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Releasing the River

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Righteousness will go before Him and make His footsteps a way. Psalm 85:13 (ESV)

It’s that time again. January rolls around each year with an invitation to take stock of our lives. And the same question raises a hopeful challenge. What can I do differently this year that will make my life better?

We have great intentions . . . and usually less than great results.

Not this year. Not for me, anyway. This year I have high expectations, because I’m basing my resolutions on believing God, not on my own works. And faith—real, present, active, living faith—ushers us into the grace and power of God.

Through him [Jesus] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:2

I could stand to witness a little glory, couldn’t you?

Last week we looked at God’s promise to pour out water on a thirsty land. My heart leapt to see so many people acknowledge their thirst! We desperately need God to release the river of life.

As we join together to pray for His outpouring, I challenge you to consider another important truth revealed in our opening scripture.

Righteousness will go before Him and make His footsteps a way. Psalm 85:13

It reminds me of Hebrews 12:14 (NIV).

Make every effort . . . to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Whether we desire to embrace it or not, righteousness marks the path of glory. If we want to see God pour out on our thirsty land, we’ve got to get on with the business of letting Him sanctify us.

Perhaps you’ll be a little more excited about it when I show you why. You, dear one, carry the power within you that you long to see poured out.

Consider Jesus’ promises to His followers before He ascended into heaven.

“And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49 (ESV)

And what about Acts 1:8?

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Look at how Jesus described that power.

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. John 7:38-39

Do you see it, dear one? The very outpouring we desire from God is already here! It dwells within us waiting to be released. And it promises more than we could even think to ask or imagine of God.

Revel in Ephesians 3:20-21, asking God to penetrate your heart with its truth.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Take it in, beloved.

God is able to do far beyond what you could ask or think. He does it according to the power at work within you.

We’re not waiting for an outpouring from on high, dear one. God has already poured it out through the cross. Now we’re waiting to see the river released from within you and me.

And that’s why righteousness remains so important. The outpouring will come as the people of God embrace their new nature in Christ and become “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19 NIV).

Every sin we hold onto or habit we justify acts as a dam blocking the flow of God’s power on this earth. It’s time we awaken to our true calling, dear one.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:2

When you and I decide to comply, there’s no telling what God will do. Only one thing is certain. It will be more than we can imagine.

Changing Your “Want To”

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“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 NIV

Last week I was reading through a Bible study by Tammie Head called Duty or Delight? In it, she challenged me with this suggestion:

The basic definition for the power of the Holy Spirit means to be able. Please take this in: The “to be able” came to live in you and in me. What if we began calling Him the To-Be-Able instead of the Holy Spirit? Can you imagine how that would change our thinking? We’d no longer be ruled by I can’t because the To-Be-Able can. (p.92)

 That day I wrote in my journal: You are the To-Be-Able to change my want to.

Do you have a “want to” that you’re struggling to overcome, dear one? Is there something in your life God is asking of you that you can’t seem to do because your heart doesn’t agree?

 I think you can probably relate to what I’m talking about. God says . . .

  • Take this step . . . but I don’t want to.
  • Give this to me . . . but I don’t want to.
  • Forgive . . . but I don’t want to.
  • This relationship isn’t good for you; let it go . . . but I don’t want to.
  • Feed my sheep . . . but I don’t want to.
  • This sin is hurting you . . . but I still want it.

And the worst part is that you really want to obey God. You want to please Him, but you can’t seem to follow through. What He’s asking goes against your nature. It doesn’t feel right. So you don’t do what you know you ought to do. Instead, you keep doing what you know you shouldn’t.

I can’t help thinking of Paul’s words in Romans 7:18-20,

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So many of us have good intentions. We really want to please God through obedience, but when it comes right down to it, we find that we can’t. And so we rejoice when we read Paul’s words because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Even the Apostle Paul struggled with sin! This is normal.

And it is.

Scripture makes very clear that we humans are unable to combat the stranglehold of sin’s desires in us. That’s why we need a Savior! And as Christians, we read those verses describing Paul’s struggle and breathe a sigh of relief. Then we use them to justify our own disobedience.

Perhaps we need to read further and discover what else Paul said.

