiness begins to take over.  The whining goes, the unforgiveness goes, the petty quarrels, the abandonments, the looking to fleshly pleasures – it all goes and sweetness begins to pervade.  Strength and sweetness, patience and truth.

John Wesley was not a bad man.  He was a PK (pastor’s kid) and a good one (despite some of the nonsense in Georgia).  He tried so hard to do right.  In fact, that was his problem.  His efforts were his efforts.  He did not know Christ by the Spirit for a while.  He only knew how to grit his teeth and try to be good.  Wesley said:

“I did go this way for many years as many in this place (Oxford) can testify; using diligence to avoid all evil, and to have a conscience void of offence; redeeming the time; buying up every opportunity of doing all good to all people; constantly and carefully using all the public and all the private means of grace; endeavoring after a steady seriousness of behavior at all times, and in all places; and as God is my record, before whom I stand, doing all this in sincerity; having a real design to serve God; a hearty desire to do his will in all things; to please him who had called me to “fight the good fight,” and to “lay hold of eternal life.”  Yet my own conscience bears me witness in the Holy Ghost, that all this time I was but almost a Christian.”  – from The Almost Christian, I.13

Without the Spirit of Christ, we do not have Christ – pray for the Spirit and everything changes as we get in stride with our sweet Lord.  This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  It is the anointing.  Without it, we have not yet begun to live the Christian life.  Be filled.

Tags: charismatic ministry, Holy Spirit baptism, John 4, John 5, John Wesley