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100 | The Holy Spirit for Dummies
629 Plays2 years ago
Our listeners aren't dummies - but sometimes we need a super simple, practical, manual for understanding theological things! That's what today's episode is about: Pneumatology, or the theology of the Holy Spirit, and how He impacts our daily life.
If you grew up in a church that never talked about Him or in a church that only talked about His gifts, this episode is for you! Learning how to listen to His leading, bear His fruit, and most of all be a witness for Christ.
Liv Dooley's Interview with Phylicia: https://livdooley.com/know-what-you-believe/ Preorder Every Woman a Theologian: https://everywomanatheologian.comRecommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Heimer, and I am here to teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every woman is a theologian.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello friends, and welcome back to Verity Podcast.
Understanding the Holy Spirit
00:00:32
Speaker
This week, we have Holy Spirit for dummies. Now, I named this episode for a very specific reason, and it is not because I think my listeners are dummies. By any means, you are definitely not. You're some of the smartest people I know.
00:00:49
Speaker
But we all know there's those books out there that are yellow and black that say, violin for dummies or coding for dummies. And quite frankly, I think that we need a really simple introduction to the Holy Spirit on an accessible level.
00:01:06
Speaker
And that's what those books are designed to be accessible and informative. And so that's why this episode is called the Holy Spirit for dummies, because we're going to get really practical and really simple and understanding who the Holy Spirit is and what he does and why we need him so much.
00:01:22
Speaker
I was recently on an episode of my friend Liv Dooley's podcast, The Best Kept Secret, and on that podcast we talked about the fact that Jesus said it was better if he left because his disciples would receive the Holy Spirit.
00:01:40
Speaker
Can you believe that? He said it was better that he went away so that the Holy Spirit could be received, indwelling them, empowering them personally. Instead of Jesus, who was outside of their bodies as a physical man, God-man on earth, they would have the Spirit of God indwelling their bodies as little temples of the Lord on earth, drawing people to Christ.
00:02:04
Speaker
So obviously Jesus thought the Holy Spirit was really important and I think so too. And so we're going to talk about
Misconceptions and Balanced Understanding of the Holy Spirit
00:02:10
Speaker
that today. We're going to talk about a little of who he is and what he does, but then also why we need him so much and how he changes our daily life.
00:02:19
Speaker
Now, if you've listened to Verity Podcast for any span of time, you know I talk a lot about the Holy Spirit because I think we so often don't address Him in a biblical way. We don't understand Him the way Scripture describes Him. We will often come from church traditions that either completely ignore Him and rely heavily on
00:02:39
Speaker
memorizing scripture and doing the right things and acting as if the Trinity is God, Jesus, and the Holy Bible instead of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And that's when we end up leaning towards the letter of the law and legalism and trying to check off all these boxes and do these right things without the peaceful power of the Holy Spirit equipping us.
00:03:01
Speaker
But then on the other end of the spectrum, in more charismatic traditions, you end up with a Holy Spirit who really only shows up to accomplish the sensational. The big gifts of the Spirit, the healing and the prophecy and the amazing big showy things that he does and sometimes in those types of churches we see manipulation or abuse of the spiritual gifts and it's not even the Holy Spirit at all. It's really deceit and sensationalism.
00:03:27
Speaker
And so I believe that scripture makes a case for a really healthy balance right down the middle where we have this high respect for the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit. The Spirit uses it to divide what is wrong from what is right, what is false from what is true.
00:03:43
Speaker
but also the spirit empowers us with his gifts so that we reach people in the world with the gospel and we equip them to become more like Jesus.
Book Discussion and Personal Testimony
00:03:52
Speaker
So we're going to study what that looks like in this episode. And all of the content in this episode is based on chapter six of Every Woman a Theologian, which comes out February 28th. So if you want this in writing, you want to know exactly what this is all about and read it slowly and get the full range of everything I shared about it.
00:04:13
Speaker
It'll be in your book, which many of you have pre-ordered already. So I'm so grateful for you for doing that. And if you have pre-ordered, doesn't matter where you got it, where you ordered it from, or what format you got it in, be sure to head to everywomanatheologian.com so you get your freebies. You can fill out a form.
