Throwback Thursday: Jesus & the Holy Spirit

Last year, my youth group was doing a study on the Holy Spirit. Even though I never volunteer to speak, I did then, because this is a topic that interests me very much. I was assigned to talk about the Holy Spirit in the Gospels, so I focused on the life of Jesus. This isn't written like a blog or even like a sermon. It's very much still in its rough "notes" form, with questions and answers.

1.       Did Jesus operate in the gifts of the Spirit?

Yes. He healed the sick, drove out demons, performed miracles, prophesied, used discernment, exercised wisdom & words of knowledge, and he expressed faith.

He didn’t use tongues or interpretation. Because He already prayed the will of the Father, He didn’t need those gifts. They didn’t appear until the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost in Acts, after Jesus had ascended.

2.       How was Jesus able to operate in the Spirit?

By being completely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him.

Jesus himself could not heal the sick, raise the dead, or perform miracles (John 5:19—The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does).

Yes, He is 100% God, but He chose to live as a man, with the same limitations man would face after redemption. This is hugely important, because if Jesus performed miracles as God, these acts would be impossible and unattainable. We would read about signs and wonders and say, “Wow, good for him.” But if Jesus did miracles as a man, I am responsible to pursue that lifestyle!

3.       How was Jesus empowered?

Jesus was empowered by hearing God’s voice and then responding in obedience. How did He so easily know the will of the Father? Simple. He spent time with the Father.

Jorie, as my daughter, knows my heart because she spends a lot of time with me. If she wanted to know how I would respond in a specific situation, she probably wouldn’t ask all my friends or read someone’s biography of me. She could, but at best all that would do is point her in the right direction. No, she would ask me. Watch how I act. Read my journals, maybe. The more time you spend with someone, the better you know them.

In Luke 4, the context is that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days, where He did nothing but pray and fast and was tempted by Satan. (Luke 4:14--Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.)

He has been filled with the Spirit. Did someone prophesy over him? Did anyone lay hands on him? Was there a band playing amazing Hillsong and Jesus Culture songs? What was he doing that filled him with the Spirit?

                He was 1. Spending time with the Lord and 2. Standing up against temptation.

I think it’s important to note that his time with the Father included prayer, fasting, and meditating on Scripture. In fact, he battled Satan simply by confessing Scripture…OUT LOUD. But that’s another topic.

Turn to Mark and someone read 9:14-29 (OR) context: The disciples were trying to drive a demon out of a boy, and they couldn’t, so Jesus was summoned. Read 4:28-29.

Now, did Jesus stop right then and began praying? No. He led a lifestyle of prayer and spending time with God. It was intentional devotion. His time in the desert is proof that time with God empowers the Spirit.

Now read Jesus’ response to the same scenario in Matthew 17:20 (If you would only have faith, nothing would be impossible). Okay. Seems like a different response, right? One time he calls for prayer, the other, faith. Make up your mind! But hang on. Look up Romans 10:17 (Faith comes from hearing the message). How do we hear the word of the Lord? We pray. We study the Bible. We confess Scripture out loud. We spend time with Him. Then look—nothing will be impossible. As we hear the word, faith builds!

4.       How often did Jesus operate in the gifts?

All the time! For a frame of reference, I looked up JUST instances of healing in Matthew chapters 5-25. There are over 20 listed, and in over half of them, there is no way to count all the healings. Words are used like “every,” “large crowds,” “all who were ill,” “every disease,” “all were healed,” and “great crowds.”

That’s just healing. That isn’t including times he prophesied or used wisdom or drove out demons, etc. He was constantly moving in the Holy Spirit. He never fell out of the anointing. His lifestyle of personal devotion didn’t allow Him to.

5.       Why did Jesus operate in the gifts?

He moved in the Spirit to bring God’s kingdom to heart. He wanted to serve and minister to all, so that Heaven would be recognized here.

How do we follow the example Jesus left? We spend time with the Lord. We let our faith grow. We allow the Holy Spirit to fill us. And we exercise that power by operating in the gifts of the Spirit for service, ministry, encouragement, and simply to know Jesus better. The more time we spend with Him, the more clearly we hear Him.

