In my reading of I Corinthians I’m finding it to be much more about The Holy Spirit than I’d ever realized.  I’ve read it so many times and referenced back to it many times, but this time (probably because I’m so focused on the Holy Spirit) I’m recognizing just how much this book emphasizes The Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.  It even says that The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts.  I found that insightful in that He is a Gift to us from Jesus coming into our lives.  He then gives us spiritual gifts to be used to advance God’s Kingdom work.  I’m sure I’ve had this taught to me at numerous occasions in my past.  Today, God is emphasizing my need to take this teaching a step further in my walk with Him, Christ and The Holy Spirit.  The fact that I’m reading all of this in I Corinthians is evidence that God’s timing is always perfect.

I had to stop in the middle of writing this.  I had suddenly realized I was so eager to get to this writing I’d forgotten to journal.  Always I blog following the journaling and the journaling helps me know what to blog about.  Today it was the scripture reading that had me going.  I still needed to get what I was reading better grounded in me so I stopped and just finished journaling.  I Corinthians 12 ends with the words that the greatest gift the Holy Spirit gives us is love.  This gift we really need to pursue.  As I began to journal I could see so well that I discipline myself to be committed and steadfast.  Yet, The Holy Spirit is showing me that love is to be what drives my discipline so that people don’t see that I’m disciplined but that they see I am loving just as God is loving.  I’ve always wanted to be disciplined so I wouldn’t look like my dad who would always give up part way through something.  Instead God wants me looking to my Heavenly Father as my example.  I needed to wake up to this reality.  Thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

This is a trip with God that I am taking right now–not that any other one has been an absence of Him.  Being on this trek of learning to know The Holy Spirit is proving to be very amazing.  The lady accompanying me with this work is actually the head of the federal program work at our state department of education.  She has only been in her position for a couple years and its our first time to work solely together.  She is a Christian and a pastor’s wife.

On our lengthy drive yesterday I tested the waters of opening up to her about my quest to know the Holy Spirit.  I briefly told her of my past and what my current endeavors have been.  I was surprised to find her telling me she has a history of sexual abuse also.  She actually then said she’d never told this to anyone except her husband and the counselor she worked with several years ago.  My sharing with her allowed her to tell me she said.  As we got past this part I was easily able to ask how she experienced knowing the presence of The Holy Spirit within?  Yes, she’d struggled with the worthiness factor but had never struggled with the beauty and love of The Holy Spirit and His desire to be within her.  Hearing this gave me the confidence that He felt the same about living within me.

Last night I had a dream I’ve had many times in the past year or so.  It is a college setting dream where I’m on the cusp of failing a class where I actually love the content.  I just am never able to satisfy the professor even though He seems to want to help me.  He gave me a project paper back having lost most of it but I’d gotten a low B as my grade.  It was my fault he’d lost much of the work and I knew it somehow.  I awoke this morning with the same sense of “I will never be good enough”.  As I started my devotions I had an instant sense of total emptiness and panic quickly replaced with the assurance I’m ok.  My scripture reading was I Corinthians 10 where the 13th verse tells me that no temptation will ever be able to overcome me for God will provide a way of escape–Earnie’s translation.  God had given me this verse way back when I was in high school.  I’ve always believed it was going to be important to me someday for the truth of it was very assuring.  However, I’ve just never yet been able to find the assurance for my “now”.  It seemed I failed far more than I ever succeeded.

This morning as I began to journal about all of this The Holy Spirit showed me how the emptiness I’d briefly experienced was what Satan has always wanted to use to keep me ensnared.  The replacement sense of assurance was His Presence within me.  The way of escape God promises in I Corinthians 10:13 is through the Holy Spirit’s presence.  I don’t have to prove myself to God, He proves Himself to me through His Gift of The Holy Spirit.  He didn’t give The Holy Spirit to me so I could now prove myself worthy to Him.  My choice to accept Christ into my heart so long ago was my step into worthiness–another gift and promise completed.

Satan has always made his deceptions so real to me but God is making His truth much more real now.  How grateful I am today for finding this rock-solid truth.  Amen and Amen!

