YIELD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
YIELD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. –Acts 7:51
The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost to enable us to be witness and disciple-makers in Jesus authority (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). This is His call upon our lives and we do not want to be like the “fathers” Stephen was talking about and be “stiff-necked people” and “resist the Holy Spirit” as He is speaking to us, guiding us, prompting us and desiring to work in and through us. Yet as followers of Jesus we can quench the Holy Spirit in our lives (I Thessalonians 5:19). That would be like quenching a fire by dowsing water upon it. Our sin will quench the Holy Spirit of God and also grieve Him (Ephesians 4:30). Yes, the Holy Spirit grieves over sin in our lives. Oh, let us not cause Him to grieve! Let us not quench His desires in and through our lives. Let us be clean temples for Him that glorifies God. Let me share what God has put on my heart…
April 2020
I have been pondering trees. Take a tree and lay it down. Now stand next to the trunk on the root end. Look at all the branches and branches that come off branches that come off branches… As you stand there looking at those branches think of that tree laid down through the corridor of time and the trunk where you are standing represents one of the Apostles. Look at all the branches of disciples down through that corridor of time right to my time.
Thinking about my life and how it honors or doesn’t honor my Lord had me thinking about the tree of my life. Jesus said to the man that He healed in a two part process— “What do you see.” The man responded— “I see man walking around as trees…” That statement caught my attention, because that is what men are supposed to be. “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that wins souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30). We are to be trees of life—“like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does” (Psalm 1:3).
So what kind of “tree” am I? Do I just have a trunk jetting toward the sky or do I have branches growing. Not only branches growing from the trunk, but branches that are producing branches that are producing branches… I am concerned that I do not have branches that are producing branches. Not intentional anyway. Not as a strategy. Not according to the obedient disciple of Matthew 28:19-20. The COVID19 was upon us and I was thinking I do not want to go back to what was considered “normal” at New Hope. And then the invite came from Lifeway…
Lifeway Mission International is a DMM (Disciple Making Movement). I had been connected with them for years and then disconnected. What a mistake. God has moved mightily in this DMM network. I am overjoyed that my Lord reconnected me in His time and it is for such a time as this. I would invite all you who read this to join in what God is doing. The church in the U.S. is in decline and God is doing something new here in the U.S. If you are interested in becoming a part of His movement, please contact me. I am excited about what He is starting here in New England… yes, in New England in this United States! Here what He is starting to do… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJq1N4PiH28
Dear Father, yes I desire to put the sails up and may Your Holy Spirit strongly blow those sails to make disciples that make disciples that make disciples… bearing much fruit for Your glory. May this be so in the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the authority of Jesus.