JULY 15

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

NAMES FOR GOD:

ELOHIM—STRONG CREATOR GOD

JEHOVAH—RELATIONAL GOD

ADONAI—MASTER OVER ALL

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This month we will read the book, “Whatever Happens – How to Stand Firm in Your Faith When the World is Falling Apart.”  By a contemporary author of many best-selling Christian books, Robert J. Morgan.  He took care of his wife when she had MS, until she went home to her Savior.  “He knows of which he speaks.”  I pray that this book blesses you.

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Philippians 1:18-19

“What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

 For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,”

GOD’S PROVISION OF THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST

Now to the phrase that got into my bloodstream:  “I will continue to rejoice for I know that through your prayers AND THE PROVISION OF THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST,”  The whole Trinity is in that phrase:  “GOD’S” provision of the “SPIRIT” of “JESUS CHRIST.”

Jesus Christ is the eternal God, the son who has always existed and will always exist.  But in coming to earth through a virgin’s womb, He put aside many of the prerogatives of His God-ness.  For example, as God, Jesus is omniscient.  He knows absolutely everything about everything everywhere.  But on earth in His humanity, Jesus “grew in wisdom” (Luke 2:52).

How, then, did Jesus know what to say?  How did He do all He did?

Luke 3:21-22 says, “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too.  As He was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove.  A voice came from heaven;  ‘You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.’”

Jesus was baptized, not only with water, but also with the Spirit.  The Hebrew term “Messiah” and the Greek title “Christ” both mean “Anointed One.”

The Father did His work through His Son by the Spirit, as these verses testify:

John 5:19:

“Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”

John 12:49-50:

“For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.  And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”

John 14:10:

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

John 14:24:

“He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”

The Father did His work and spoke His words through Jesus Christ.  How?  By the Holy Spirit.

In Matthew 12:28 Jesus says, “It is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons.”

In Acts 10:38, Peter talked about  how God “anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and He  went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him.”

Major Ian Thomas, whose sermons have had a tremendous impact on my wife, Katrina, and me, once said:  “In the upper room, Jesus told His disciples, “I’m going back to the place from which I came, back to the One from whom I came – My Father – and because I am going back to My Father, the day will soon dawn when I, indwelling you by the same Holy Spirit through whom My Father now indwells Me,  I will do through you the things My Father is now doing through Me.”

In his inimitable way, Major Thomas said:  “When we as human beings make ourselves available to Jesus Christ in the same way that Jesus as man made Himself available to the Father, then Jesus will be to us in our humanity what the Father was to Him in His humanity.  That is the  whole Christian life in a nutshell.”

Thomas also said, “So the Christian life, of course, is the life that Christ lived then, lived now, by Him, in us!  There is no other. If your Christian life does not derive from that fact that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, has come to take occupation of your humanity and become in you the origin of His own image, the source of His own activity, the dynamic of His own demands and the cause of his own effects, you’ve become a Christian but haven’t yet learned to be one.”

Look up these verses that speak of  the power offered by the Holy Spirit:

Romans 5:5 and 15:13

1Corinthians 6:19

2 Corinthians 3:18

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME WILL TURN OUT FOR MY DELIVERANCE

When the provision of the Spirit is combined with the prayers of the saints, it transforms all our circumstances.  Paul concluded in Philippians 1:18-19, “I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, ‘what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.”

The apostle Paul wasn’t certain of how he would be delivered, but he knew it would be in one of two ways – either by his release or by His execution – and either was all right with him.  We know this because he went on to say in verse 21, “for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

We can have Paul’s  mindset, too, by following his example with these simple steps:

Make up your mind to rejoice based on the knowledge you find in God’s word.

Find someone who needs you to pray for them.

Yield yourself to Christ and let Him fill you with His Spirit Remember – whatever happens, access God’s provision of the Spirit of Christ

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