I Need a Larger Bottle!

Recently,  I've been a bit more as some writers call it "inside my own head" rather than writing my thoughts out.  That coupled with some pretty busy days and weeks, I have neglected my writings as of late...I am sad it has been so long but so is life.

 With that said, I believe I am back in the saddle and ready to get back to the constant writing I have become accustomed to.  Yesterday, I was struck by something I considered to be pretty profound.  It may just be me, but for me it has made a world of difference in the way in which I view myself in light of my need for the Holy Spirit.

  I was reading in a book titled The Counselor: Straight Talk About the Holy Spirit by A.W. Tozer, when I came across this awesome bit of writing.

"Dr. AB Simpson used an illustration which was about as good as any I ever heard.  He said, 'Being filled with the fullness of God is like a bottle in the ocean.  You take the cork out of the bottle and sink it in the ocean, and you have the bottle completely full of ocean.  The bottle is in the ocean, and the ocean is in the bottle.  The ocean contains the bottle, but the bottle contains only a little bit of the ocean.  So it is with a Christian'.  We are filled unto the fullness of God, but, of course, we cannot contain all of God because God contains us; but we can have all of God that we can contain.  If we only knew it, we could enlarge our vessel.  The vessel gets bigger as we go on with God" (Page 65).


 This struck me so hard yesterday because I always pictured it kind of like a glass under the faucet, where the overflow of God could happen when the faucet was turned on.  Yet, with this idea, we can spill out some of our Jesus and some of our Spirit power...not so with the ocean!  When seen through our being contained an surrounded by the ocean of the Spirit it changes things!  The overflow is then not limited to God but our ability to receive!

  I realized that all along, I had been praying the wrong thing...rather than praying for His Spirit to overflow in me, I should have been praying for Him to enlarge my bottle, so as I can be able to receive more of Himself.  I don't want to settle for the overflow of a small glass, I desire to be a HUGE basin drowned in the ocean of God!

  It's such a soothing thought that there is so much more to God than we sometimes think.  Our minds try to rationalize God, minimize God but He is a vast ocean containing several millions of Christians and His desire is that we would enlarge our bottles so we can receive even more of Himself!

  WOW!  I hope this hits some of you the way it hit me, because it is a sweet, sweet revelation!

Children of the Wind

  In Scripture, the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as "Wind" or "like the wind".  I love this picture because the wind is a mysterious force.  We can feel it, we can see it's effects, but it is invisible.

  The Spirit is much like the wind.  He is powerful, mighty and we can see his works and might.  We see the effects of the Spirit, yet he is invisible.

  In the book of John, we see an exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus on the issue of being born again.  Nicodemus is perplexed by the idea of a new birth or being born again and so Jesus is explaining it in a simpler way.  He says:

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8 ESV)


  Wind is powerful.  Wind is strong.  The wind changes things, yet people have no idea where it came from or how it came about...it just happens.  For us who have witnessed a storm, or any wind moving, bending or changing things, this is easy to accept.

  The same is true for everyone who is born of the Spirit.

  The Spirit is powerful.  The Spirit is strong.  The Spirit changes things, yet people have no idea where it came from or how it came about...it just happens.

  The world sees a drug addict turn to Jesus and lives the rest of their life free from addiction.  The man addicted to porn encounters Jesus and never looks at porn again.  The angry woman, rejected by her earthly father despises marriage, meets Jesus and her heart is changed.  The sinner meets Jesus, is changed and releases the burden of their sin.

  Born again.  Change.  New Birth.  New creation.  All made possible by the death of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

  The word for spirit in this passage is also the word for wind.  When you see the word wind in the beginning of the passage, it is the same word used for Spirit...the exact same one.  So, when we are children of the Heavenly wind, that is the Spirit we change.  We don't go back in our mother's womb.  We don't get a new physical birth.  We are born of the Spirit of God.  When this happens, we change.  Our nature has shifted from sinner to saved.  Our chains have been released from Sin and now we can take up Jesus burden, which is lighter.

  The wind is mysterious, so is the Spirit.  The wind can be dangerous, so can the Spirit.  The wind is unexpected, so is the Spirit.  The wind doesn't warn you when it will make a change, the Spirit doesn't always.  The Spirit in the believer is one of the most amazing things about God, that he would choose to dwell in us.  That he would choose to give us the power to live the Christian life.   That He would teach us by His Spirit.  It's amazing.  I am a child of the wind, the Spirit of the living God.

