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.