The Melody of the Holy Spirit

Waiting for the Lord,
Like at a train station.
Where the Lord’s train comes from
Or where it’s going, I don’t know.
But it stops for me, and I get on.
Then the adventure begins.

The way we react during the day will either hinder or help our praying. If we allow a state of reaction not born of a simple relationship to Jesus Christ, we shall have so much wilderness waste to get through before we can come to God.

The Holy Spirit is there all the time, but we have lost sight of Him by allowing things that have not sprung from our simple relationship to Jesus Christ. Anything that is so continually with us, even our religious life itself, that we never really pray in the Holy Spirit, may be a hindrance.

Oswald Chambers

The Bible is not all there is, but it is the source of all there is. Billy Graham, Oswald Chambers, and David Wilkerson are extensions of the Bible writ large. Though not exactly like Elijah, Isaiah, Paul, and John the Baptist, they are Christ-followers extraordinaire and what they say matters.

In his authoritative commentary of the Bible, Matthew Henry, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was anointed in a special way and should be heeded not as a writer of Scripture but perhaps (not in actuality but as a metaphor of thought) as a co-author after the fact.

These men, like their Biblical counterparts, lost themselves in finding God, a fit model for the rest of us.

There are two days each century in which all the numbers are the same. 1.1.11 is one of them and 2.22.22 the other. Such a day will not occur again in your lifetime.

Is there anything mystical about these numbers lining up? Or magical? Or some special meaning? No, no, and no. But it would be a day easily remembered if you decided to follow Jesus two steps closer starting with this day – or three steps, six steps or ten, depending on how close you are to Him in the first place.

It might be finally doing the thing He has laid on your heart to do that you have not yet done. Or not doing something that offends Him and others around you. Five years from now you could look back and say, “It was 2.22.22 when I decided to do always, only, that which pleases God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

“Come a little bit closer,” the Holy Spirit said to me as I stood a stone’s throw from Him on the seashore. As I moved closer to Him, He moved closer to me, until He surrounded me and was within me. That is the vision, but my self is also within me. What there is more of at any point of time determines what I think, say, and do.

from The Old Man, the Seashore, and the Holy Spirit

The term born-again gets bad press in some circles of Christendom, probably because folks don’t understand what the basic definition is.

We all are born into the family of Adam and Eve and become citizens of this natural world, separated from God as were Adam and Eve.

When anyone chooses to receive Jesus Christ as their leader instead of Adam, they are born-again into His family. It’s like adoption papers are drawn up, and we sign at the bottom that we renounce our natural birth through Adam and choose to be born-again into the family of Jesus Christ.

Or it’s like renouncing our citizenship in the world and becoming citizens instead in the kingdom of heaven. In this case, we renounce our old country and are born-again into a new country.

I’ve lost myself in finding You.

I was about to ask how I go about losing myself when the Holy Spirit put into my mind to check the wording. I don’t lose myself first and then find Jesus. I find Him first and in the process I lose myself. So, the real question is how do I go about finding Jesus?

“You have to plan to find Me. Build it into your day as you did at St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral in Cork and Trinity College in Dublin. Set aside the time.”

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine.”

Whose plans are you carrying out today?
1. My own plans.
2. The plans of my political party.
3. My keep-up-with-the-Joneses plan.
4. The plans that the people I admire tell me to carry out.
5. God’s plans.

The questions to ask yourself at every fork in the road are these.
1. Where is God in this?
2. Is this something Jesus would want me to do?
3. What does the Bible have to say about it?
4. Is what I am following the truth of God or fake news?
5. Is what I’m about to do exhibiting God’s love for my neighbor?

Do you want to be a child of the world or a child of God? That’s really the underlying question to all you do.

I’ve found that a good spiritual exercise is to see myself standing before Jesus in heaven and listening to what He has to say to me. This particular episode occurred on December 21, 2021.

“I am standing before you, Jesus, in the City of Light, and You ask, ‘What did you do for Me in the places I put you?'”

I hesitate before realizing what He truly meant. The answer I’m to give is not that I did this and that for Him. “Lord, I did what You asked me to do in the places You led me. I was obedient. I did not look for things to do and then do them under my own power. I listened and I followed.” When I finished, He smiled.

This first of the beatitudes Jesus taught at the Sermon on the Mount had always been one of those verses that sounded good to me but that I really didn’t understand. In March of 2019, I decided to do a bit of research to try to get a grasp of what Jesus probably meant.

Spirit means breath in Greek (pneuma) and in Hebrew (ruah) and in Latin (spiritus). In Genesis 2:7, God breathed into Adam and gave him life, so spirit means life.

Now the verse made sense to me. Blessed are those who are poor in their own life and rich in God’s life. As John the Baptist said about himself, “He must become greater; I must become less.”