The Person With The Spirit Makes Judgments About All Things

1 Corinthians 2:15

“The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,”

1 Cor. 2:14-16…”But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.  For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”

Most Christians who are not led by the Spirit cringe when they realize that your words are somewhat judging them. They find solace and hang on to comments like this one: “Didn't Jesus say not to judge others?”  Or they would say things like, “who are you to judge?” Like a dog with a bone they cannot let go of this verse in the Bible and their stand in their self-righteousness without the Spirit. IT IS SO SAD TO WATCH AND READ SUCH PEOPLE.  

I have to admit that when I first came to know the Lord, I found solace in knowing that Christ Himself said in Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Because I was sealed with the spirit, He led me to stop hanging onto a simple verse and build my life on it. As I let go, I started seeing other verses that I read about but never truly paid attention to them, as if they never entered my mind. I first noticed that God wants us to judge with the Spirit. Then, I was floored when I realized how much Christ judged the people of His time. In fact, I found Him very harsh at times.

Later, I learned it was not because Christ was trying to hurt others, it was the Spirit of God calling things exactly what they were. I could also see how I was thinking like someone with no spiritual understanding looking for Christ to sympathize with them instead of judging them rightly. I had a need for Christ to say things like other human being would, which means you have to downplay what you see to avoid telling the blunt truth to someone. As human being we do not like being told a blunt truth and we do not like facing ourselves, hence why we constantly wear masks in order to protect our fragile ego.

I also understood much later, after God equipped me with the truth and boldness to share His word, when you speak, live and walk in Spirit you cannot control the Holy Spirit. In fact, trying to control the Holy Spirit calling things the way He sees things through you, is a sin. If we try to sympathize with people instead of holding them accountable, we condemn them to hell and we nullify Christ’s work on the cross. Most of the time, we Christians use sympathy instead of the Agape love of Christ.  We also do things as we walk with common sense and self-righteousness, all to avoid righteous judgement and our desperate need to please man.  When we cultivate this state of mind, there is no question about it that we are not living or walking in the Spirit, let alone living a spirit filled life.

I will share a secret with you and you can take it to the bank.  When you find yourself fighting with everything that you are, the idea of being judged, you can bank on it that you are in the flesh. Why? Because the Holy Spirit could care less that someone is making wrong judgment about Him. Furthermore, when you know you are living and walking in the Spirit and all your judgments are flowing through Him, anyone who dares judge you will deal with God. Why? Because once again it is not about you, it is about the Spirit of God in you. In fact, as you mature spiritually in the faith and you are living the Spirit filled life, the Holy Spirit in you, shares the fact this natural person talking about you or with you is simply a fool. And instead of feeling pain for yourself, you take pity on them for their ignorance. What’s more sad is that you are watching someone calling himself or herself a Christian and who’s so devoid of spiritual understanding and complete absence of the Holy Spirit activities, yet they are no wiser of their own situation.

Years ago, I used to be upset at people for lying to my pastors so that they can be promoted or just so they can be held in high esteem by them. One of my pastors made a big mistake that was costly to the Church and his life with God just by listening to people he thought were good Christians. In reality, these people were not. One of them God revealed it to me through a dream and made me confront this person. I used to be so mad when I knew people lied to my pastor. I felt, by lying to a pastor you cause him to make the wrong decision and jeopardize the Church. Later on when God moves to heal my heart because I was mad at these people for lying, He taught me that while it is true these people were wrong, but the onus was on my pastor to be living and walking in the Spirit so that these people would not have prevailed. My pastor would have been led by the Spirit and the actions taken through the Church would have been different.  

The moral of the story is, if you find yourself like a dog with a bone hanging onto Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” If you find yourself putting much more weight on this verse to demand your rights be respected. If you are a pastor and you find ample materials to preach about how we should not judge others, then you have a much bigger problem and you need the Holy Spirit big time.

This is also one of the reasons you see the internet is filled with Christian sites devoted to denounce real Christians, talking about much deeper Christianity. Yet they, in their self-righteousness have felt the need to blast these people’s names all over the internet, denouncing them as false teachers. When in reality, the person who has the site devoted to this so called “unmasking the false prophets” is the one doing Satan’s deed.