00:04:29
Speaker
on everywomanatheologian.com and we have the first two chapters free to you, the first chapter of the workbook with the videos linked as QR codes and then also determining core doctrine from our shop and a poster. So you get all of those things if you pre-ordered the book. You just need to head to everywomanatheologian.com.
00:04:50
Speaker
Alright, so let's start talking about the Holy Spirit. I want to first just tell you, I, as a young believer, really struggled with understanding the Holy Spirit. And a part of this was because I was exposed to pornography really young and I think I was struggling with the shame of that and this helplessness and overcoming that sin. And so it really caused me
00:05:13
Speaker
to kind of lean on legalism to try and overcompensate for this glaring problem in my life and this struggle that I was experiencing with sin. So I tried to do a lot of good things to kind of make up for this secret addiction that I was struggling with.
00:05:30
Speaker
So for more about that part of my story, you can go back to episode 76, does God forgive sexual sin, or go all the way back to the marriage episodes that I did with Josh, episode 58 on sexual sin, where we both talk about it.
00:05:45
Speaker
Okay, so I really struggled with understanding the Holy Spirit. I really struggled with his role and his function and what he was supposed to do. And thankfully, my dad was really intentional about explaining this to me. Now, I didn't get it for a very long time, but my dad really tried to explain that the Christian life was not about this white knuckling willpower.
00:06:08
Speaker
to get myself more Christ-like, okay? He did a good job of explaining that, but as with most things, we have to realize it for ourselves. We have to come to a point where we understand and we acknowledge Christ's lordship over our life and we allow him to do his work. And so that was a process for me and my teens of really wrestling through
00:06:29
Speaker
What does it look like to abide in Christ and let the Holy Spirit sanctify me? How do I listen to Him? How am I led by Him? And how can the Christian life truly be the kind of life where the yoke is easy and the burden is light, as Jesus says?
The Role of the Holy Spirit in Believers' Lives
00:06:44
Speaker
Well, the reason Jesus could say that is because he was sending a helper. So after Jesus rose from the dead, the gospels in the book of Acts tell us he spent 40 days with his disciples before ascending to the Father. And so in those days, he not only proved his bodily resurrection, but he taught the disciples and told them what to do when he was gone. And so in Acts 1, 3-5, Jesus says, I want you to wait in Jerusalem for the gift that the Father has promised.
00:07:12
Speaker
and you are going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. This wasn't the first time Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit. In John 14, 15 through 18, it says that Jesus asked the Father to give his disciples an advocate who would help them and be with them forever, the spirit of truth. So he specifically said he would not leave his disciples as orphans in the world upon ascending. He would send the Spirit of God to be their helper or advocate.
00:07:40
Speaker
So there was a task ahead of the disciples. They were to build this church. They were to be witnesses for the Lord, but Jesus knew they couldn't do it apart from his strength. And so he gives them the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which is when they're in Jerusalem praying and the tongues of fire rested upon their head, and they became witnesses to Jerusalem and beyond.
00:07:59
Speaker
Now, the Holy Spirit in Acts is not new. It's not like, oh, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit comes out of nowhere and suddenly he's in the Bible. No, he's in the Old Testament too. He just takes a slightly different role. So under the Old Covenant, God gave to Israel through the law.
00:08:16
Speaker
The Holy Spirit would come upon prophets, priests, judges, and kings to equip them for specific tasks. He would equip for leadership, Numbers 27, wisdom, 1 Samuel 16, artistry, Exodus 31, and the presence of the Spirit could be lost by repeated sin. So an example of this would be King Saul in 1 Samuel 16.
00:08:38
Speaker
So the spirit that Jesus promised to the church is and was no different from the spirit of the Old Covenant. He provided the same equipping and presence. But the difference after Jesus is His permanence. The Holy Spirit is our helper, but not just for one task or a temporary calling or a prophetic gifting, but for all of life in Christ.
