When I look at the average believer today I am saddened by the lack of the ability to understand what’s going on in the spirit in any given conversation, let alone what’s going on in one’s own personal life. Too many believers walk in life as if they were never born again but only have the knowledge that God loves them and Jesus died to forgive them.

I have spent four articles thus far building the case that the average Christian believer walks out their Christian experience periodically fueled by their knowledge of the Scriptures and yet very little by the counsel and power of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by the carnality within the church or individual believers. If one would just study the nature of the church today you would quickly discover that most churches and denominations came out of church splits, and not expansion from evangelism since the 1500s when the reformation happened. To be truthful, this had to happen because carnality had been settling into the church since Constantine in 320 AD and the breakaway factions wanting to get back to what the bible said about living as Christ intended believers to live. 

The subject of what a “Spirit Filled Life” looks like isn’t taught much these days, however when I got saved in the early 1970s it was a big focus. Why? Because there was a thing called the “JESUS MOVEMENT” going on and the Holy Spirit was pouring out his power in extraordinary ways that brought many young people to a saving knowledge of Christ. Miracles were taking place often and tons of young people were getting born again. The whole idea of revival in the church should be where born again believers come to discover an awakening in their souls for a closer walk with God. Mind you, in many churches today, revival ends up being no more than becoming excited about going to church meetings instead of an awakening of their spiritual lives with the power of the Holy Spirit. The strategy of the enemy is to get believers occupied with having more meetings and church attendance rather than becoming passionate about our personal relationship with our Heavenly Father.

I often wonder what God thinks about our prayer life. After all, if we were to look at many places in scripture that deal with what God says about how, when and where to pray I think we would have a different view of how we might be missing what’s important to God when we approach him in prayer.

In every generation there are those who hunger for God and then there are those who put their security in religious rules and systems rather than in God, all the while thinking they are serving God.

Success in our walk with God often requires getting all the help we can because of the unseen world around us.  Yet, many believers never consider angels in that equation, including me. Why would we overlook such help in times of need? Many may believe that we are not important enough for such assistance.  Others may be discouraged because few pastors teach any kind of practical knowledge about angels.  Unfortunately, it seems that the average seminary that prepares pastors for ministry either doesn’t believe in the supernatural or they just have no experience with it….. or both.

One day Jesus was teaching people about various topics and he brought up the subject of “PRACTICING” a person’s faith, and how some people like to to brag about what they believe. Jesus here is attempting to get people to think about why they feel the need to boast about their faith rather than cultivating a walk with God in the depths of our soul. The pharisees, for one, liked to brag about their own piety when in fact they were just religious, often having very selfish hearts.

The first Christmas story was sharing scripture or preaching a sermon that revolved around real life and participating in the divine moment God was unfolding. When people think about sharing their faith in God or witnessing for Jesus during the both of December they often get intimidated by all the complexity of the story rather than keeping things simple and to the point. Jesus made it simple for all of us when he said:

John 13:34                                                                                                                                                                                                                       A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 

When we find ourselves in a struggle that seems we must have a miracle to overcome, I think we often jump to conclusions about what that miracle is meant to look like. All to often God works miracles in tandem with natural means and thus we often don’t think they are miracles at all.

There are a lot of times scripture says God’s voice spoke and more times than not people either didn’t listen or they didn’t hear correctly, or at all. I wonder what God has spoken to us that we either didn’t hear or we just ignored? I like to say that it is always easier till see the will of God in the “REARVIEW MIRROR” than when you are either heading towards it or going through it.