BEWARE: sometimes the wind makes changes we don't like.  Breaks things we have become accustomed to in life.  The Spirit does the same.  He may move us to change.  He will give us new desires, desires to read His Word, desires to serve Him only. Will you yield to His promptings?  Will I yield to His promptings?  The wind doesn't hold back, neither does the Spirit.  Are we willing to ride the winds of change that the Spirit will bring to our hearts?  Will we release our burdens and take His upon us?

  Being a child of the wind means we too are dangerous, we too have power...not of our own but from Him.  We are not weak robots who are on this earth to simply go to church once a week and call that our "religious requirement".  We are to be Warriors, listening for where the wind (The Spirit) would have us go.  Speak to those who need his touch.  Pray for those who need his healing. 

  Being a child of the Wind is an adventure, an exciting ride.  Am I ready?  Are you ready?

Walk By The Spirit- By Marv Nelson

  One of the things I desire to do as a follower of Christ is to "Walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16 ESV; Romans 8:4ESV) and not walk according to my sinful, fleshly desires.  This hit me awhile back as I was writing my first book and I took an entire chapter to discuss the importance of walking in the Spirit.  Here is a snippet:

"I fear that we [most Christians] have lost touch with the reality of the Holy Spirit and His power in our lives.  It’s like we have this huge power source that we don’t tap into.  We allow ourselves to run on candle light when we could turn on our lights with electricity instead. 

  That scenario sounds ludicrous, because it is.  However, when we don’t open our lives for God the Holy Spirit to enter and change us, we are simply people trying to “do” this Christian life with no power.  Brennan Manning is coined for saying: “If all we do is do, all we do is dodo”.  Meaning if all we do in our lives is try to do, it will all end up being junk in the end.  This goes for the lives of teens as well. 

 

   If we teach them to keep on keeping on by themselves sans the Holy Spirit, they will strive and strive and go nowhere in their relationships with God and others.  This then will create disillusionment, discontentment and a bitter taste of God in their mouths.  When we teach our teens to “do” the Christian life without the Holy Spirit, we are teaching religion.  Young men and women are tired of religion because it creates so much havoc.  They need a relationship." (Pinocchio Vs. The Real Boy- Chapter 6)

  I believe this lack of teaching on the Holy Spirit and our yielding over to him has turned many a Christian into one of these two things: A.) Prideful- because by their good doing, they think they've "arrived" or

B.) Saddened by their inability to measure up, so they leave the church.

  The teaching on and the living by the Holy Spirit is crucial to the life of a believer.  We do not have a religion that forces us to do good things.  Rather, we have a good Father who has provided us with the Holy Spirit, who when yielded to will create within us the desire to do what is right because He is daily Sanctifying us, and He is daily transforming us.

  The questions we must ask of ourselves then is this: "Am I living a life yielded to the Holy Spirit?" and "Am I teaching by word and action to my children (or my community) what it means to be yielded over to the Holy Spirit?"

  Part of our sin nature wants us to remain as we are, our flesh wages constant war upon us to reject our yielding to the Holy Spirit.  Christ has died for our sins folks!  It's done, His Blood has given us the power to conquer Satan, sin and death.  Must we repent and turn from our sins?  YES!  We also must then yield our lives to the Spirit and allow Him to guide our lives through the Word and through Prayer!

  Some of you reading this may ask: how do I know if I'm living a yielded life?  What does it look like essentially?  A couple things happen: The Holy Spirit reveals our sin, especially the buried-covered-up-even- to-our-eyes sins.  Next, we feel a deep desire to change, then third, we give up control of our desires, future, pains and dreams over to the Spirit and lastly we listen to His Voice through the Word and in Prayer.

Here's another excerpt from Pinocchio Vs. The Real Boy- Chapter 6

 

"How do we even realize we have junk and sin and pain and emotional trash in our lives?  The Holy Spirit reveals it to us.  Think also of Pinocchio, he was unaware of his wooden living, he was woefully unaware of his shortcomings and wrongdoings.  He needed a revealer to show him his mess-ups and junk in his life.  That task fell to Jiminy Cricket who found himself badgering Pinocchio about his wrongdoings.  Jiminy was there to keep Pinocchio on the journey of becoming a real boy but found himself being ignored.  This is a similar role of the Holy Spirit to us, he reveals the stuff laid deep in our hearts and calls us to repentance.  The Holy Spirit is the one who lives in us to cause us to become real".   