 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24-25

Did he say delivers me? Is it possible to end those habitual cycles of sin? To stop doing those things we know we shouldn’t do? Paul seemed to think so. Notice his use of exclamation points! He could hardly contain his excitement. Let’s read on.

 . . .through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:2-4, NIV 1984

Listen, dear one. If you have put your faith in Jesus and received the gift of His Spirit, you have also received the power to do everything God asks of you. Look at those verses. God sent Jesus as a sin offering, not just to cover our sin, but to conquer the power of sin living in us. He did it so “the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.”

He did it to give you a new nature. His nature.

Jesus didn’t just pay the penalty for your sin, beloved. He also defeated its power. You and I have been given a supernatural ability to obey God. Do you remember what John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus approaching?

 “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

He doesn’t just want to cover or hide it; He wants to remove it altogether.

So how do we let Jesus do what He came to do in us? Romans 8:4 provides the answer: We have to choose to surrender our desires to the Spirit we’ve been given, instead of continuing to follow the natural desires of our flesh. We have to ask our To-Be-Able to change our “want to.”

 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Precious one, the Holy Spirit wants to start changing your desires. Are you ready to give Him permission? I hope so, because He’s ready to reveal Himself in your life. You just may bear witness to God’s power “. . .to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The Greater Gift

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“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:7

Jesus made a profound statement to His confused followers while preparing them for His departure. He told them that He was leaving them for their own good.

Can you imagine their disbelief as they listened to Jesus—the promised Messiah they had waited centuries for—tell them He was leaving them again? They had just gotten started! And to top it off, He said that His departure was for them!

I imagine you and I would have been right where the disciples were: dumbfounded. In fact I know we would be, because we still continue to argue with God’s plan just like they did. We grumble that the disciples had it so much easier than we do. After all, they could see Jesus and touch Him. They were eye witnesses to His miracles! We reason that we can’t be expected to impact the world like they did because their faith grew out of what they saw. We’re simply asked to believe in the unseen.

I suppose it’s a reasonable argument when we consider those facts. Our problem is that we neglect to contemplate all of them.

Let’s consider these Disciples, ordinary men who enjoyed the enviable privilege of ministering along-side Jesus and seeing Him face to face.  

  •          They spent time daily in Jesus’ presence.
  •          They were taught Scripture by the Son of God Himself.
  •          They witnessed miracle after miracle and even performed miracles themselves by His power.

And yet, when an angry mob came to arrest Jesus, “all the disciples deserted him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). Even with all of those things going for them—things we wish we had—when they were faced with something they didn’t understand, all of them turned their backs on the Messiah they claimed they would never deny.

Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you I never will.” Matthew 26:33

We know how that turned out. Peter, so certain that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that he would never disown Him (even if he had to die with Him, verse 35), denied that he even knew Jesus on the night of His trial. Not once, but three times.

The original Disciples had everything we claim we need, and still, they couldn’t stand up against their unseen enemy. Standing side by side with Jesus on this earth didn’t empower them for victory. When push came to shove, they deserted and denied Him.

Do you know what they lacked, dear one? The one precious gift that we have been given.  

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:7

According to Jesus’ own words, we have the greater gift. His death and subsequent return to the Father released the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ. He has sent us the Counselor to guide us into God’s will and empower us for victory.

Jesus walked beside the Disciples; the Spirit dwells within us. People had to fight through the crowds to get near to Jesus; the Spirit is accessible everywhere and at all times. Jesus taught them from the outside; the Spirit teaches and transforms us from within.

What if we decided to actually believe that Jesus’ words to us are true? What if we chose to quit complaining about what we didn’t get to experience with Jesus and start taking hold of what we have available to us in the Spirit He sent us?

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

It wasn’t the fact that they had Jesus for a teacher that ignited the Disciples to risk their lives to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. They stumbled and fell like the rest of us until they received Jesus’ gift. But after He sent them the Holy Spirit, they were empowered to become what they could never be no matter how much time they had spent listening at Jesus’ feet. Steadfast . . . victorious . . . changed.

Let’s spend the next few weeks getting to know the Spirit Jesus sent us. After all, Jesus claimed He was sending Him for our good. Perhaps it’s time we discovered just how good.