Holy Spirit
Watermelon Lickers or Watermelon Eaters- Change
We were going to cook out with Kimberly (my daughter) and her family. She’s a great cook! (Does that get me invited over again soon?)
I was excited to get with them because we’ve been on a book tour for several weeks. There’s just nothing like getting all those slobbery kisses from the grandbabies!
I offered to help her put the meal together. She asked me to bring a watermelon. Do you think maybe the flashback of all those burned meals as she was growing up, had anything to do with that suggestion?
I’m sure that wasn’t what she was thinking…she knows I’m a great cook. Sure she knows what a great cook I am?
Anyway, I picked up chips and watermelon.
It was my first watermelon of the season. I can’t begin to tell you how delicious that watermelon was. I like to eat my watermelon with salt, but I’m watching my blood pressure. Do I sound like I’m getting old or something? I passed up the salt…but I didn’t miss it on this delicious watermelon. The sweet juice dripped off my fingers and onto my clothes, but I didn’t care. I was sticky and enjoying every minute of it! Soooo good! There’s just nothing like a cold, sweet and juicy watermelon. My very favorite fruit. Skip the meal, bring on the watermelon!
Never seen a watermelon.
But pretend with me for just one moment that you had never seen a watermelon. You don’t know anyone that has ever seen one, I know that would be awful, but go there with me. Then one day a friend shows you this big green stripped football looking thing. You have no frame of reference so you ask, “What is it?” and “What do you do with it?”
Excitedly they explain, “You make a little slit in the side and lick the sweet juice that comes out.” You don’t know any better so you try it…and you like it. You discover them at the produce stand so you buy a melon and began to share with your friends so that they too can become watermelon lickers. Soon everyone you know is licking watermelons.
Then one day you discover that watermelons were not made to be licked. You discover watermelons were made to be eaten. What would have to happen for you to move beyond just licking a melon to become a watermelon eater?
- You must change what you believe.
- You must change what you do.
- You must change what you expect.
I’m convince a similar reality has taken place in our modern culture.
Today’s modern church doesn’t quite know what to do with Holy Spirit. I talk about that in my book the book “Precious Holy Spirit”, “Our theology insists Holy Spirit exists, but divorced from His living presence, we live like deserted, hopeless orphans.”
“The early church was born in the fire and power of Holy Spirit. If the early church needed power, why don’t we still need it? Did God intend for the church to be born in a dynamic fire only to fizzle out? Or, has the lid of wrong teaching kept us from expecting and experiencing the infilling of Holy Spirit? Has unbelief cut our taproot, so we fail to reach for and receive the deep things of God?”
“The early church was born in the fire and power of Holy Spirit. If the early church needed power, why don’t we still need it? Did God intend for the church to be born in a dynamic fire only to fizzle out? Or, has the lid of wrong teaching kept us from expecting and experiencing the infilling of Holy Spirit? Has unbelief cut our taproot, so we fail to reach for and receive the deep things of God?”
The reality is we need precious Holy Spirit as much today as the early church did.
If you are going to move to enjoy all that God has for you, you must do the same 3 things.
- You must change what you believe. Believe that God wants to fill you with Holy Spirit.
- You must change what you do. Ask God to fill you with precious Holy Spirit.
- You must change what you expect. Expect or believe that He will fill you. Yield to Him and expect to speak words that you do not understand.
Got questions?
Maybe you are like many people, you have questions. God deliberately cloaked Holy Spirit with mystery. Not to hide Him from us, but to hide Him for us…so we would search for him and understand How valuable He is. This hiding is much like how God hid precious gold and oil in the ground for us to discover.
I’ve written the book “Precious Holy Spirit” to help you discover “Who Holy Spirit is and the benefits of Spirit filled living. If you’ve already experienced the infilling this book will rekindle your passion to live out the benefits of Spirit influenced and empowered living. Buy the book “Precious Holy Spirit”.
You can read the first chapter of my book at the book “Precious Holy Spirit”.