Good Saturday morning readers! It’s good to be back in the blogging saddle after a week off. We are continuing to recap on Saturdays our Daily Devotions which for now and the undetermined future will be about Revival
Indwelt But Not Filled?
Ephesians 5:18
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
We have covered some ground in our discussion of revival and the need for revival in the New Testament churches. We have truly had some fascinating discussions, and I hope they continue. What conclusions have we reached? Let’s sum up quickly.
The need for revival in the Old Testament time was constant in the sense of habitual falling away, repentance, and restoration. This seemingly in large part was because the Holy Spirit was not permanently in either the Israelites or individual believers.
We have concluded that at on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given once and for all to the church and at some subsequent point all believers began to be indwelt with the Holy Spirit upon their salvation. Seemingly this removed the constant need for revival and restoration.
We also concluded that, for some reason, we still seem to face the need for periodic repentance and restoration; we seem to still need revival. How can this be?
Let me say right up front, this will not be a major theological dissertation, as I am not a theologian. My choice of words may not meet the agreement of everyone, and that is just fine and dandy. I think we will all get the gist of the discussion, though.
Let’s look quickly at some scripture that supports the assertion that we are each indwelt with the Holy Spirit at salvation and permanently:
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
John 7:37-39 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
But yet a case can be made that, even though the Holy spirit is in us, we are not always filled with Him. Huh?, you say…how can that be so? Well, again I must go to a commenter who has really great words to describe what we are talking about here, Julie over at Light and Life again:
” I think of the Holy Spirit in me as an eternal flame, sometimes it blazes hot and sometimes it barely smolders. When it smolders I get on my knees and refuel it. The fire is always there, but if it I don’t stoke it, I end up just blowing smoke.”
We could stop right there, as the point is finely made, but I like to write so I will keep going for just a bit. The fire is always there…but we have to stoke it. The Holy Spirit is always there, but we have to allow Him to fill us. Basically we have to be so yielded to the Holy Spirit that He can fully possess us, and in that way fill us.
What are the keys to the filling of the Holy Spirit? What stokes the embers? What fans the flames of the Spirit? What causes the flames to die out? Why do we smolder? Stay tuned!
Quenching and Grieving The Holy Spirit
Ephesians 4:30
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
1 Thessalonians 5:19
As we continue forward with our study on Revival, let’s recap quickly where we stand. We have arrived that the conclusion that due to the permanence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and churches, we really should not be in need of revival; we should just be alive constantly in the Spirit, and never in need of reviving. We also concluded that oftentimes we live lives which are not filled with the Holy Spirit.
We fail to be filled with the Holy Spirit as we should because we 1) Grieve HIm, and 2) Quench Him. Today we are only going to quickly cover the fact that we do these things; in the following days we will talk specifically about how we do it, and what are signs that we need reviving.
On thing is important to note when we talk about grieving the Holy Spirit is that this indicates He is a divine person of the Trinity. He gets grieved by our conduct in the same way we would be grieved about something. We grieve the Spirit by our sins, and our lack of obedience.
In the last devotional, a commenter compared the Holy Spirit in her to fire, which needs to be stoked and not allowed to smolder and die. The word quench refers to exactly that concept.When the word “quench” is used in Scripture, it is used in reference to putting out a fire. We use our shield in the Armor of God to quench the fiery darts of the devil. Jesus describes Hell as a place where the fire is not quenched.
It’s probably important to note here what is getting quenched, lest anyone think we have some kind of power to make the Holy Spirit stronger or weaker by our actions or our words. The Holy Spirit is God, so that idea is absurd. What we quench is ourselves. The Holy Spirit is in us, permanently, but we quench His work in us.
Yes, we need revival periodically; that conclusion is inescapable. We need only look at ourselves and your churches to see this.
Coming up: Signs we might be in need of Revival.
Signs That We Might Need Reviving
We are still in our study of the need for Christians to revive themselves, to turn away from where we are, and to move forward in service to The Lord. We have discussed how we fail to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us, even though He is in us; we have discussed the fact that we grieve and quench His presence in our lives. The sad, but true, thing is we do fail in this area. We are going to move forward, put some verbs in our sentences, and talk about specific areas in which individual believers and churches fail and how we might fix them.
Just a few thoughts on circumstances which exist in our lives which dampen the Holy Spirits word and indicate we need repentance and revival, then we will move on to specifics as the days go on. We might be in need of revival if:
Our love for God has grown lukewarm or cold.
Our love for each other has grown lukewarm or cold.
Our prayer life has grown lukewarm or cold.
Our concern for the lost in the world has grown lukewarm or cold.
When we wallow and languish in our sin, with no efforts to correct it or restore one another.
When we are no different from the world around us,
When are churches are languishing or staying put. When they are no longer advancing forward in God’s work
When are churches are struggling to survive, or actually dying.
When we think that, because we are busy doing things for God, that we are okay and don’t need reviving.
When we are happy with things just the way they are and think our strength lies in our traditions.
We can stand idly by and see God mocked and ridiculed and feel no need or compulsion to say anything.
We think we know all we need to know about God’s Word and cease to pray, study and meditate on it.
We stop rejoicing in the blessing of others and instead resent that they received them.
We think we have become good enough, and cease striving to become Christlike.
We start to constantly doubt and question God’s Word and doubt key doctrines of Christianity and clearly taught precepts.
Our main priority in life is anything other than Jesus Christ.
That is hardly all the things we can do or fail to do to quench the Holy Spirit in our lives, but it provides a good start. Feel free to add, and perhaps we can explore your thoughts in more detail!
Truth in Palmyra 
Recent Comments