It is strange to see that I am not a minister, God has taught me there are many out there with mega ministry without His blessings and some with those mega ministries are saved by the skin of their teeth. He taught me to identify those who are truly false prophets, yet He also taught me to keep these things for myself. If those with internet programs devoted to blast God’s true messengers as being false prophets knew how badly God will judge them, they would shudder right now. While God does not want me to turn what I know into a ministry to unmask anyone, but, He wants me to use it on a one to one basis with people that I know for sure are following the wrong ministers on television.

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Psalm 25:14). Let the Spirit of God takes you to a higher ground and you will see human being has nothing on you.

MATHEW HENRY’S CONCIZE COMMENTARY

”1Cor.2:10-16 God has revealed true wisdom to us by his Spirit. Here is a proof of the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, 2Pe 1:21. In proof of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, observe that he knows all things, and he searches all things, even the deep things of God. No one can know the things of God, but his Holy Spirit, who is one with the Father and the Son, and who makes known Divine mysteries to his church. This is most clear testimony, both to the real Godhead and the distinct person of the Holy Spirit. The apostles were not guided by worldly principles. They had the revelation of these things from the Spirit of God, and the saving impression of them from the same Spirit. These things they declared in plain, simple language, taught by the Holy Spirit, totally different from the affected oratory or enticing words of man's wisdom. The natural man, the wise man of the world, receives not the things of the Spirit of God. The pride of carnal reasoning is really as much opposed to spirituality, as the basest sensuality. The sanctified mind discerns the real beauties of holiness, but the power of discerning and judging about common and natural things is not lost. But the carnal man is a stranger to the principles, and pleasures, and actings of the Divine life. The spiritual man only, is the person to whom God gives the knowledge of his will. How little have any known of the mind of God by natural power! And the apostles were enabled by his Spirit to make known his mind. In the Holy Scriptures, the mind of Christ, and the mind of God in Christ, are fully made known to us. It is the great privilege of Christians, that they have the mind of Christ revealed to them by his Spirit. They experience his sanctifying power in their hearts, and bring forth good fruits in their lives.”

Service and Discipleship God's Way!

As I was reading  today’s Oswald Chambers devotion of March 5, something that I read recalled to mind my post of February 28 entitled “What Is Disciplehsip?” which was a courtesy of the Ransomed Heart devotion book.  I am reminded how I used to find what I thought was joy as I worked for God. This kind of joy used to come with such great emotions of accomplishment and contentment accompanied with a tiny glimpse of pride, all of it was because I was being used by God to reach other souls. Personally, I felt I was living the Christian life. As God started dealing with me, I heard the call and it was such a great time for me. So much joy and serenity accompanied me day in day out as I kept singing “Here I am Lord, this is I, Lord, I have heard you calling in the night.” Once the experience subsided, there was complete silence from God. So once again, I started helping God by trying to get involved in ministry, thinking that I knew exactly what God was calling me for. I had encouragement through a pastor in my Church who wanted to use me in his ministry and he got me involved. Even though I was good at what I was doing, but I kept feeling the nudging of the Holy Spirit. While I could not understand what was wrong, but I certainly felt I was not quite following the path He had in mind for me. But in my stubbornness, and ignorance, not to mention the culture the Church has fostered when it comes to service to God, I felt, it was better to be doing something for God, than to be inactive. 

It was discouraging when God showed me that the pastor was not functioning in the Spirit, since I did not know God better, I still believed that I could make things work. Suffice to say that I found out the hard way that I was WRONG BIG TIME, because God always has a waiting and a training process. This training process comes directly from God and takes us through a period of time in the valleys, or ditches. This training will be directly related through those things that make up our lives, such as financial lost, personal tragedies, life changing moments and so on. Sometimes He uses the result of our own insecurities to get our attention and train us. No matter what, God uses to get us through His University, our soul will always identify with John Bunyan when he wrote The Ebb & Flow of Perception. John said “it seem strange that sometimes God visits his soul with wonderful blessed things. Yet sometimes, afterwards for hours at a time he is filled with such darkness that he could not even remember the comfort that had refreshed him before.”  

