Spirit of the Living God
Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me,
Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me.
-Daniel Iverson
When we speak of the Spirit of God that is presently abiding within our beings, we so often use generic terms as in the hymn above. We know without a doubt that God is always with us and in us. What we are asking of this same Spirit is that He should manifest Himself for the moment in the manner the moment calls for. There are several passages in Scripture that make mention of God filling a single believer or a group of believers with the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit). It is obvious these believers were already filled with the Spirit, and that the Spirit was guaranteed to them for a lifetime unless they should grievously and repeatedly offend Him. So we conclude the Spirit answered their prayers on these respective occasions in an unusual manner that accomplished the desired end or produced the desired effect the occasion required.
In light of this we are not asking that the Holy Spirit actually be renewed in us; the Holy Spirit does not diminish and He needs no revival: we do. We are petitioning our God to renew our flagging zeal. We want God to rekindle the fire that is flickering uncomfortably low on the altar of our hearts.
It’s ironic: We who know the Word of God and its prophecies of the last days – we are the ones who don’t seem to understand what is occurring; or can it be that we don’t care? Fearsome prophecies are being fulfilled all over the world, prophecies that foretell of the coming Day of Judgment – and we are in no rush to get our house in order. What does it take – even more frequent and stronger earthquakes?
Wake up, sleeper! God is at the door of your heart, and He’s not trying to enter (He is already in your heart); He is just about to leave you in the midst of your foolish, carnal pleasures. You have served God “a little” and never have given Him what He wants, which is your all. Everything you own and everything you are, all belong to Him. He loaned them to you with the expectation you would give them back in faithful service and fervent worship to Him. But you have not done so and it appears you are not concerned about what God wants. You just have to do things your way. Forget about what God wants now; you plan to call on Him at the last moment and get your untidy spiritual house in order.
You are stone crazy! God is on His way out and you can’t see that His hand is on the latch of the door. If God leaves you now, you have no guarantee He will ever return.
I use the social media, Facebook in particular, and the things some of my spiritual brothers and sisters write in that “tell all, bare all” venue are little short of shocking to me. Now this does not include all Christians who write on that site; some use it as I do: We want to get the Word and the will of God out to all who will hearken to us, including saints and sinners. We want to encourage and edify and exhort and comfort the saint and we want to appeal to the sinner to get himself/herself right with God.
But there is that troubling gray area where the individual saint is just short of being a sure ‘nuff saint and is drifting more and more into the enemy’s territory. This bothers me greatly because (and here is a “tell all, bare all” secret) I was once one of those mindless people who “love” the Lord but not enough to put away sinful pleasures. God was extremely gracious to me and I want others to see the grace of God is still flowing; but time is running out. The sand in the hourglass is running perilously low. Soon the last grain of sand, the last chance for redemption, will be gone forever.
You say you will be one of those who are saved during the Great Tribulation? There is no assurance of that. If you did not give your all during the day of Grace, there is no ironclad guarantee you will be accepted during the time of Judgment. You see, Judgment is coming only because sinners continuously spurned God’s grace. And yet you hope to be a recipient of the same grace you lightly esteemed during the time when grace flowed freely? I wouldn’t want to bank on that.
Hear me: I am not sending you to hell. If I didn’t care what happened to you, I would not be writing these words. God is your Judge and if He sees fit to save you, I would be tremendously grateful; overjoyed; relieved. But why gamble your eternal destiny on one throw of the dice? If God takes His people out of this world and you find yourself left behind – that is gambling your eternal destiny on one throw of the dice. Don’t do it. Get your house in order. Be at peace with your God. It’s a wonderful feeling.
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