June 23, 2014
The How and The Where
I watch my grandkids play
video games and sometimes eight year old Lydia gets frustrated. She will ask
older brother David how to make a
move, but if he goes beyond the how and tells her where to move, she immediately says, “I know. I know David. I can
do it!” I understand some of the dynamics because I tend to do the same thing.
I want someone else to read instructions, tell me what to do it, and then get
out of my way and let me do it. I suspect many people in the pew on Sunday
morning have a similar attitude. Too often we rely on the Sunday school teacher
and the preacher to tell us what is expected and then we exclude the Spirit
thinking, “I can do it on my own!”
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I love the Bible because it is like a stay driven into bedrock. It doesn’t shift, and it marks the important spots. So whenever something perplexes me, I search the Bible for its definitive say. Two things I’ve heard commonly passed about Christian circles sound fine each on their own, but taken side by side, they are perplexing. The first is that in God’s giving us free will is His desire for our actions. He would not have been satisfied with little robots that could do nothing other than what‘s right, who could do nothing other than love Him. So He gave us choice and volition and not only the ability to do things, but the necessity of our doing them. I like that.
-----But then comes this idea that God does everything through us, like we merely supply the body in space and time for His Holy Spirit to overtake. Suddenly, against God’s desire for us to love Him and do right from our very being He expects us inwardly to step aside so He can move us like robots? This perplexed me for some time, then it angered me. Yes, the Bible presents a Holy Spirit at work within us, at work upon us. But it presents duties and obligations and responsibilities for us to perform whether through some gift imparted to us by the Spirit, or by having learned and acquired skill from experience.
-----I know Paul says, “…no one can say ’Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (I Cor 12:3). The utterance of wisdom and knowledge, speaking in tongues and prophesying, and especially healing by the laying on of hands are movements we make more by His Spirit than ours. How can I say there’s no place for the Spirit’s moving us? Not only can I not, I won’t. But I don’t see Him moving us always or desiring that. Regardless of the fact that the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the Bible exhorts us to act upon that love. You love; you honor; you show mercy; you contribute; even you endure; you be patient; you set your mind upon; and you hope, and you pray, and you fear nothing but the Lord. The most of what the Bible exhorts is the believer doing.
-----I think that bothers us because it insinuates we have power when we are told, “…apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). And certainly we live and grow and move in Him. For in Him we have our very being. Yet in Him we also find our own volition and initiative which the Word tells us to use for doing right, kind of a freedom thing by which the use of it will reveal our sincerity. It does not surprise me that the Lord gives us power we otherwise would not have, then expects us to think and make decisions in its use. It strikes me as a partnership, a participation in each other that does not consume the identity of either. That we have our being in the Lord and move in the Spirit eliminates our doing from being on our own. But it doesn’t eliminate our doing from being the responsibility of our volition.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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