It is Monday morning and all the little details that can make writing a blog are fully engaged.  The computer was off and we didn’t turn it off, the program wouldn’t open that hosts the blog, all the settings were wrong and wouldn’t cooperate at being reset, etc.  I’m leaving this morning to work this week on the other side of our state so I don’t have endless time to play with all of this.  However, it is working now and away we go.

As I began my journaling this morning I didn’t find it difficult to write to The Holy Spirit except it isn’t a habit yet.  I instantly wrote Father as I began.  It seemed right to cross this out and write Holy Spirit because I sense strongly my Father wants me to get much better acquainted with our Holy Spirit.  I was telling The Holy Spirit it seemed more awkward writing to Him because God and Jesus have some sense of humanness to them since God sent Jesus to us to redeem us.  So as I began to tell The Holy Spirit it would be nice if He would manifest Himself more in a human sense I realized my issue.  He is working to help me be more spiritual and NOT so humanlike.  I almost laughed out loud just writing this.  There are a lot of things I’m getting better awakened to about The Holy Spirit.  These are:  a message that comes to mind that is truly wise, a nudge from within to say or do something, an environment shift that simply makes you well up in tears, a sense of AWE or a sense of genuine peace.  These are all examples of my recognizing The Holy Spirit’s presence.  But, He is always present and this is what I want to get better at realizing so I am not so fast to do what my human spirit says to say or do.

Yesterday in our step study, we were working through the lesson called daily inventory where we are to journal daily recapping the good & bad of each day so one can act on whatever needs to be corrected.  Most of the guys are not good at this yet.  However, I was so touched by their honesty in realizing what is wrong and what is needing to be done.  The Holy Spirit was genuinely working and we were responding to Him within us and within the room.  This is what I’d love to have happen more commonly because I allow The Holy Spirit to take charge and not me.

Holy Spirit, Thou art welcome in this place.  There is a chorus with these words.  it came to me as I began to journal this morning.  As I wrote them I was sensing The Holy Spirit telling me that the place mentioned is not in the room where I have my devotions, it is within me.  He dwells within me as promised.  The fact that He is present in our world is by creation.  The fact He is within me is a Gift given when Christ was invited to be my Lord and Savior.  I have to confess that this Gift living in me has been one of my most private and inner struggles.  How could someone so tarnished from sin possess something so pure and precious?

After my devotions yesterday I ended up letting my sponsor know how much I was struggling and why I was.  I also called one other person I trust well for the same reason.  In so doing, the cloud of shame lifted.  The rest of my day was one of peace.  I spent a couple hours with the gentleman who was my pastor from my late teen years until I was 30.  He is turning 90 next month and struggles immensely from dementia, yet, he knows me.  He doesn’t know where I go to church or where I live as he asks a dozen or more times, but it doesn’t matter–he knows me and calls me by name.  This man will be rewarded richly in heaven.  He has been God’s gift to hundreds and hundreds here on earth.

How much I love our TEAM–God the Father, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit.  It seems I’m getting to know them more personally now.  The battle within is ebbing away.  Such a peace is replacing the emptiness of no value I’ve fought so long.  It really is a peace–a contentment.  It is just what the scripture says:  “A peace that passeth all understanding” as stated in Philippians 4:7.

There must be something about the third day.  When I began to journal to God in July, 2016 it was the third day when I just had to confess to Him that I was not worthy of doing this–speaking directly to Him.  It was then that He told me He’d given Christ to us to show how we could live humanly and still not sin as well as to be the sacrifice for all of us.  He did not give Christ to us to replace Himself and our relationship with Him.  He wanted me journaling to Him so I could find that He is the very essence of His Son and vise versa.  This is truly happening from then until now.

Today would be the third day of journaling to The Holy Spirit.  Today I was overwhelmed with the sense of unworthiness to communicate with the very essence of God Himself.  I have so much humanness in me!  The Holy Spirit is purity at its finest.  So, I journaled to God asking if it were the right thing for me to do–journaling to the very Gift He’d given me?  His response was not surprising, but confirming.  The Holy Spirit is God within each of us if we’ve received Christ into our lives.  Christ’s sacrifice has cleansed our body and made it acceptable for The Holy Spirit’s dwelling.  I’ve known this for years.  However, now that this Magnificent Three in One are becoming so intimate, I simply struggle seeing myself the way They say they see me.  This is why God told me it was the right thing to do in journaling to The Holy Spirit.  He will confirm Himself to me over time just as God and Christ have done.

