The title doesn't quite reflect what I want to ask about, but it was the closest I could think of.
Sunday before last I was scheduled to preach at the first evening service at my church. For the week before I'd made a decision, to quote to Ravenhill, to get "serious about being serious". As such I actively left TV alone, spent all the free time I could in the Word and really began to seek the face of God. This started a few weeks earlier when I was re-reading the epistles, believing what the Word says instead of what I'd been 'trained' to believe by modern-evangelical churches.
During that week of reading and seeking, I desired inner and outer holiness as promised by the Word of God and also began to seek on behalf of my church. 3 days into this I came under peresecution from friends, physical sickness and got in trouble at work - I realised that the truce I had called with the Devil had been called off!
In the service leading up to preaching I could do little but lie on my face outside before God, pleading over those in the congregation. I preached from Galatians 2v20 (and the surrounding passage) and implored the older generation on behalf of the youth (at 19 I am involved in leading some of the youth ministry) to stop trying to offer us a "modern" gospel but instead give us the Old Gospel!
Anyway, the next day when I woke up I noticed something in my Christian walk I had yet to notice. Genuine, 100% peace with and constant fellowship with God. I have known peace, and I have known fellowship, but never to such a depth in my heart, my entire soul and spirit both being so fresh and free in walking in the Spirit, keeping instep with and in communion with the Holy Spirit at all times. I knew that the freedom that the Bible spoke of was real to it's FULLEST extent, and could testify in agreement to sermons such as Marks of the New Birth by Wesley (though I yearned for the love of God to be manifest to others in my life).
Freedom from sin became no longer a struggle, but a natural thing as I walked in step with the Spirit; lusts, prides, selfishnesses - the issues of the heart - the fleshliness of the innter man, were no longer present, and I was certainly not slave to them. Though I was given oppurtunity to sin, I felt no more inclined to than I would to deliberately hurt the people closest to me, namely the Person closed to me - the Holy Spirit.
After 3 or 4 days, I went to leave work half an hour early, which I am allowed to do because I can work late the next day but, as I got in the car I felt the searing conviction of the Spirit rise up in my chest, but, having nearly stepped out of hte car and back into work, went with my pride and started to convince God I wasn't in the wrong as I drove home. I got home to find a missed call from someone who needed help with something, that's why the Spirit wanted me to stay.
That night I turned on the Playstation for the first time in weeks, and then stayed up too late (though in Godly discussion) with a friend and opted to get some sleep instead of spending time in the Word.
Since then, though repentant and seeking after God, I have lost the same peace that I experienced in that week, and moreover have lost the inner-holiness, but find myself walking in the flesh, if not outwardly, then most definately inwardly.
I find myself inclined to selfishness more than to the things of Spirit, and acting in ways that I shouldn't, and don't have the love of God towards people burning in my heart, or eternity in my gaze as I did that week.
After expressing my frustration to the Lord I recieved the Scripture from Phillipians 3:
Phi 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I am pressing on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Phi 3:13 My brothers, I do not count myself to have taken possession, but one thing I do, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before, Phi 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phi 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be of this mind. And if in anything you are otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you. Phi 3:16 Yet, as to what we have already attained, let us walk in the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
I think that the natural fruit of the Spirit manifest in the week I described was a result of the discipline of remaining in the things of GOd when it was unnatural to me the week before, a reminder to abide in Him and have His WORDS abide in us (John 15).
I don't know if this is a question more than an encouragement/testimony. Another thing, I'd been going through 'the fires' with trials and testings occuring consistently week after weeek since early July. Today they all came to an end, but instead of rejoicing there was a great sense of responsibility, as nothing was there to force me into submission - I believe the last fire comes not as a trial, but when we offer ourselves up as a sacrifice.
Haleilujah, God is faithful. Any advice anyone has in response would be great, as I still haven't found myself in the place again of peace/annointing/fellowship I described, nor in the place of discipline.
God bless!
Adam. |