Colossians 2:9-10

“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

Isn’t this a stunning correlation? I absolutely love the ESV’s translation here, using the same idea of being ‘filled’ with something to describe Jesus’ oneness with God. His being of God. Then, our own fullness in Christ.

Christ was God in man form. All of God dwelled inside the man. Now, as followers and believers in Jesus, we now experience a filling of our own. We are filled by Christ in the Holy Spirit.

How could that not give you chills?

The idea of faith is kind of ambiguous. Sometimes we mean belief. Sometimes we mean ambition. Sometimes we mean almost nothing and it’s really just a Christian buzzword. To sum up ‘faith’ isn’t an easy undertaking and I’m not going to try it here. But what did occur to me during a conversation with a friend the other day was this concept that faith may not be something we can really measure. Well, not with any real confidence.

The two weeks leading up to the beginning of my Christian walk were strange. Looking back now, I feel confident in saying that my Christian walk actually began before I sat down to pray ‘that prayer’. When I sat down to pray, I believe it was merely my own mind catching up with my heart, so to speak. Yet, in that time period, had you asked me if I had faith, I would most likely have said, ‘no’.

Whether or not people’s ‘salvation’ can happen at some time other than when they sit down to confess their faith for the first time is a matter of discord. Regardless, I think the concept extends much farther than that.

We’re told in scripture that even the faith of a mustard seed will move mountains. Curiously, we see no mountains moving. We hear the man crying that Jesus help his unbelief—for faith. My question is this: how presumptuous are we to think that the totality of our faith is not only something we can quantify, but something that we must support ourselves.

Within every believer dwells the Holy Spirit. A counselor, a prayer warrior, a comforter, a seal. How can we think, “I have X amount of faith”, while in us dwells the creator of the universe? We are in no position to claim how much or how little faith we have.

Our faith sometimes surprises us, I believe that is because we often do not know the true extent of our faith, but God does and luckily he treats us accordingly. Well, that’s what I think any way.

The final verse of the Bible’s longest chapter, Psalm 119, is one that ever honest Christian must find a potent connection to.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
   for I do not forget your commandments.

Even in our worst follies, failures and wanderings, Jesus is not too far away to retrieve us. Nor has he ceased to be our shepherd.

Furthermore, when a true Christian has begun to wander, the Lord’s commandments don’t. They continue to press on the believer’s heart and the Holy Spirit from within must be repeating this prayer on our behalf. “Lord, seek your servant!”

Even in sin, Jesus is the encouragement of life.

Psalm 119:55-56 (ESV):

I remember your name in the night, O LORD,
   and keep your law.
This blessing has fallen to me,
   that I have kept your precepts.

This is an interesting translation of this scripture. No other version that I read used that word “blessing” in verse 56. Whether the translation is the best, I don’t know. But I think the sentiment is apt nonetheless.

To obey God is a blessing from God which stands in a bizarre tension with our own human responsibility for our actions.

But whether direct or indirect in influence, all good things come from God—with all the evil that my hands have the potential to perform, it is God that keeps me from the worst of it.

In the book of acts, when Paul was in Philipi preaching the word a woman Lydia heard what he said and believed the word of the Lord. The action of believing was hers—she believed.

But look what the text says. Acts 16:14:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

Although her actions were her own—she listened—God had distinct responsibility in her believing. That can’t be ignored.

In circles of people with extremely charismatic language, I often hear people say things things like, “The Lord is telling me…” or “I feel like the Lord is saying…”. Whether I agree with that or not is not so much in discussion right now. But what is actually said is.

Before Jesus’ death, he told his disciples that his death was necessary that the Holy Spirit would come. He explained the Spirit’s function in John 16:14:

“When the Spirit of truth comes…[v14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

When the Spirit of God speaks to us, it is about Jesus; of Jesus. It is about God’s Word. The Spirit will not speak to us about things that aren’t taught to us from God’s word. This is why the Puritans understood that the modern gift of prophecy is when a person, usually a teacher, is given insight and understanding of God’s word.

You might not agree with that last paragraph, and that’s alright.

What bothers me is when people use the concept of the Spirit’s speaking to a believer as a means to make a point, or convince hearers of their opinions or personal beliefs.

For example, If you’ve dated within the Church, you’ve probably heard something like, “God is telling me I need to be single.” Or maybe you’ve just heard of people saying that kind of thing. In charismatic worship settings (which I tend to enjoy, by the way), you might’ve heard someone say something like, “The Spirit is telling us we need to lift our hands,” or “The Spirit wants us repent of [fill in the blank].”

I strongly believe this language is an abuse of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Well, at least about 90% of the time anyway.

When the Spirit speaks, it is to glorify Jesus—namely in the Word of God. It is more sound to say, “God’s Word says [fill in the blank]—I believe we are guilty of this, and should repent.” If this message is truly from the Spirit, this language will still cut people’s conscience and lead to repentance. And if it doesn’t, either people’s hearts are hard or else the Spirit wasn’t highlighting that issue in specific.

Or, perhaps, “I have been reading the word of God and praying and I feel that I need to be single for some time.”

When the Spirit speaks, it is from God’s word, which is about Jesus, of Jesus. And the language chosen is important. There are at least two major dangers in speaking with this kind of hyper-spiritual language.

1. Human beings are a complicated mess of flesh and emotion and ideas. Unless the the word being spoken can be thoroughly confirmed by God’s written word, it can only truly be spoken with some marginal level of confidence. Anything more than that is probably a confidence conjured from elsewhere inside us. Speaking with such presumption is clearly dangerous. Prophets of the old testament who prophesy falsely were to be put to death. That’s not the case today, but the principal stands. Speaking for God when God may not be speaking is big deal.

2. Human beings are also rational, intellectual creatures. These are gifts given to us by God. And, we have a thorough and complete written Word from God. When language such as “God is saying…” is used, it effectively closes the door to disagreement and rational discussion. It makes it impossible for “iron to sharpen iron”.

It is wisdom that we would use our language carefully when talking about the Spirit’s speaking to us and to our congregation. When the Spirit speaks, he is teaching what he has already said in God’s Word to the church.

We should be so hasty as to assume the Spirit is saying what we might think he’s saying but be confident that if he is speaking, it will be heard even if we don’t use such confident language.

After a long weekend of shooting weddings, I came to the end of the day, exhausted, and realized that I hadn’t written a post yet, nor did I have too much inspiration to do so. So, I cracked open my copy of A Puritan Golden Treasury. A collection of brief quotations from famous puritan authors on all sorts of topics.

I read through a few of them before I stumbled on one that I really very much liked. Thomas Watson writes this:

“That which the saints scarce take notice of in themselves, God in a special manner observes. "I was hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink. Then shall the righteous say, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee?” (Matt 25:35). They as it were overlooked and disclaimed their own works of charity, but Christ takes notice of them.”

I thought this was an interesting perspective.

Christians are well accustomed to debasing themselves. After all, we are sinners, and indeed there isn’t a drop of blood in our veins deserving of God’s love, although he gives it anyway.

But, I think this often bleeds beyond its limits and we forget that God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us. A fact that implies that we will do good things. And, although we may fail to see that good God is working in us, we can be sure that Jesus is taking very particular note of it.

I find that to be encouraging.