The third day is important.  It is the day of grappling with the very truth of God’s Kingdom Work.  Will I accept it as spiritual truth for me personally or not?  This journey has me facing it and I am not turning back.  One day at a time, one moment at a time I am submitting to the fullness of The Holy Spirit within me and learning to believe it is true.

Today and yesterday I did something I’ve not done.  I shifted from asking God what He wanted me to know when I was at the end of my journaling to asking The Holy Spirit.  I’m struggling to find words to express this experience.  It is simply HOLY.  My first and biggest awakening is that He is Spirit as well as Holy just as His Name says.  He told me He is restoring within me a belief that Spirit is substance in and of itself.  He is not within me to help me convert spirit to flesh but to do the opposite.  I’ve somehow needed or thought I needed to have what is spiritual demonstrated in flesh.  Well, The Holy Spirit showed me that He is doing just the opposite.  He is helping me see the substance of faith and hope, trust and belief.  These intangibles in flesh are rock solid in Spirit.  These are demonstrated by a PEACE which transcends all humanness when they are working because I choose to allow them to complete themselves in me.

As I was pondering all of this and letting the Holy Spirit speak to me I thought about the substance of PEACE.  There is contentment, recognition and appreciation of others and so much more.  When man defines peace we say something like it follows war.  Someone has lost and so the result of winning gives me peace.  There may be fighting all around me in my flesh, but if I am living as the new creation God has given me I am able to be at peace because I choose not to fight but allow God’s Team to fight for me.  I’ve talked these words so many times in my life but this morning I somehow sense them within for the first time.  It’s incredible.  I’m struggling to not simply breakdown in tears of thanksgiving.

Yesterday had some tough conversations needing to take place.  They all materialized and The Holy Spirit did His Work.  I’m so grateful for this and experiencing it has only rooted more deeply my need to fully surrender “my control” to His Ultimate Control.  It is there I find this PEACE.  How glorious our Heavenly Team is.

Today’s journey has me facing some difficulty I would choose to avoid if at all possible.  I’ve never run from addressing conflict, but this particular item is bigger than simply conflict–it is addressing beliefs and purpose.  I’d like to tell you more about it but I shouldn’t.  I’ve mentioned that our church is enlarging our recovery ministry and I will be directing this.  Tonight’s challenge will be in this arena.  This is simply a prayer request that The Holy Spirit will be totally in charge and I will be His servant only.

Last weekend I had one of our Celebrate Recovery attendees call me.  He wanted to talk but he wanted to do it by texting.  I wrote on Sunday morning the 14th about this.  I was afraid I’d not see him again at CR or in our step study.  Last night he came just as we were starting our share group time.  He and I met separately for 45 minutes where we were able to talk through what he felt was judgment when I’d shared with him what the Bible says about participating in homosexuality.  He didn’t want to sever the relationships he’s begun to development in our group, but he felt judged by what I’d said.  It was very healthy to talk face to face with him letting him know that I want to be friends with him and support him.  He just needed to know that support and friendship still had boundaries when it comes to participating in something that isn’t scripturally sound.  This time he was able to see this and he stayed.  He said he’d be back at our step study this coming Sunday.  I truly praise God for this answer to prayer.

The Holy Spirit is amazing, kind, endlessly patient and stubbornly consistent to God’s Word.  This is exactly what God says He is and this is proven over and over by Him, His Son Jesus and The Holy Spirit.  In spite of all my unworthiness, I am made worthy through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Just how amazing this is.  I am forever grateful!