Stewarding the Call

On Friday, April 12, Jorie and I were headed home from school. We decided to stop by Wal-Mart to get supplies for a GNI (girls' night in), like cookie dough, pizza, and a Barbie DVD. And also...a pregnancy test. Now, since I've been married, I've had a weird fascination with pregnancy tests. I can't tell you how many I've purchased over the years, even when I was pretty dang sure it wasn't even possible. But I have an app on my iPhone that tracks certain female things, and if it even seemed like I was perhaps a day off, then I was off to the drugstore. Generally, buying one ensured that certain things would occur the next day, so often I bought it to trick Mother Nature. (Is this too much information for my male reader(s)? I apologize, but get used to it.)

Imagine my surprise then, when out of the hundreds of pregnancy tests I've taken (perhaps more like dozens), the one on April 12 turned out to be...positive. Like, without any doubt in the world positive. We tried for Jorie, and the first test I took with her was so faint that I had to take four more over the next week just so I was convinced. Not this time around. This one was screaming, "Hey! There's a kid in your belly! SURPRISE!"

Backstory: I had a not-great pregnancy with Jorie, and since it was coupled with the world's most unbelievable labor and delivery that I have since tried to block from my mind (keywords: back labor, power outage, squirrel, failed epidural, emergency c-section), I had pretty much unofficially decided that one child was just perfect, thanks.

Flash forward to April 12. Omg. I'm pregnant. As the shock rolled in, I knew I needed to talk about this. Slight problem: Ronnie was with my brothers and sisters-in-law at the Cardinals game, and there was no way he would be able to have this conversation in front of them. But since I owed it to him to be the first to know, we had the world's most stealth and awkward phone call.
Me: Don't react. Don't say anything.
Ronnie: Got it.
Me: I, on a whim, took a pregnancy test. It's positive.
Ronnie: Okay, thanks for letting me know. Talk to you later.

To his credit, he didn't even blink at the news. My brothers never suspected a thing. But five seconds later, I did receive a text that simply said, "WOW!" He was surprised but very excited.

I, on the other hand, was not so excited. I mean, there's always the initial excitement of oh my gosh, there's a baby growing inside me. I get to pick out names. I love that new baby smell. But most of those thoughts were replaced quickly with oh my gosh, we live in a two bedroom house. I work full-time. I have a five-year-old. Babies take diapers and bottles and sleepless nights. And these thoughts were not-so-fleeting. In fact, they were constantly in my head for several weeks. While I wasn't at the point of wishing for a miscarriage (this is my child, after all), I wasn't yet ready to face the reality of a new person in my house.

But all that changed one night when I was reading Face to Face with God by Bill Johnson. There is a section devoted to John the Baptist, and in this section, Johnson was discussing John's life while still in his mother's womb. If you'll remember the story, John's father did not believe when the angel spoke of John's impending birth. Because of his unbelief, the father was rendered mute for several months while John was still a bun in Elizabeth's oven. Johnson argued that one of the reasons Zacharias wasn't allowed to speak was so his words couldn't disagree with God's will on baby John's life.

He goes on to say that Elizabeth hid her pregnancy for the first few months in order to protect John from the careless words of others. Obviously, our words have effect. Can they thwart the will of God? I'm not sure we'll ever know the real answer to that question. But why are we warned so much in the book of James about the power of our tongues if there weren't damages caused by our words?

The greeting from Mary to Elizabeth caused John to leap in his mother's womb. Obviously, the words in that greeting had the power to reach the unborn baby and fill him with joy. Why would speaking negatively not affect the unborn baby in the opposite way? Johnson writes, "In the story of John's birth we see a powerful illustration of partnering with the Lord in speech and action in order to steward the call of God on his life."

Wow. Just, wow. What was I speaking over my unborn baby? Fears, anxieties, worries, concerns, sprinkled with the occasional drop of excitement. How was this possibly stewarding the call of God on my child's life? It wasn't. That was a huge moment of conviction and repentance for me.

I'm not sure why God chose this timing to give my family a new child. I'm not sure that I'm worthy to parent another beautiful person. But I do know that I am now rejoicing over this development and speaking life over my unborn baby.

