I have been giving much thought to the nature of how God's Spirit is at work in our lives. One of the issues that keeps presenting itself to my heart and mind is that we must be careful never to suggest that perhaps we have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit (by us--I mean individually or as a church). We don't possess the Spirit, the Spirit of God takes hold of us. We don't own it...we are gifted by it, as God continues to breathe faithfully into our lives.
But remember...God is free. God is free to send forth God's Spirit in whatever way God desires. The challenge as Christians is to be open to the possibility that God is breathing into lives and situations that we thought were once "godless." We pray for eyes to see the faithful movement of God's breath in this world. It is a breath that isn't contained in the church, but brings life to the church. We are to pray for the sensitivity to God's movement, that the breath of God's Spirit would carry us forth into those places and to those people that God is moving towards. To live by the Spirit is to surrender to the Spirit's freedom to be for the world as "gift" just as the Spirit is to the church as "gift."
Oh yeah...and to be thankful that God is free to breathe whereever and however God chooses to breathe.
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When we think we own the Spirit we begin to define the realm in which we think the Spirit belongs. We begin to speak for the Spirit and place rules/initiations on drawing near to the Spirit...judgments, gracelessness. We must always remember that when Moses asked God who he should say sent him to pharaoh God said, "tell him I AM sent you." The Spirit is...He is always wherever, whenever, however, whoever, whyever He pleases. We must not limit the Spirit's freedom to move about around us, if we do we limit our ability to experience the fullness of freedom in and through Him. We can only be as free as He is free. Not only that, but boxing up God in a nice little package limits our ability to share the true Hope in God which is His ability to Freely Change any and all Lives through Messiah Jesus.
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