  Are you hearing what the Lord is revealing to you?  How can you yield more of yourself to the Spirit of God?

Marv Nelson

ACAC Middle School Pastor

 

The Holy Spirit Part# 1

I'm putting together a series on the Holy Spirit for my Middle Schoolers and desired to see what people think of the Holy Spirit.  I asked my facebook/twitter friends to share their thoughts, those thoughts are below.  It's interesting to see other people's perspective on God, especially their perspective on the Person of The Holy Spirit.

  Soon, I will reflect across these ideas, and work to put a working theology suitable for Teens together in my 8 week series on the Holy Spirit.  Track with me on this fun journey and read what people think!

Marvin Nelson- For Blog post: When you hear the words "Holy Spirit" what do you think of? *please reply*



Douglas C Taylor- seriously, the first image that pops into my head, is a whirlwind of power. I can see it coming enveloping and there is nothing I can do but be moved and be amazed to follow. Have I had that happen? Not really, but close enough to think it possible.


Dara Macek Rodney- overwhelming uncontrollable power over me, revelation in confusion


 Cat Ross Miller yes please.... :-)


Roger Walburn- Wind... blowing thru tress... And Billy Graham's quote: you can't see the wind, but you can see the effects of the wind...


Kelly Hines Walburn- invisible


 Larry Rhoads- since no one said this yet, i will put the sarcastic answer whiskey. to be honest, i think of an aura.


Myiah Davis- the spirit of god that lives in my heart all the time (my mom said that)


Annette Exley- The indwelling presence of God.
 
Marvin Nelson -What do you think about the Holy Spirit?


David Ketter- If it were not for his work, Jesus' blood would never have been applied to me, I would still not have power to do good, I would be terribly undiscerning, I would have no gifts for ministry and my preaching would have no power or effectiveness. In other words, I am grateful for him and his amazing work.

 Angela Corey- absolutely and totally crucial to living in power in every day life. The words says he has been sent as the the one who will convict and teach us all things since Christ has gone. NO Holy Spirit, no conviction, no conviction, no true repentance, no real repentance, no real salvation! Crucial to salvation and the growth required of Christians!

A Passion for God

 I am part of a denomination with a rich heritage and wonderful Pastors have been born out of this denomination.  A.W. Tozer was one of those wonderful Pastors.  He was a Pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance for many years, authored many books, spoke at numerous college chapel services and led many people to the Person of Jesus Christ.

    I recently read a Biography of A.W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett titled: A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A.W. Tozer.  This recent book on A.W.'s life has deeply impacted me and reminded me not only of who A.W. was, nor simply about my rich heritage in the C&MA but it also deeply impacted me about my own personal yeilding to the Holy Spirit.

  Last week and for several weeks prior I noticed a bit of a short fuse within myself.  I was getting easily angered and was being really grumpy with my wife and 1 year old son.  I'm normally not like this, so I was curous as to what was going on within myself.  It was in the midst of this whirlwind of questions I was reading this book on the life of A.W. Tozer. 

  Seeing Tozer's utter devotion to Christ and his whole-hearted desire to be completely yeiled to the Spirit of the living God convicted me.  I noticed I was doing the work of the ministry without the Holy Spirit's presence.  I was going it alone so to speak and was putting my head down to get the "work done" but I was not fully yielding to the Spirit of God. 

  I desire to be a man filled with the Holy Spirit, having His life feed me, empower me, teach me, illuminate mysteries to me and love me.  I didn't realize how utterly unfilled I was until I saw a man who was so very filled.  A.W. Tozer was not perfect, in fact he neglected his family and wife way too often, but he was a man that was yeilded to the Spirit of God!

  When I was in college I learned numerous things about the Holy Spirit, things I had never been taught before and these new learnings caused me to understand the importance of a yeilded life.  For some reason, the past few months I had forgotten those lessons.

  In the Christian walk, nothing is more important than yeilding ourselves to the power of the Spirit of God.  Christ has accomplished tons on the cross and sending us the Spirit was the best earthly accomplishment.  Having the Spirit of God free to reign in us is incalculable in its value, and huge in its effect on our lives and our worlds.

   The only way to live the Christian the way we were always meant to is by yeilding to the Spirit of God, giving Him the drivers seat in your life and letting Him take you where He wants you.

  I want to live a yeilded life, no more doing it on my own, no more getting grumpy and losing the joy of the Lord!