Part 5 The Whole Counsel Of God
Part 5: God's Whole Counsel
Acts 20:27 ESV for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
While Jesus is simulteneously a Lion and a Lamb, the Holy Spirit is a Fiery Dove, a Gentle Fire-Starter.
Sadly, we believers lean in one direction or the other, creating gaps in our knowledge of, our expectations from, and our experiences with God.
Depending on our personalities, upbringing and preferences, we are either mostly gentle, or mostly fiery.
What we know of God is informed by our bent.
What we expect from God is determined by what we know of Him.
And what we actually experience in our walk with God is limited by the aforementioned.
Our faith is a composite of our knowledge, expectations and experience of God.
We cannot remain only lamb, we must become lions too. If you start out as a lion, you must allow the Holy Spirit to make you become as gentle as a lamb as well.
We must take advantage of everything that God provides to ensure that whatever is lacking is supplied.
1 Thessalonians 3:10 ESV as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?
1 Thessalonians 3:10 NLT Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your faith.
Leaning one way or another is akin to wearing a veil, being deliberately blind to half of what God is offering us.
2 Corinthians 3:14-18 ESV
But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. [15] Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. [16] But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. [17] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [18] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
If you lean to one side, you have deliberately blinded yourself to the other side. It is not about your personal preference. Who do you think you are? It is about God, the Holy Spirit, and the work He needs you to do on earth.
But when one turns to the Lord: Turning to the Lord is a metaphor for obeying Him. This is the opposite of willfulness, turning away from the Lord to do our own will.
Isaiah 53:6 NLT
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.
Creator and Lord.
The whole world system, under the control of the devil, and it is set up to deny and rebel. The world denies that God is Creator and rebels against His Lordship.
God is both our Maker and our Master. Because He is our Maker, we must strive to be what He made us to be.
He is our Master, we must strive to do what He commands us to do.
Refusing, either to be or to do, is resisting the will (the counsel) of God.
There is a word for it… disobedience.
There are different styles of disobedience.
Disobedient people have their personal preferences, so they choose their style of disobedience to God.
One person may be loud and aggressive, while another may be soft-spoken and gentle. The first is often identified as a rebel, violently breaking away, while the other hides and quietly works as a saboteur. One scowls and the other smiles, but they are the same, (six in one, half a dozen in the other.) They are both cut from the same cloth of disobedience. They each in their own way, resist and frustrate the will and purpose of God.
Matthew 21:28-30 ESV
"What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' [29] And he answered, 'I will not,' but afterward he changed his mind and went. [30] And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, 'I will, sir,' but did not go.
Disobedience to God changes us, even as believers in Christ: our hearts are hardened.
Mark 6:49-52 ESV
but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, [50] for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." [51] And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, [52] for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened
Their lack of understanding did not mean they lacked intelligence.. Rather, it revealed their struggle to accept His claim to be the Son of God, one who was not limited by the laws of nature.
Luke 24:25-26 NKJV
Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! [26] Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"
Psalm 14:1 NKJV The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.
Unbelief is not a problem of the head. It is a disease of the heart.
The issue is not a confused mind but a hardened heart.
Living Your Best Life, According to God
Many teach that the Holy Spirit helps us to live our best lives. I agree. My point of contention is with their definition of “our best lives.”
1 Corinthians 15:19 KJV If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
1 Corinthians 15:19 ESV
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
God, not you, determines what your best life is, and the Spirit helps you accomplish it.
The Holy Spirit's Superior Status
When the Holy Spirit is called your "helper," it's a position of superiority. He is not like an employee hired to carry out your personal goals or desires.
Holy Spirit is the Helper for God's Assignment, Not Your Own
The Holy Spirit's help is specifically for accomplishing “God's purpose” in your life, not your own ambitions.
Adam was first given an assignment by God in the garden, and then given a helper (Eve) to fulfill that specific assignment. Adam didn't create his own work.
In the same way, Jesus gives believers their life's assignment, and the Holy Spirit is the designated helper to carry out that divine commission.
The Need For Hunger
Thank you, Lord. I asked the Lord was on His heart for today. I already have my notes prepared, but He is God, He can speak and overrule.
With a serious graveness, it was dropped in my spirit that this entire series is designed to create a hunger in the hearts of the people, an expectation, because the expectation of the righteous would not be cut off.
God wants to do a new thing by his Holy Spirit, but His people have to hunger for it.
If we just hear what this teaching has said about the Holy Spirit, about the move of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit… if all it does for us is merely to inform us, to leave us better informed than before, then, we have missed the point.
Information is intended to lead to transformation, but between information and transformation, there needs to be expectation.
Expectation is a form of hunger, a form of thirst.
Prayer 1:
Ah, Holy Spirit, birth a fresh expectation, birth a fresh hunger, birth a fresh thirst in the hearts of your people today, in the name of Jesus.