00:09:00
Speaker
Jesus knew that we could not live this new life on personal power. He wanted his disciples to make full use of his presence and he wants us to do the same. So where do we see the Holy Spirit in scripture? What does he do? Who is he? There are a ton of passages about this and I'm just going to really quick bam, bam, bam talk through a few. So the spirit shows up literally in Genesis 1.1.
00:09:29
Speaker
He is with God at creation. The Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the deep, some translations say. So He's in union with God, pouring out this goodness, empowering beauty and order and peace, and He still does this today.
00:09:44
Speaker
He is going to make us become like Christ. So without the Spirit, sanctification isn't possible. And He's there at the beginning. He's there at the end. He is through the entire Bible. So when we look at Scripture and the role of the Spirit, we see several things.
00:09:59
Speaker
Obviously, Genesis 1.1, he's with God at creation. He's a giver of life, Job 33. He gives wisdom and understanding, Isaiah 11. He's grieved by sin, Isaiah 63. He instructs in righteousness, Nehemiah 9. He gives us a new heart, Ezekiel 36. He's the spirit of truth and conviction, John 14. He dwells with believers after repentance and baptism, Acts 2.38. He gives power, Romans 15. He dwells in believers, 1 Corinthians 3.
00:10:28
Speaker
He reveals God's love to us, Romans 5, and He bears the fruit of good works, Galatians 5. So, if it seems like the whole Christian life is dependent on the Spirit's work, that's because it is. In the Old Testament, God dwells among His people in temples made by hands, but today He dwells in human bodies.
00:10:49
Speaker
So if you remember a couple episodes back, I said that we are idols of God on earth. We're the image of God on earth. So people don't come to us to worship us. They see us and they see the light of Christ in us. We point to God. That's our whole point. That's why we don't worship idols because we are pointing to God. People should look at us and see God. So it makes no sense for us to be worshiping something else. So we are the sanctuaries of His grace. And as the Holy Spirit lives in us,
00:11:19
Speaker
He's at work empowering us to live in the light, guiding us into good works, bringing fruit into the world through us.
00:11:28
Speaker
Back to that episode I did with Liv Dooley. We talked very briefly about something that I feel so strongly about as I'm looking out at the landscape of Western Christianity and Western spiritualism.
Challenges with Modern Spiritualism
00:11:41
Speaker
I've noticed that there are many people, you've probably noticed this too, who will say, well, I'm not interested in institutional Christianity or institutional religion, but
00:11:49
Speaker
I am spiritual, alright? And they might, you know, express their religion by literally soaking crystals in the moonlight, you know? They'll believe in the powers of crystals, but they don't believe in the power of Christ. It's really wild, right?
00:12:06
Speaker
But I believe that the move of many Christians or departure deconstruction from Christianity to things like the New Age or just this spiritual openness has a lot to do with the fact that we removed sanctity from our churches, lack of liturgy, lack of sanctity or an experience of the sacred, something bigger than ourselves, and we remove the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:12:31
Speaker
See, when you remove the spiritual from a spiritual faith, Christianity is useless, boring, and hollow. It's powerless. So if you can go to another framework that actually does offer a power, a form of power, it's rooted in darkness, but it's still a power and it parades itself as light.
00:12:54
Speaker
you would go there because at least you're experiencing some kind of transformation. And we have to remember that these alternative spirits, these alternative spiritual realities are always going to parade themselves as good things, at least at the beginning.
00:13:10
Speaker
Just this week, as I'm recording, Sam Smith performed at the Grammys and it was just a really dark, satanic kind of performance and a lot of commentators are discussing it. Very openly devilish, if you will say. But most of the time, when people are exploring other spiritual options or religions, it doesn't look like Sam Smith's Grammy performance because most people would be like, eh, that's a little too much for me.
00:13:37
Speaker
This is becoming more overt, right? We're seeing more Wiccan materials, more satanic materials openly offered in stores and in bookstores and in our culture. But generally speaking, most people won't make the jump from growing up in church straight into the satanic church, right?
