Mike Owens
http://www.bcity.com/graphotech
DocGraphy@yahoo.com
I believe that Christ returned to Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to help us in our daily lives. This same Holy Spirit, who is the third member of the Triune God, has established God's Church, through the guidence of His influence in our lives, as displayed through the Fruits of the Spirit, and through the power exhibited in the Church to better enable us to witness to this dying world, as displayed through the Gifts of the Spirit.
I believe that the moment you receive Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit dwells with you as a witness of your new life, but it is not until you ask Him to empower you that He lives in you, as exhibited through a display of one of the Gifts.
Holy Spirit
What is the infilling of the Holy Spirit?
If the Holy Spirit is indeed a personal, individual Being, then what is His relationship to Christians? Some say that the Holy Spirit infills the Christian at the moment of salvation, others say that He is with them from the moment of salvation, but does not infill them until they ask for Him. This study is to see what Scripture has to say on this topic.By infilling, we mean that the Holy Spirit resides in the Christian in all His power. This is sometimes called the Gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 1:4), or the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Ac 1:5). Does this take place when one becomes a Christian? Though there are those who teach this, it is not so. We read in Act 19:2, 6:
and [Paul] asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.".....When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.These people were Christians, when you believed, yet Paul asks them if they have the Gift of the Holy Spirit. They had accepted Christ as their Savior, they were probably baptized in water, yet they did not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them with power! In John 14:16-17, we read:
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.
(emphasis mine)When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit dwells with us, without Him with us it is impossible to understand anything of God1. This is beyond all doubt, but when we receive Him in power, then He dwells in us. This is what is meant by being a Spirit filled Christian, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. To receive Him in power we must ask for Him.
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
Lk 11:13Like Christ, whom He reveals to us, the Holy Spirit is a gift of God given to all men, but we must believe that God has given Him, we must seek Him, and we must accept Him, just as we did Christ or He will continually be on the outside trying to get in. God does nothing by force, He has given you a free will and it is your choice whether or not to accept Him and what He has to offer. It is possible to be a Christian without the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Once you have accepted Christ as your Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit will be with you, always. But you are living under your own power, therefore subject to the whims of the flesh. Some have called this being a carnal or worldly Christian.
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
1Co 3:1-3Now, all this means is that you are living by your own power, and the sinful nature you were born with is controlling you instead of the Holy Spirit. If we are lead by the flesh, or carnal nature, we will exhibit the fruits of that nature.
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; 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.
Ga 5: 19-21Sexual immorality is basically illicit sexual activity. It comes from the word porneia, from which we get the word pornography. It deals with sexual activity outside of marriage, but is to be distinguished from adultery moixeuo, which is sexual activity between married individuals outside of their marriage.
Many in the Church today are plagued by this very sin, whether it is young couples engaging in sexual activity before (or without) marriage, sexually oriented material such as movies and magazines, or "computer sex". These people are lead by their carnal desires.
Impurity is lustful living, or living in the control of our desires and passions whether sexual or physical, which would include eating and drinking excessively. It is luxurious living, or that which is materially or sumptuously conducive to comfortable living, but is not a necessity for living. It is extravagant living, or living beyond our means, a keeping up with the Jones. It comes from the word akatharsia and is usually translated uncleanness or impurity.
Debauchery goes hand-in-hand with impurity. It comes from the word aselgeia, which basically means against morals. It is the use of filthy language, indecent body movements, unchaste handling of males and females and other such things. We see this a lot among teenagers today, but they are not the only ones guilty of this sin.
Idolatry and witchcraft are another pair of sins which go hand-in-hand. In 1Sa 15:23 we read: For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
Rebellion is equated with witchcraft and stubbornness is equated with idolatry, this would fit a vast many in the Church today. Idolatry eidololatreia is specifically the worship of false gods or the formal sacrificial feasts held in honor of these gods, but it also includes the worship of wealth.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
1Ti 6:10Witchcraft comes from the word pharmakeia and is where we get the word pharmaceutics. It is the use and administration of drugs.
Sorcery or the magic arts were often found in connection with idolatry and a mild hallucinogen was normally used by the participants. Today, many use drugs for recreational purposes, often becoming dependent on these same drugs. This would also include the use of alcoholic substances.Hatred comes from the word exthra and is often translated enmity, or strong feelings of hostility and animosity.
the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Ro 8:7,8Discord comes from eris, it is to struggle in rivalry or controversy, a bitter conflict or clash or dispute that centers around arguing in a noisy or angry manner. We have literally hundreds of different churches to, all saying theirs is the right way, all using the same Bible to prove that point. We also have this same strife and contention within the local Church. Churches have split over such strife.
Jealousy, though this word means excitement of mind, ardor, fervor of spirit and can also mean zeal, zelos here means an envious and contentious rivalry.
This is not just one person getting angry or fighting over another person doling attention on their mate. One can be envious over another's position, over their property, over the attention lauded upon them by others.Fits of rage comes from thumos, which is the boiling up of anger which bursts forth in passionate impulses. It is literally the heated, violent breathing or panting of the spirit swelling out to the outwards man.
There is nothing wrong with ambition until it comes before God. Selfish ambition is derived from a word which means to spin or work wool, as a craftsman. The word is eritheia, and it suggests someone courting for rank, it's a desire to put one's self forward as a partisan and factious spirit. Someone who puts on airs, someone who presents an artificial or contrived persona to give others what they expect not what is natural or spontaneous. Today we would say such a person was kissing up.
Dissensions are divisions within the Church. It comes from dixostsis, which means to stand apart. Many in the Church today use the Church for a social event, as opposed to a place to draw near to God. These people refuse to fall under Church authority, or Church leadership.
I know what my Bible says, and I'm not going to let anyone tell me what to do!
They cause division in the Church over their own ideas of the truth, or over pride or vanity.
Factions can be a positive thing or a negative thing. It can be a body of men separating themselves from others and following their own tenets (a sect or party) as in the Pharisees, Saddusees and Essenes. To put it in our language, the Formalists, Free Thinkers and Puritans. Christians were also a faction. The word comes from hairesis an act of taking captive, it implies a choosing or that which is chosen. On the negative side, as applied here, it is an opinion varying from the true exposition of the Christian faith and Christians. The dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims. This is the word we get the word heresy from, or the belief and teaching of false doctrine.
Envy is the covetous desire to possess what another has, whether it is money, power, prestige, or more basic as in his wife or her husband. It comes from the word phthonos.
The word drunkenness should be self explanatory, it comes from methe, a form of the word methu (wine, or any fermented beverage) and means intoxication.
Today, the word orgies has a purely sexual connotation, but in Bible times it meant any boisterous festivity. It comes from the word komos and was used to describe the festivals of Bacchus where the participants took part in a nocturnal and riotous procession of half-drunken and frolicsome. Fellows who paraded through the streets with torches and music and sang and played before the houses of their male or female friends. It was the drinking parties that were protracted into the late night with loud and boisterous merry making. Sound familiar?
1) "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.
Mt 16:15-17The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1Co 2:13