Here are some thoughts I wrote down this week, on what the GLORY of God is, and Understanding the Holy Spirit – inspirations from Piper, Munroe, with a little bit of my own, sprinkled in:
Glory – what is it? John Piper says it is the public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God (based on Is. 6 – where the angels sing, Holy Holy Holy Holy is…, the whole earth is filled with his glory). They are describing his goodness, perfection, love, radiance – made manifest for all of us to bear witness to it.
We will behold – we will see, feel, be changed by – his glory – His Godly attributes in fullness, on display.
Understanding the Holy Spirit – according to one of our favorite (now late) preachers of deep faith, Dr. Myles Munroe:
Acts 1:1-6 (written by Luke) John baptized you in water but in a few days you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls the HS “the promise of the Father” – relating to the 1st promise the Father made in Gen. 3:15 What Adam lost when he first sinned was the Holy Spirit. He lost the Kingdom of God – The King’s dominion. The dominion of the rulership of God. When you lose the Holy Spirit, you lose the kingdom. When Adam lost the kingdom, he lost the dominion over the earth. So He made a promise.
Matthew 4:17 Jesus, right after his own baptism, was baptized by the HS (it descended upon him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven, saying, You are my Son, My Beloved! In you I am well pleased and find delight!” – Luke 3:22). In his first sermon preached after his 40 days in the wilderness, he declared – Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near (is at hand). He was speaking of himself, for he was the only carrier of the fulness of the Holy Spirit. All of the Kingdom was IN him. He was FILLED with it without measure. And his primary message was on the Holy Spirit – the Kingdom of God.
Man’s #1 need, he communicated, is the Kingdom.
The Spirit of God – all of the Holy Spirit and his fruit.
Law enforcement are equipped to handle broken laws. Crimes committed. But the only person equipped to handle SIN, is the Holy Spirit. We may have information, or news of sin and the affects of sin in this world, but our solution is not in simply enforcing laws, or in behavior modification. It is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. To have his Spirit inside of our bodies.
Spirit is invisible. It cannot contain blood. A physical body must be the agent or carrier of blood. Since blood is the only thing that can truly free and forgive us of sin, according to the way God established covenant from the beginning of time. We’ve either got to shed the blood of animals, or accept the blood of Jesus as our new and improved sacrifice for sin – of our past, present and future.
*(My view: there is another sacrifice of blood and that is in the act of suicide…in essence, a physical declaration that Christ’s blood was insufficient to free you from your sin or pain. His sacrifice did not fully do its work, and therefore the sin and shame and pain inside became so overwhelming that a lie was believed – the lie that spoke, not even Jesus and his blood and his resurrection power is enough to bring hope for a new start, forgiveness, or relief. This is also the lie believed by those who cut themselves. They are deceived. The blood cutters release out of their body releases only temporary relief. It is a counterfeit, and a distortion or perversion of the truth that is found in the shedding of Jesus’ truly cleansing blood).
Jesus said it’s better that I go, so that the Holy Spirit in me can come out of me when I leave, and go – or be released – into YOUR bodies. But he cannot fill an unholy body. So Jesus imparted the Spirit to US, but not until His work was finished – that is, until his body was used by the Holy Spirit until the job was completed in Him. He had to let the work be finished in Him and leave his earthly body before the Holy Spirit was let out of him and able to enter into OUR bodies. Jesus was saying – you need MY body to prepare YOUR body. My blood to completely cleanse your sin, your body of its weakness, sickness and sin.
So, the promise of the Father from Gen.3:15 was fulfilled – that He would restore what was lost – the Spirit of God. The baby came through a woman and he was spotless, he shed his blood unto death. And now we have His blood that cleansed us (past tense).
Why was blood necessary to cleanse us? By Moses’ law, nearly everything was made pure by blood. The tabernacle and all the things in it were mere copies of the things of heaven and had to be purified by blood. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. (Heb.9:22). He entered into heaven, and appeared before God on our behalf. Not to offer himself over and over and over, like Priests used to do w/animals. vs. 26 – but now ONCE for ALL time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.
*Jesus tells us about his Kingdom & says that it will begin when we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We are living in the Kingdom of God now – the power of the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God will BEGIN when you rec’v the power of the HS. To exercise the power available in the Kingdom of God, we must release the power of the HS.
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