00:13:57
Speaker
There's a slow fade, and that slow fade often happens when they grew up in a legalistic, powerless, Holy Spirit-less religion. And then they see over here this open spiritualism where there's room for all kinds of expressions and all kinds of behaviors and lifestyles, and yet there's a power. There's a chance to change.
00:14:22
Speaker
All secular self-help taps into this kind of power. And sometimes it seems like it's changing people for good. But as my friend Jeremy Jenkins says, just because it works doesn't mean it's good.
00:14:38
Speaker
just because it works doesn't mean it's light. If we look back at the book of Exodus and the plagues, for quite a few of the early plagues, I want to say the first three or four, the witch doctors that Pharaoh had on his staff, his advisors, the wise men, were able to replicate the miracles that Moses was doing. They had a power. It was a dark power. Now, ultimately, God showed himself more powerful.
00:15:05
Speaker
But it doesn't take away from the fact that demonic power is powerful and it offers something. It wouldn't be appealing if it didn't. So my whole point here is that the rise of New Age spirituality makes the personhood of the Holy Spirit very important.
00:15:21
Speaker
The New Age movement uses terms that sound like biblical spirituality but mean something very different. The New Age does not require one specific set of beliefs. It teaches that truth is individual. You can seek deeper wisdom, connect with spirits, commune with nature. And because it's rising in popularity, we have to be clear on who the Holy Spirit is and what He's not. The Spirit of Christ is a real person.
00:15:45
Speaker
He's not a force. He's not a vague entity. He's not a spirit in the sky. He is the expression of Christ on earth through God's people, the church. We know the Holy Spirit is a person by His relationship with the Father and Son, John 16, 2 Corinthians 13, and Jesus attested to the Holy Spirit's coming. He promised that He was coming, Matthew 28.
00:16:06
Speaker
So the spirit is a person. He's one with God the Father and the Son, three in one. And he also shows very personal characteristics. He has emotion. He has wisdom, intercession. And the character he cultivates in people reflects his nature.
00:16:24
Speaker
He is opposed to the world's patterns. So, going back to what the world will produce, what these alternative spiritualities will produce, the acts of the flesh are obvious. This is Galatians 5.19, sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft.
00:16:42
Speaker
hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Y'all, we need to pay attention to this. This is the truth. You cannot follow this path into a spirituality that has cut out the Holy Spirit of God
00:17:11
Speaker
and produces this kind of fruit. I have watched this happen over and over again as people start walking down this road. It never begins with a drastic step. It's just exploration. It's just alternative lifestyle. And then before you know it, it's I'm divorcing my spouse because I want to be free to sleep with who I want to sleep with.
00:17:37
Speaker
I'm going to use coarse language. I'm going to party however I want to party. I'm actually involved in legit witchcraft or on social media. There's hatred, there's discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. Those words right there describe so much of social media and the spirituality of our culture.
Living by the Spirit versus Worldly Standards
00:18:02
Speaker
That's what happens when you don't have the Holy Spirit. So what happens when you do have a holy spirituality? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. Why is there no law against these things? Because they reflect the law of God, the good law.
00:18:33
Speaker
The fruit of the Spirit is the expression of God's law as originally given in the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. The law that said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. And now He's given us a Holy Spirit to walk them out.
00:18:56
Speaker
When you are walking with the Holy Spirit and listening to His voice, you will naturally bear the fruit of the Spirit. You can't force fruit. It grows on you as you are rooted in Christ, walking daily with Him, listening to His voice. That's what abiding is.
00:19:16
Speaker
and it sets us apart from the world and it's infighting and it's wayward justice and judgment, it's selfish sexuality, it's worship of self and worship of success and ultimately it's witchcraft and even openly pursuing witchcraft and idolatry.
00:19:37
Speaker
because it has taken these tiny little steps away from holiness. We can know something is of the Holy Spirit if it bears God's fruit. Because he's love, he cultivates love. Because he's joy, he brings about joy. Because he's peace, he brings us peace. He will always produce the things that are consistent with God's character.
