March 2012
Spirit Life
03.01.2012

“Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled. For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened” (Luke 6: 51-52, NKJV).

For every season in our spiritual journey, corresponding revelation from the Lord flows into our lives, providing opportunities to expand beyond the norm and experience more of God’s supernatural involvement. The Lord’s Kingdom advances in ways we have not begun to fathom but at the very least His power appears daily in miraculous and supernatural outcomes for those who believe Him.

Jesus’ disciples returned from ministering in two-man teams as the Lord had sent them and were with Him the day five thousand-plus people were fed after Jesus blessed five loaves of bread and two fishes. Obviously, for them, progressing from their own supernatural experiences in ministry to the multiplied supply of bread and fish for the multitudes was not a simple matter. The limitation for their hearts were hardened . . . their understanding, frustrated.

Despite a close relationship with Jesus, the disciples struggled to believe. Their understanding was limited. Like them, we hesitate when the Spirit lays claim to something we cannot explain intellectually or that might cost us reputation-wise in the community. The reason of course for hesitation is . . . a hardened heart; we mentally overrule what we do not understand.

But think . . . do we understand salvation or eternal life? No, we accept and believe those by faith. Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

The Lord reveals truth via the agent of the Holy Spirit and we receive the spirit’s ministryspiritually, through the spirit (heart) within each person. This is the way the spirit life works . . . the only way. His gift of truth can also be quenched (refused) and sadly, panicked prayer for a miracle in crisis times is the extent, the human estimation of, God’s supernatural power that we are open to receive. Crisis-time miracles are much less than the daily expressions of miraculous and supernatural power the Lord gives.

The miraculous power of God is supernatural and the more we agree with the power of that, the more we will have that!  Life in the Spirit, hearing from the Lord and receiving from Him miraculously and supernaturally, resists religion. The “religious” mind is legalistic, harsh, hard, rigid, demanding, hypocritical, judgmental, critical, and, above all, unbelieving. Religion is a soul experience! Christianity is a relationship.

Unlike adults, children are especially open to spiritual truth. Their hearts are softened to receive from God more than we realize—young hearts are accepting and innocent of prejudice, doctrine or habit. In other words, children respond to the spirit life “as a little child.” Children are naturally open to the Spirit because they are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, a fact that includes their spiritual capacity to believe divine truth and receive supernatural expressions from God. If we tapped into what they hear, we would be amazed.

In our ministry, discipleship includes the spirit life. I encourage you: Teach the Word. Teach understanding but also teach believing. Pray in the Spirit. Encourage others to do the same. Those you disciple are blessed to be taught the spirit life; the human spirit must be nourished in order to mature spiritually. Prayerfully acknowledge that you need the Spirit of God to overshadow and energize your human spirit. Your spirit life – your life in the Spirit – is critical to life in these end times when the Lord has appointed His people to discern spiritually!

“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1Corinthians 2:13-14).

Amen!