I learned through my training process with Him in the wilderness, those wonderful, blessed moments are there to strengthen us and also bless us. It also feels as if God is giving you a bonus, which is an extra dose of grace to see more of Him. The moments of darkness soon after, are there to test us, to work His life through us and to teach us. In those moments of darkness that your soul is soaking in, you have a very tiny idea what Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane must have been like. Those moments of darkness, although extremely agonizing to the soul, build your character, take away your idea of what Salvation is about as your loyalty and understanding shift gears. They make you more spiritual and bring you much closer to God. Best of all, you realize through those dark times, how this Christian life and all that God has put in us through the regeneration process has been a deposit and He uses those moments of darkness and training to impart His life to you. 

The result is that, His life is no longer something dormant in you. You are infused and infected full blown with Salvation as you watch your heart being captured by Him. You know without a doubt that, Salvation is being worked out in you and right before your eyes, every word of the Bible is becoming alive and real within. You KNOW you will never be the same again. You KNOW that you know something other Christians on the sidelines cannot even begin to imagine, unless God takes them there too. Then all of the sudden, those words “FEED MY SHEEP” becomes your mission, your vision, your call, your reality and your very life. No one can take that away from you because your soul KNOWS what Gods KNOWS. Feed my sheep is not just about evangelism; it is not about discipleship, it is all that and much more. It is the Gospel that cost everything to God and Christ, it is a lifestyle and it is for Christians and unbelievers alike.

Christ is no longer a personal savior, He is no longer your master or something here and there. He is so much more as you are watching Him taking over your life as He merges His life with yours. The more He is merged with you, the more you wish He could swallow you up completely so that no trace of what used to be your life would remain. It makes sense because you have tasted something out of this world and you want to become HIM. Through this process, calling yourself His bondservant brings honour to you and it is the best thing you can have for now, until you see Him and serve Him up there. Without Christ becoming much more to us, we go on offering people something that we do not even possess for ourselves. We only have our empty words with our human emotions to convey what we are offering. Without knowing Christ in the depth of your soul and not truly knowing who you are offering to others, you find no problem manipulating people. You feel justified and have no shame in bribing and pushing people toward Christ thinking you are doing Him a service. 

I smiled today while I was reading what Oswald said in today’s devotion. I remember how much I did not understand the call and I was forcing things to work out instead of waiting for God, I was disappointed because I truly believe there was some sort of campaign of service with my name on. I never forgot how God brought me back to reality on March 5^th 2006 when I read this bit of today’s devotion. God was talking to me directly as I read “This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you.” By the time God put the implementation of the call on my life, in motion, I learn, if one did not learn loyalty to His cause which can only be acquired as He shares with one His corporate vision of Salvation, one would easily say no to the call.

One thing for sure, through this training, “FEED MY SHEEP” takes on new meaning because He equips you with the truth and boldness. Here, I am referring to the type of boldness that comes from being broken by Him, not the one that comes with arrogance because we are unbroken.  You gladly feed His sheep His way, because you know Him, then, you know there is no room for compromises. You learn to feed the sheep not with fancy footwork, but by calling things exactly like you see them.  When we do not know God enough, we have our own idea of what it means to say things in love, to a brother or a sister and we have our own idea what it means to encourage others. They come from a worldly interpretation. We translate those things with our own mind instead of the Spirit’s mind. Through the training, you learn when you feed God’s sheep, your loyalty to who God is and His requirements never leave you because you have been merged with Him. So, feeding His sheep becomes an opportunity to glorify God. 

As I learned to flip things around and make it about Him, I no longer get caught up in managing someone else insecurities and expectations. This is the Holy Spirit’s job. As I learned through my training with Him, it is utterly important to die to our own ambitions so that we no longer feel the need to please Him and do things for Him. As we die to ourselves, the Holy Spirit rises up and takes His place to move us to do things for Him. While what I said might sound weird, but it makes the difference between an offering in the flesh and in the Spirit. It makes a difference between what is accepted by God and what is not.  So, besides dying to self, we also need to keep walking in the Spirit. If these things are in place in our lives, then we need not to worry about peoples' expectations, insecurities and fragilities, because everything we do will flow out of Christ and from a place of Agape love. Christ Himself, will set the tone and touch the one who has ears to hear and glorify Himself through it all. 