Resources for Faith Sharing
00:20:01
Speaker
If someone asked you to explain the gospel, could you do it? If your coworker came to you with questions about why Jesus had to die, or your child asked you to define the Trinity, could you provide an answer?
00:20:16
Speaker
Regardless of whether or not we are in formal ministry, all of us are called to be witnesses for Christ. If you're nervous, you're not alone. The ministry of every woman a theologian exists to equip you for this task. And now we have a cornerstone resource to make that happen.
00:20:37
Speaker
My brand new book and video study is available for pre-order January 9th. Every woman, a theologian, know what you believe, live it confidently, and communicate it graciously is almost here. This book is everything you need to know in order to share your faith without anxiety in today's world. I wrote this to equip you with a confident and educated faith.
00:21:03
Speaker
The workbook and eight-week video study will also be available, and you can pre-order through Christian Book, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local indie bookstore and lock in the lowest launch price. We are the generation that will stand on both conviction and love because we know what we believe and why we believe it and how to explain it well to the world. Join me this spring by ordering every woman a theologian at bookstores near you.
00:21:35
Speaker
So you might be asking.
00:21:37
Speaker
Well, I want to produce this fruit, but it still feels really hard. Like I want to do what's right. I want to do what's good. I've memorized the verses. I know what I'm supposed to do, but then the day goes on and I just, I can't do it. I can't do what's right. I feel like I'm always failing. Okay. Well, let's look at what scripture says about that. Jesus said his yoke, his teaching was easy and light. Matthew 11 30. And Paul said, here's the key. If you don't want to gratify the desires of your flesh, your old self, your pre Jesus identity,
00:22:07
Speaker
walk by the Spirit, Galatians 5 16.
00:22:12
Speaker
walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You can't do both at the same time. You can't be walking by the Spirit's leading and also gratifying your flesh simultaneously. A lot of this starts in our heads and then it has to move to our hearts. Remember, we talked about this in the last episode, you were pronounced free. You are no longer a slave. To act like a slave is to live into your old, unredeemed humanity.
00:22:40
Speaker
But that is not who you are. You have a new life, a new hope, a new purpose, and most of all, you have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within you, empowering you to live up to your new identity. So practically speaking, this means relying on Christ's leading in each decision of your day.
00:22:57
Speaker
When you're deciding how to respond to someone else who was rude or mean to you, you get to ask the Lord, how do you want me to deal with this? How do you want me to respond? And oftentimes, I found it means I have to wait to respond. I have to wait and listen and wait and listen until I know exactly what I need to do.
00:23:17
Speaker
I think this memorizing of Christian behaviors and willpowering our way through it works really well if you're operating from a state of urgency or anxiety. It works well because you have this checklist you can run down and you can go, I need to be good, I need to be faithful, I need to be self-controlled, and you just go, okay, that's just what I do. Instead of realizing that it's the reliance on Jesus himself internally that produces those behaviors.
Daily Faith and Obedience
00:23:47
Speaker
So it's in the moment saying, Lord, I know that I lack self-control and I'm really struggling with walking in that right now. So I need your strength. I'm going to choose to obey you and step out in faith. You're going to strengthen me by your spirit to choose self-control. And then you take that faith step.
00:24:06
Speaker
I think we consider faith to be something that only happens at conversion, right? It's something that only happens when we're first saved and then we just we believe that Jesus saves us, right? Now, I've talked about this many times that I firmly believe that to put faith
00:24:27
Speaker
Based on the definition of faith and the word and how it's used in Roman culture at the time, faith is allegiance. It's, I believe, not just that you exist Jesus, but I believe that you are the Lord of the universe and you are Lord of my life and I am submitting myself to you.
00:24:42
Speaker
And when we do that, we are saved. That is salvation. It's not, oh, I believe you exist and that maybe you're a historical figure and you resurrected from the dead. Believing those facts about Jesus is not salvation. It's saying, I bring all of myself to you and I submit to you as Lord. So that's faith. But that is an ongoing process, just as much as it is that instant process of being adopted into his family, justification and sanctification.
