Message Follow Up | A Dimly Lit Room: Part 3 – How He Does It
By Don Gentry
In my sermon yesterday, I talked about my book that I am trying to complete and how it is all about the Holy Spirit’s interaction in our daily lives. As we bring this series to a conclusion I want to take an excerpt directly from my upcoming book on the Holy Spirit:
The Holy Spirit is trying to get us to come into complete surrender to God. I used to think complete surrender was done through discipline like “hard work discipline,” but it is done through trust in God’s discipline and there is no discipline that seems pleasant. God’s discipline is different; His discipline brings freedom.
“For you have been called to live in freedom—not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law.”
Galatians 5:13-18 (NLT)
“God’s discipline is different; His discipline brings freedom.” – @dgentry24Click To Tweet
This passage in Galatians gives us a view into the freedom and the liberty. The Holy Spirit has come to deliver us from our sinful desires. He has come to give us victory over any sin that we struggle with, any fear that we hold onto, any lack of trust that may still exist within us, the Holy Spirit has come to give us liberty and freedom. This chapter reveals what the Holy Spirit is trying to lead us to if we would learn to listen to Him and yield to Him completely. God has created us to be in relationship with him.
Galatians identifies for us that we will always be in conflict within ourselves between wanting to sin and wanting to please God, but when we let the Holy Spirit guide our sixth sense, we are no longer under the condemnation of the law. That means our last step into complete surrender has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with trusting what the Holy Spirit has done and is doing in us.
When you learn to live with the Holy Spirit guiding your sixth sense, you will receive power! You will receive a power that will be difficult to explain. Some will laugh and some will doubt you, and you will definitely be misunderstood, but some will wonder and be attracted to what you have to say and ultimately many will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ because of you allowing the Holy Spirit to work through your life.
Christ has sent this power not for us to look good in this world, but that we would be equipped with whatever we need to be able to point others to the glory of God. The power of the Holy Spirit is going to look different in each one of our lives, but it will always point others to God.
I know what I believe, but I can assure you I don’t have it all figured out yet. I am still being matured myself. I know what I believe, but I am in constant devotion to God, searching His Word more and more every day so I might walk a little closer to Him.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”
Philippians 3:12-16
I have to agree with Paul in this passage, especially when talking about the topic of the Holy Spirit. There is so much more for all of us to learn. As we mature and get to know him better, may we all keep pointing others to the hope of Jesus Christ. When we live humbly before others, the things that are not yet clear will be made known and Christ will be glorified!