I think this must be the season for dealing with character defects which Celebrate Recovery addresses so often.  Life can teach us (intentionally and unintentionally) some very wrong beliefs or ways of living.  In the past few days I’ve written about several of my own.  In my devotions this morning God brought out some more.  In Romans 13:14 it says in part to “clothe myself in Jesus”.  In so doing I am not to dwell on sinful lusts, desires/cravings.  Clothing myself in Jesus isn’t just an exterior thing, but it is also an inner thing.  Inside and out I am to be clothed in Jesus.  God is making it very clear that The very Holy Spirit living in me as His Gift is this spiritual substance of being clothed in Jesus.  I get to know this more fully by obeying Him as He speaks to me throughout the day.

The second thing this morning comes from my devotional.  It was hitting on Matthew 5:24 where Christ is telling the crowd to be reconciled with your brother before you lay your gift on the alter.  I had thought this was all done for me except when I asked God if there was anyone He wanted to bring to my mind, He instantly did.  I will be acting on this very soon.  To me I had acted on this, but the verse is very clear–be reconciled.  It isn’t–think you are reconciled.  I need to know that I am.

God wants us only doing His Work in Him, not within ourselves.  I can see Him working.  To God be all Glory and Honor.

I finished a book yesterday entitled, Wounded.  It is written by Terry Wardle.  I found it so interesting.  One of the major purposes of the author in writing it is God using any and all of our past to lead us into living life fully for Him in spirit-filled living.  The human side of man is where man abuses and uses–selfish living.  Our spirits get very beat up in this process especially when it begins early in our life.  I had to wait a long time to finally be free of the actual abuse of my past.  I also learned some disgusting fantasies to appease the pain of it too during this time.  Most of this is gone now.  Even though I remember, I am not bound by it.

What I’m now seeing about myself is my need to have a timetable built I can live by.  This new area of recovery ministry is still being built requiring me to work with a few very busy people.  I am not able to get the timetable built as quickly as I’d like.  Each morning God reminds me to surrender this to Him.  He is building it–not me.  He wants me working in it while He is doing His Work.  Some of what He is doing is equipping me to know trust and faith like I’ve never known them before.  Also in it, He is showing me things like my mind that need to still be surrendered.  I am a doer and I want my doing to be meaningful and purposeful.  So, the timetable is a must because doing things timely is part of meaning and purpose–so I’ve always thought.

This morning in my prayer time I asked God what He wanted me to know about all of this?  He immediately reminded me to worship Him.  I began to sing the chorus: “I worship You, Almighty God, there is none like You.  I worship You oh Prince of peace, that is what I long to do.  I give You praise for You are my Righteousness.  I worship You, Almighty God, there is none like You.”  A very deep peace began to settle in as I sang this through a couple times.  I felt God’s Spirit taking control and my wants being let go.  I don’t want to control this.  I truly don’t.  I do need to recognize however when my selfish desires are interfering with God’s work.  He is truly not done with me yet!  In fact, sometimes I sense He is just getting started!

I keep getting hit by the truth of God’s Word regarding the topic of spirit-living.  God is making it abundantly clear to me that man’s mind is a great gift and tool.  From it we get the control of our entire body’s impulse control whether its our heart’s regular beating, our liver and lungs working, etc.  It is also the place where we sort through thoughts that come to us and so much more!  However, in our mind we continuously make our decisions based on our own selfish motivation.  Yes, we (I) try to see and weigh all the variables involved, but I still have my own bias when it comes to making the decisions–we can’t help it–we are human and deal with human limitations.

God has given to each of us who have invited His Son Jesus Christ to be our Savior, His Holy Spirit living within us.  The more we allow The Holy Spirit to become our motivating spirit within, the more we become Christ-like.  God makes it very clear in Romans 9:1 that The Holy Spirit bears witness in me of what God wants done.  I have always lived my life making decisions asking God to bless them.  I was thinking The Holy Spirit uses my mind, not trusting my own spirit.  I thought my spirit was simply another word for my emotions which I didn’t trust at all.  I’m not well grounded on all I’m trying to write here, but I am firm that I’ve got to get much better connected to my spirit awakening to The Holy Spirit within me.  My mind certainly recognizes the nudges of The Holy Spirit.  This is becoming more clear.  Learning to respond immediately to these instead of taking them as a suggestion is the adjustment I want to make.

We are going to live for eternity in spirit.  I know God is wanting me to better know Him by better awakening to spirit-living now.  I really want to do this too.