00:25:11
Speaker
So we're justified right there at that point of salvation. But then there's this ongoing walking out of our salvation, this living it out and saying, okay, Jesus, if you really are Lord of my life, if I am in submission to you, if I have given you my allegiance as my Lord and King, then in this moment where I don't want to walk by the Spirit, I return again.
00:25:36
Speaker
to that salvation, and I say, you're my Lord, and you have said, I am to be self-controlled. And I believe that if you've asked me to do it, you're going to equip me to do it. That is walking by the Spirit. That is walking in faith. You are walking in faith that He will give you what you need to obey Him.
00:25:54
Speaker
There's a song an old hymn called trust and obey goes trust and obey because there's no other way to be happy in Jesus But to trust and obey and sometimes these old hymns are so simple sometimes their lyrics are kind of cheesy But I think of that song a lot because it really is that simple we trust and we obey and there's no other way and
00:26:15
Speaker
If we want to experience the joy of Christ and the joy of the Holy Spirit, we have to let Him help us. He's going to remind us of all the things Jesus taught us, John 14, 26. When we feel overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to change ourselves into good Christians, the answer is not pulling ourselves up with more Christian tasks. It's to let Him help us. It's to ask for His leading, listen for His voice, and obey by His strength.
00:26:44
Speaker
The Holy Spirit wants to bear the fruit of the Spirit in you and in me, but he does it to the degree we let him. Now, I'm not saying that he's less sovereign, right? God is completely sovereign. He is Lord, King of the universe.
00:27:00
Speaker
But when it comes to sanctification, we can resist his sanctification in us. I think we've all met Christians or we've been Christians who the Lord is our Lord, right? But then when it comes to the practical daily life of listening to the spirit and walking in him instead of quenching the spirit, that's where the struggle is. That's where the rubber meets the road. So if you don't submit to his leading on your life, you are not going to see fruit being born.
00:27:28
Speaker
And so sometimes it does, you know, lead to a valid question. Did this person ever actually acknowledge Jesus as Lord or did they just vaguely believe in his existence? Sometimes that is the issue. And other times they did acknowledge Jesus as Lord, but they were not discipled to let him be Lord of every decision, to walk by the Holy Spirit. And that's where we need to concentrate. We need to
00:27:52
Speaker
let him transform us, and then rest and remain and live in connection to him through prayer, that ongoing conversation, so we know his voice and we are ready to obey him, not making this list of behaviors or trying to rationalize our behavior and not listen to his leading throughout the day. When we do that, we're doing the willpower method again.
00:28:13
Speaker
This posture of the heart is so different from that white-knuckle Christianity. It's not striving. It's attachment. John 15 says, you are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. He wants to help you.
00:28:38
Speaker
All you have to do is abide and remain with Him. He says He will never leave or forsake us, but we often leave Him, for lack of a better word, with our thoughts and choices and behaviors. God wants us to be holy as He is holy, but our attachment to Him is how that happens.
00:28:57
Speaker
The last thing I want to say, since we're going over these basics about the Holy Spirit, is that walking by the Spirit does not guarantee an instant emotional change. You may not feel like obeying his voice. You may pray and ask for strength or patience or for God to remove this temptation from you or remove this desire from you. And he says, you know what? I'm not going to remove that desire from you because I'm asking you to obey me in faith, that what I've said is the best for you.
00:29:26
Speaker
The desire will go away as you obey me." I have personal experience with this. I struggled with this pornography addiction all through my teens and early twenties. And I would always feel so bad, like, I can't, I can't, God, why don't you take this desire away, take it away, take it away, or just let me get married so we can get rid of it.
00:29:44
Speaker
Obviously marriage wouldn't fix the problem because it was a hard issue and ultimately what I had to realize was two things. I'm already clean because of what Christ has done. He gave me a new identity and my actions follow. They come out of my identity. They don't precede identity. My godly actions come out of recognizing I am a righteous saint in Jesus. That's first of all.
00:30:08
Speaker
But secondly, I had to recognize that God wasn't going to take the desire away. He wasn't. And that didn't make God bad or evil or wrong. It meant that God was asking me to trust Him. To say, I'm going to say no to this desire because I trust that your way is the best and you are going to strengthen me as I obey.