Sadly, today’s Church model is way too busy doing things their ways to stop and smell the coffee. In a way I understand them, most Churches have become a business and a way for people to rise up in their career path. So, they have to keep bringing money in, and they have to keep bringing more bodies to fill up the pews, at any cost. Through it all they convince themselves God will sort things out because they are working for Him. Christ lived this earth and showed us how it was done. He was never after quantity, but quality. If God was after quantity, then there would not be a need for Salvation the way He put it forth, and everyone on earth would be a shoe-in right away.

As I compared the joy of doing things when I did not know God and the joy of doing things after getting closer to Him, these are completely two different kind of joy. One is man made with our own emotions and the need to somehow pat ourselves on the back. The other one is the Joy of the Lord that is brought on by faith, dependence, love, obedience and living a righteous life before Him for His Glory. It is Heavenly joy that’s why Oswald used the work “perfect fulfillment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing”

The Spirit Of Supplication

By Andrew Murray

"I will pour upon the house of David… the Spirit of grace and of supplications" (Zech. 12:10).

"The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: But the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God" (Rom. 8:26-27).

The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of prayer. He was promised as a "Spirit of grace and supplication," the grace for supplication. Prayer is the breathing of the Spirit in us; power in prayer comes from the power of the Spirit in us, waited on and trusted in. Failure in prayer comes from feebleness of the Spirit’s work in us. Our prayer is the index of the measure of the Spirit’s work in us. To pray aright, the life of the Spirit must be right in us. For praying the effectual, much-availing prayer of the righteous man, everything depends on being full of the Spirit.

Three Lessons in Being Taught to Pray by the Spirit

1. Believe that the Spirit dwells in you (Eph. 1:13). Deep in the inmost recesses of his being, hidden and unfelt, every child of God has the holy, mighty Spirit of God dwelling in him. He knows it by faith, the faith that accepts God’s Word and realizes that of which he sees as yet no sign.

When we quietly believe that in the midst of all our conscious weakness, the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of supplication is dwelling within us for the very purpose of enabling us to pray in such manner and measure as God would have us, our hearts will be filled with hope. We shall be strengthened in the assurance which lies at the very root of a happy and fruitful Christian life, that God has made an abundant provision for our being what He wants us to be. We shall begin to lose our sense of burden and fear and discouragement about our ever praying sufficiently because we see that the Holy Spirit Himself will pray and is praying in us.

2. Beware above everything of grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). If you do, how can He work in you the quiet, trustful, and blessed sense of that union with Christ which makes your prayers well pleasing to the Father? Beware of grieving Him by sin, by unbelief, by selfishness, by unfaithfulness to His voice in conscience, etc. Do not consider it impossible to obey the command, "Grieve not the Spirit." He Himself is the very power of God to make you obedient. The sin that comes up in you against your will, the tendency to sloth or pride or self-will or passion that rises in the flesh, your will can at once reject in the power of the Spirit. Cast your sin upon Christ and His blood, and your communion with God is immediately restored.

Accept each day the Holy Spirit as your leader and life and strength. You can count upon Him to do in your heart all that ought to be done there. The unseen and unfelt One, but known by faith, gives there the love and the faith and the power of obedience you need. He reveals Christ unseen within you as actually your life and strength. Grieve not the Holy Spirit by distrusting Him because you do not feel His presence in you.

3. "Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). While some rest content with a small measure of the Spirit’s working, it is God’s will that we should be filled with the Spirit. Our whole being ought to be entirely yielded up to the Holy Spirit to be possessed and controlled by Him alone. We may count upon and expect the Holy Spirit to take possession and fill us. If we have seen that prayer is the great need of our work and of the Church, if we have desired or resolved to pray more, let us turn to the very source of all power and blessing – let us believe that the Spirit of prayer, even in His fullness is for us.

It is to the Father we pray, and from whom we expect the answer. It is in the merit and name and life of the Son as we abide in Him and He in us, that we trust to be heard. But have we understood that in the Holy Trinity all the Three Persons have an equal place in prayer and that the faith in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable as the faith in the Father and the Son? As much as prayer must be to the Father and through the Son, it must be by the Spirit. It is only as we give ourselves to the Spirit living and praying in us that the glory of the prayer-hearing God and the ever-blessed and most effectual mediation of the Son can be known by us in their power.