Intensely envious Spirit (NIV84)

The intensity of the New Testament life that is expected in a believer never ceases to amaze me. Just imagine Paul saying in a casual way -'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'. In the world today, almost every problem in man is because of the lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh! Was Paul alone such a extreme radical or are expected to be radical too? Don't misunderstand me. I'm not against marriage and neither is Paul. I am talking about radical lifestyle. Prayer was supposed to be coupled with fasting most of the time but nowadays we barely have time to pray. Even when we fast, it is divorced from prayer and we think fasting has virtue in itself. Everything we do is with difficulty and seems arduous.

Now the question that I want to bring to the fore is this - Is there any difference in the activity of the Holy Spirit between now and at those times? Isn't He the same Spirit who jealously yearns inside us (James 4:5)? The Spirit is intense and therefore we have to be intense. Half-heartedness just means we are not entering Spirit realities. A different lifestyle should become normal lifestyle to us. The world should be amazed at how different we are. We should build intense relationships with each other. You may say - easier said than done. Well, we have to start somewhere. Our God is an intense God and we are not children of a lesser God.

Acts 2:44

The New Testament church from what we see in the book of Acts seemed to have lived a lifestyle far beyond what we could do today and any one who preaches on Acts 2:44 seems to digging a hole in our hearts. It seems like they had no possessions and did not own any houses. But a careful study reveals it a bit differently. They did not sell their houses but the verse says that they sold their property and possessions. They must have given away most of their unnecessary property and belongings which they accumulated before they got saved. The Bible is clear in the next few verses that they met from house to house meaning they still had their own houses to live in and did not share houses too! I'm sure God does not want us to live like gypsies.
Another thing to note is that there are times of revival in the church where people do things that are quite amazing. The beginnings of the church was one of those periods for sure. They were meeting daily at the temple!  But soon everything changed. What we should realize that that times of revival and refreshing are preparing us for difficult and seemingly dry periods of life which is also ordained by God to build up faith and endurance. Sometimes we may find no one with us which Paul acutely experienced in 2Tim 4:16.

Believe that you have received them...

I have been studying and teaching quite a bit on prayer (and praying too!) and the incident of the fig tree always intrigues me. We do not find Jesus doing any kind of praying before he curses the fig tree. And yet the lesson He gives is a lesson on prayer. And it is too big a lesson for us to just pass it by. Mar 11:24  "Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Most of us read this verse and come to the conclusion that in all our petitions, if only we can gather more faith, we could always get what we prayed for. The emphasis is we trying hard to produce enough faith for it. I see it a bit differently. When we petition God, some of our petitions begin to have a touch from God. We find out that we are able to gain more confidence even when we are praying. There is a holy boldness we are receiving from God. Suddenly our petition becomes more than believable. It becomes a necessity and is affirmed. And we find that we are birthing it out even before we see the substance. There is victory in the heavenlies before it is released on earth. Finally, there is no need to pray any longer. It is done. It will soon become a reality. 

Here, the emphasis is the working of God inside our petitions. All thing for which you 'pray and ask', not 'ask and pray'. The difference is significant. Our prayers need His touch more than we realize. The Holy Spirit has to help us even in finding out what to pray for. Romans 8:26

Different means to the same end

It is interesting to realise that there are two camps among believers who view salvation a bit differently. One group begins by being much involved in serving God’s people and for them, knowing God or receiving a greater revelation of God is slow in appearing in their lives. They tend to label the other camp as mystics who are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. Now people in this camp are sooner or later brought to a temporary standstill in their activities because they have to learn that it is equally important to know the God whom they serve. People in the other camp begin their christian lives with revelations of God and His Word and they would rather be in the church worshipping or fellowshipping with God’s people. Now this group needs to realise that God gives to them so that they become channels instead of containers and sooner or later, they will find themselves either stagnant or learning to gain practice in serving others. The sad thing is that both groups can sometimes be found attacking each other instead of realising that the end result is the same even though the means to reach that end may be different.