00:30:33
Speaker
There's this story in Cory Tenboom's book, The Hiding Place, where she talks about how she was terrified of dying. She was terrified of death as a child and she came to her father and told him, I'm so terrified to die. And he told her this story and I've never forgotten it because it really was a comfort to me when I was experiencing postpartum anxiety about fearing the death of my children and things like that. He said to Cory,
00:30:59
Speaker
When the time comes for you to die, it's like a train coming to take you to heaven. And when God asks you to board that train, He's going to give you the ticket to get on it. He gives you grace for the situation as you're in it and not before.
00:31:22
Speaker
So, when that train comes, you'll have the ticket, and until then, you don't need to worry about it or try to prepare for it. It was such a comfort to me when it comes to the subject of death, but it also is such an applicable analogy to the issue of sin and being sanctified by the Spirit.
Sanctification with the Holy Spirit
00:31:45
Speaker
So often we want to create all these rules and fences so that we don't fall into this trap or we do all the right things to overcompensate or whatever the case may be. Or we say, God, if you just took away this desire, then I wouldn't have failed or then I wouldn't fall into this sin again.
00:32:02
Speaker
But that's not what he's asking of you. He's not saying, if you don't have the desire, then you'll obey. He's saying that in the face of the desire, I have offered you the ticket to say no. And it's my spirit. It's grace. It's favor. The grace of God is available for you in the moment of decision and temptation. But you have to take it.
00:32:25
Speaker
if you wait and roll around in the desires and temptations, begging God to take them away instead of just taking hold of the grace He's offering you and stepping forth in faith and obedience. Yeah, you're probably going to keep failing. Sanctification is a partnership of your heart and soul with what God is trying to do in you.
00:32:52
Speaker
But you have to step out in faith and link arms with God and all that He's offering you. All of His strength is available to you by the Spirit to say no to anger and dissension and envy and jealousy and sexual immorality. It's available. But you have to take the ticket to board the train.
00:33:15
Speaker
and he always offers it at just the right time. And that's what I had to realize in a pornography addiction was that God wasn't going to take the desire away because I had to be willing to cut the things from my life that were causing that desire. I had to partner with his Holy Spirit and so that meant I didn't go to movie theaters for a very long time. I didn't read fiction books for a very long time. I didn't read certain magazines. I didn't hang out with certain people.
00:33:44
Speaker
Because I was too weak to do those things and I wanted to be free. And through that obedience, he did set me free. But I had to partner with what he asked of me. I had to take the ticket and board the train.
00:34:01
Speaker
When God asks you to do something, the Holy Spirit will prompt and convict you, and then He will offer you the grace and strength and favor, but you must grasp it in faith that He's helping you.
00:34:15
Speaker
and walk with him into that sanctification. It's not gonna be easy every time, but, and this is what we tell our girls all the time, the strength comes as you're obeying. The spirit helps you as you are walking. It doesn't say that the spirit will do it for you. It says the spirit will help you, which indicates that you have a part too.
00:34:40
Speaker
So, the Holy Spirit's a person. He's not a vague spiritual entity. He's not something to be set aside. He's not something you don't need. He's not only in the business of the sensational and the spiritual gifts. His primary business is sanctifying you into the image of Christ, and the most powerful, sensational thing in the world is a Spirit-led Christian.
00:35:02
Speaker
Because that person operates from a place of faith and power. And it's not a power that's just about, wow, someone was healed, though that sometimes happens. Or wow, that was an amazing word from the Lord. That happens too. Most often, it's the quiet consistency of someone who's becoming more and more holy in front of the people who need God.
00:35:28
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Verity Podcast.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:35:32
Speaker
If you enjoyed this episode, would you take the time to leave us a review? It helps so many other women around the world find out about Verity and about every woman a theologian as a ministry and a shop. We appreciate you and I hope you'll be back next week as we continue to go deeper into God's word and the heart of Jesus Christ.