I have had some really good questions about whether Christians should worship the Spirit. I thought this would make a good blog, which, if read, will help people understand and answer this question should they be asked. Here are some reasons we should worship the Spirit:
"Should we worship the Spirit?" Yes, yes, yes!! He is God. That alone demands worship. One of the classic resistance tactics to the Spirit is to diminish Him to some status beneath God, such as a "force" or a "vehicle" or some mere extension of God. He is God. He is the one who over shadowed Mary and ushered the Son into the world. He is the one who raised Christ from the dead. He is not a "force" or a "vehicle"., He is God. Jesus explicitly said the God we are to worship is "Spirit" and we are to worship Him in the arena, authority and power of the Spirit, Jo. 4:23-24. That is God, the HOly Spirit, the manifested presence of God on earth.
"He does not speak of Himself" He does not speak (boast) of Himself anymore than did Jesus. He is not here to promote Himself is all that means. His mission is to promote the Lordship of Jesus. Of course, the Spirit actually does speak of Himself considering He wrote the Bible and He is all over almost every page of the New Testament. He has plastered His name all over the book. However, every thing you see about Him is a message about the Lord. The church began in a blazing outpouring of the Spirit and event which confirmed the glorification of Jesus to Lord, Jo. 7:37-39. Every act of the Spirit exalts and testifies of the Lord Jesus. The Bible calls the gifts of the Spirit the "testimony" of Jesus.
"What is His mission?" In the same manner as did Jesus, the mission of the Spirit is to reflect and provide access. Jesus came to reflect the Father and provide access to the Father. When you see Jesus on Bible pages, you are looking at a express image of the Father, Heb. 1:3. He said he only did and repeated what He heard from the Father. In the same way, the Spirit is here to reflect Jesus to us. To worship Jesus requires the Holy Ghost. No man calls Him Lord (the way He is to be worshipped) except by the Spirit, 1 Cor. 12:3. Our access to worship Jesus as Lord comes through our relationship with the Spirit. God receives worship by reflection. The Son reflected the Father. Those who loved the Son, loved the Father who gave the Son. The Spirit reflects the Son. All worship drifts upward from the representative among us. Worship God, by the name of the HOly Ghost, or by the name of Jesus, or the Father and it all drifts upwards to heaven like vials of incense. When you love on the Holy Ghost, that love makes its way upward like vials of sweet incense.
It is important to understand that religious resistance to God is always against God as He is, not as He was or even will be. The Pharisees had no problem with God as He was in their history, but they greatly resisted Him when He became flesh and dwelt among them. Stephen's last words "you do always resist the Holy Ghost" lives on. It is what was happening in our background when religious men told us not to worship the Holy Ghost, by that insinuating He was not God, by that insinuating He was irrelevant, by that insinuating an absence of God among us, by that limiting our access to God, and by that robbing us of communion with God. We have grace from the Lord, love from the Father but we have communion, the interchange between us and all that God is, by the Spirit, 2nd Cor.13:14. Where people will get full and continuously drink of the Spirit, love and worship Him, the love of Jesus, and of the Father soars. The Lordship of Jesus becomes real and powerful. The love of God is "shed" abroad in us by the Holy Ghost. That is relational love. That is His love to us and our love directed back to Him, shed, distributed, related by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus said the world could not receive the Holy Ghost because they could not "see" Him and that they therefore would not know Him, (Jo. 14:17). But, He said we would know Him because He dwells in us. The resistance to the invisible God is resistance to the Holy Ghost. We may not see Him, but we know Him, we feel Him, and we see what He does. You can't actually see the wind outside your kitchen window, but you can see what the wind does.
1 comment:
Great post, Tom. Blessings to you and Bev! Been forever ago since we've seen you! Just saw Brandt at the NRB here in Nashville and we mentioned your name! God is good - and continues to "...open doors that no man can lock, and lock doors that no man can open!" Love to you both!
Post a Comment