As the disciples were waiting in the upper room, they were waiting for the promise of the Father. Their very lives depended on your faithfulness to Your promise. If you had not kept your promise, if the Holy Ghost had not come, the whole Christian faith will not exist today.
Precious Holy Spirit, You are still relevant. We need You now, the same way the early church needed You then.
O Lord Jesus, You said “I will build my church.” You built your church by the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came at the building of the church, but the work was not done.
After the building of Your church, You said “the gates of hell will not prevail” against your church. This means You knew the gates of hell would not leave the church alone, once it has been built. You anticipated that the gates of hell would lay a siege against Your church.
Help us, Your church to not be alarmed by the gates of hell, but to depend daily on the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Your Name, we pray.
For the church to remain standing, the Holy Ghost has to keep on working.
Zechariah 4:6-7 ESV Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. [7] Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of 'Grace, grace to it!'"
The Holy Ghost has to keep cultivating His fruit in us, so we can be secured on the day of judgement that as He is, so are we in this world.
The Holy Ghost has to keep on filling us so that the world and the things of the world do not fill our hearts.
The Holy Ghost has to keep on empowering us, so we can do the work of the ministry.
The Holy Ghost has to keep teaching us, so we know what to pray, what to do, and how to do it.
The Holy Ghost has to keep comforting us, so we can heal from the attacks and wounds inflicted by the devils, the world, and even our fellow brethren.
The gates of hell have always come against the church. We should not be surprised when we see attacks, assaults, against the church by the gate of hell.
We should not be surprised. Why? Because that is what Jesus predicted.
In the same way when Jesus said, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and then enter into his glory?”
There is no glory without suffering.
The gates of hell will come against us. That is a given.
But they will not prevail against us. That is the guarantee.
Prayer 2:
Lord Jesus, You built your church, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now help us, Your people, to hunger daily for the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Ghost, of whom John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water, but He who is coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”
That same Holy Ghost, who anointed Jesus Christ of Nazareth with power,
the same Holy Ghost. We need him.
Oh, you have come. Holy Ghost, but we have to hunger for you. Create in every one of your people a hunger, a hunger, a hunger, a thirst.
Let this not just be a classroom experience where we come and we learn facts and data. We take notes in our books, and we close them, and the next thing we do is just talk about it or probably we even teach others. No, no, no, no, no.
As good as that is, you are saying, O God, You want us to hunger, so please create in us a hunger.
The expectation of the righteous shall not be cut off.
In Jesus’ Name.
We are used to where we are. We are comfortable where we are. We are familiar with where we are, but the early disciples were not comfortable, so they were hungry. Their situation was desperate and they knew it.
As for us, our situation is just as desperate but our comfort has dulled our hunger. Instead of hungering for the Holy Spirit. We constantly fill up on spiritual junk food. Spiritual junk food is quick and easy. It comes fast, requiring little to no effort. The packaging is beautiful, it smells good, tastes good but offers little nutritional value. Nobody grows healthy in a diet of junk food, so we are malnourished and weak, unable to be or do the works of God for which we are created.
We are so filled with junk food in our churches that we don't desire the sincere milk of the words. Many prefer Jesus to give bread and fish instead of the words of eternal life. We don't desire what the Holy Spirit can quicken.
We don't, we are just satisfied. We are comfortable with where we are. with our churches, with our bless-me clubs, whereas God wants to do a new thing.
God has to do a new thing. Things cannot continue the same way they have been going for long. God has to do a new thing.
The dulling of our spiritual appetite comes with a great risk.
Jesus, you said, it was, it would be as in the days of Noah.
Matthew 24:36-39 NLT "However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. [37] "When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. [38] In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. [39] People didn't realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.
Men were just continuing, same old, same old, business as usual. They were getting married. They were celebrating parties. They were having fun and that day came. Suddenly, the flood came suddenly, and they did not know that a change was coming. Only those who were anticipating the change were saved.
In our days, only those who are anticipating the change, those who are longing for your appearance, Jesus, will have oil in their lamps. Oil in our lamps is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Corporate Prayer:
Holy Spirit, wake us up. Stir us up. Help us to not be at ease in Zion. Help us to not seek comfort but instead the appearing of Jesus.
By Your Grace, we will hunger for more and say, “Lord, what is on your heart?”
Help us, Holy Spirit, to pray the prayer of Habakkuk, who said, “I will stand upon my watch, and I will see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.”
Holy Spirit, life is asking us questions and we have no answers because we have failed to stand on our watches.
Holy Spirit, wake us up. Holy Spirit, help me to stand on my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what God will say to me.
Prayer:
Show me, Holy Spirit, what is on the Father’s heart.
Teach me how to pray according to the Father’s will.
What is the Father planning to do next?
Where is He doing it and what is my part in His move?