I choose to use my words and actions to partner with the Lord in this endeavor.

Looks just like me. Can't you tell? Yeah, me, neither. :)

Guest Post by Ginger Coakley: Set Free

I am a modern-day abolitionist. I know, cool title, right?! While I love my job, I still find myself shocked at the reality that there is a need in the world for people like me. There is a need for thousands, maybe millions of modern-day abolitionists. Modern day slavery is rampant in our world…our 21^st-century slavery-illegal-in-every-country world…the best known number of slaves counts there are more slaves today than at any other point in human history: 30 million. That is 30 million individuals who are living and breathing, who have the image of God stamped on their souls, and who have (or had) hopes and dreams for their lives. Instead of experiencing freedom in all of those things, they are in bondage and forced to work for someone else’s gain.

Why am I shocked? Don’t we become numb to terrible realities that are put before us everyday? Yes, we do usually, but I am regularly made aware of new terrible realities. Here are a few: Law enforcement in St. Louis reports they could rescue at least 4 girls everyday from being pimped out but they don’t have anywhere safe and equipped to send them. In a neighboring town a mother is pimping out her son and her daughter so she can buy drugs. Young people are wrapped up in pornography and deceived into thinking they are loved by a guy, when in actuality they are being set up to be pimped out. A restaurant in a neighboring town is moving young Hispanics from work site to work site giving them no freedom and extremely little pay. All the major clothing brands I could buy for my young son (Oshkosh, Carters, Garanimals, Just One You, etc) have known slave labor in their supply chains. My shock, and perhaps better described as my heartache, continues and grows with each new reality I encounter.

The US Department defines human trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act where such an act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age--OR--
The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Human traffickers are garnering $32 billion each year off the individuals who meet this definition in their everyday life. When I began working and ministering in this field, human trafficking was ranked 3^rd among top grossing international organized crime; recently it has been moved up to the 2^nd place position. Why? Because drug traffickers are using their incredibly networked system to move people instead, after all, people are a renewable resource whereas drugs, once used, are gone.

The Set Free Movement is committed to collaborating with first responders and key stakeholders to ensure communities are ready to help victims when their terrible reality is made aware to us. We are moving toward being a Zero Tolerance (for slavery, for injustice) Community. YOU are a key stakeholder in this community, in your community, and in our world.

This Friday, May 10, 2013, The Set Free Movement is hosting a training session where we will learn about slavery’s realities. From Assistant US Attorney, Monica Stump, we will be equipped to recognize the signs and indicators as well as be provided explanations of the laws that surround human trafficking in America today. JeffOthic is a special investigator for Homeland Security’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement Division, and he will review the process of investigations within human trafficking cases. We will also hear from CleoTerry, Coordinator of the Rescue and Restore Coalition of Southwestern Illinois, who will be giving in-depth explanations on how to work with victims of human trafficking.

I recently found myself amidst a group of college students committed to pray around this issue. The prayer that came from my own lips was about Moses. Moses, the first abolitionist of our faith, was terrified to do what God called him to - he was called to free his community. And with that first call, I believe God put abolition in our spiritual DNA. The rest of my prayer was for the traffickers, that they would find plagues heaped upon them and be destroyed. There is a way to end modern day slavery, but it will only be accomplished by thousands, maybe millions, of abolitionists. We must be willing to heed the call, one that will break our hearts and shock our “safe and quaint” communities. We must be willing to change the way me make purchases (start with www.free2work.org) and buy ethically sourced goods. We must educate ourselves (find out more about the Set Free training event here) as much as possible. We must move in three directions: Prevention, Rescue, and Restoration (check out the Set Free Primer).

I will end with the prayer of five year old Mariah: “Dear Jesus, Thank you that we are free to walk and run and ride our bikes.  We are sad because you are sad that there are kids that are not free.  Please help those kids to know that you are near to them and you can be in their hearts.  Help them to not be too sad and help them to be free too.”

Thank you to Chrisy, Megan, and Wick who graciously invited me to guest post on their blog. If you have further questions or want to join the ranks of abolitionists around the world, feel free to email me: ginger@setfreemovement.org.