I have never read anything by Greear, but this book seemed intereting... J.D. is a professor at Southereastern Seminary with a Ph.D in Theology, so my kind of guy!
I really enjoyed this book. This is a book about the Holy Spirit and J.D. has a unique perspective, but one that is becoming more popular, in that he combines a strong Reformed doctrine while also remaining open and engaging with the charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit. I have found this perspective encouraging.... Some call it "charismatic with a seat belt"...
Ultimately this book is solid doctrinally, yet there were parts of it that made me just a little uncomfortable in relation to relaying on experience. However, as someone that is a very much a "thinker" I need constant reminders that although good doctrine is vitally important, it is not enough, and this book was a great reminder that a God has given us a dynamic experiential relationship through the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us...
Here are some of the things Greer said that really stood out to me...
In Scripture, the word of the gospel and the power of the Spirit always go together.
Christians tend to gravitate toward one of two extremes regarding the third person of the Trinity....Some pursue experience in the Spirit apart from the Word. Others, however, seek to know and obey the Word without any interaction with the Spirit.
But the Spirit and the Word work inseparably. One without the other leads to a dysfunctional Christianity. Just as a toaster without a plug is useless, biblical knowledge apart from the Spirit is impotent.
The same is true of the Spirit of God. His purpose is to illuminate the gospel and bring glory to Jesus. J. I. Packer calls the work of the Spirit a “floodlight” ministry, quietly turning everyone’s attention away from himself and to the Savior.
Where the gospel is not cherished, the Spirit will not be experienced.
And, on the flip side, where the Spirit is not sought, there will be no deep, experiential knowledge of the gospel.
And, on the flip side, where the Spirit is not sought, there will be no deep, experiential knowledge of the gospel.
Just as there is no real experience with the Spirit apart from the Word, so there can be no true obedience to the Word apart from the Spirit
Jesus claimed that having the Holy Spirit in them would be better than having him beside them.
Only through the Holy Spirit can we live victoriously over sin. In Romans 8, Paul’s great chapter on how to live the victorious life, he refers to the Spirit twenty-two times. (To put that in perspective, he mentions the Holy Spirit only ten other times throughout the other fifteen chapters of Romans!) The implication is clear: If we want victory over our sinful flesh, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.
You see, when I read the book of Acts, I don’t have any problem seeing how the apostles would have considered the Spirit’s presence in them to be better than Jesus beside them! They turn out, after all, to be much more effective witnesses after Jesus leaves.
Now that the Holy Spirit had come, God’s power was not localized in one person in one place. He was in every believer, scattered all over the world with his power.
The Spirit takes God’s timeless truths and makes them come alive in us. He helps us understand them, shows us how to implement them, and empowers us to accomplish them. He transforms task lists into a relationship.
I once heard a Christian leader say, “Better to spend one hour on your knees pursuing the Holy Spirit than ten hours studying the Bible.” Tweetable, maybe, but very wrong. Better to spend one hour on your knees pursuing the Holy Spirit through the Bible.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Reformed, British pastor of a previous generation, said, “I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half telling them doctrine is not enough.
Many Christians, you see, function as deists. They act as if God rules from the heavens and has spoken in his Word, but does not act on earth or move in their souls — at least in any way that they can sense those movements.
The vibrant Christian life is a union of clarity in the Word and openness to the Spirit.
If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, then devote yourself to the Word of God.
The first time the Spirit preaches the gospel, he does so in all languages simultaneously. I can hardly overstate the importance of this. This was no mere random display of power! It was a sign. The gospel was not just a “Hebrew” thing; it was an “every people group in the world” thing.
the Spirit loves diversity, and Spirit-filled Christians possess an internal humility regarding their cultural preferences.
But the gospel is, in its essence, an announcement about what Jesus did to save people, not a presentation of what a good person you are. Sharing that announcement requires words, because you can’t really explain what Jesus did through charades.
Some Christians appeal to the quip attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.” With all due respect for St. Francis, how can you preach the gospel of Christ’s finished work without words? That’s like saying, “Tell me your phone number. If necessary, use digits.” The announcement consists of words.
Some Christians appeal to the quip attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.” With all due respect for St. Francis, how can you preach the gospel of Christ’s finished work without words? That’s like saying, “Tell me your phone number. If necessary, use digits.” The announcement consists of words.
God’s call to radical generosity begins with the good news that he doesn’t need us
God has no need of our help. We need to offer our lives to him because the gospel demands it, not because he needs it. And then we need to look inward to discover where and how the Spirit of God has called us specifically to help. Instead of being guilt-driven, we need to become grace-driven and gift-driven
The Holy Spirit, you could say, is always leading to the cross or from it, to carry its message of healing to others.
Our waiting is not passive, however; it is extremely active.
Because we already have the Holy Spirit, we don’t sit around in inactivity, waiting on Jesus to send something from heaven. We’ve already got it. We aggressively offer our lives in living sacrifice to his mission, looking to him to steer us in the where and how.
Because we already have the Holy Spirit, we don’t sit around in inactivity, waiting on Jesus to send something from heaven. We’ve already got it. We aggressively offer our lives in living sacrifice to his mission, looking to him to steer us in the where and how.
In order for the Spirit of God to lead your heart, he has first to reform it into the image of Jesus. Until that happens, you’ll never hear his voice rightly.
I plan to present six distinct ways in which we experience the Spirit’s presence: • The gospel • The Word of God • Our giftings • The church • Our spirit • Our circumstances
The Spirit of God makes that intelligible to our hearts. God sent the Spirit to illuminate that message and to spread it over all the earth
The gospel is not merely the entry rite into Christianity, but the source of our entire Christian experience.2 Every blessing in the Christian life flows from faith in the gospel, including the fullness of the Spirit.
The way we first received the Spirit is also how we grow “more full” in him. We received the Spirit not by asking for him, but by believing the gospel. So if we want to grow in the Spirit, we don’t just plead for more of the Spirit — we put renewed faith in the gospel! Fullness of the Spirit, you see, is the byproduct of believing the gospel. Prayer for the Spirit is great (Luke 11:13), but faith in the gospel is better.
Justification by faith dominates the first half of Galatians, and the fullness of the Spirit the last, because the former produces the latter. Justification by faith is the “root”; the fullness of the Spirit is the “fruit.” The two are inseparably linked
“Reckoning” ourselves dead to sin means believing that God has done what he said he did in the gospel.
We don’t produce fruit by working it up with self-discipline and resolve. We simply drive our roots deeply into the gospel and the fruit grows naturally.
The gospel is an invitation to relationship. To truly delve into the doctrines of the gospel is to commune with the God revealed in them by his Spirit. To fail to interact with the Spirit of God in the doctrines is to miss their real purpose.
Is “peace in your heart” really proof that God wants you to make a certain decision? I remain often skeptical about that. First, people often tell me about some colossally stupid decision that, at the time, filled them with perfect peace. I’ve done that too. Second, I made some of the best decisions of my life filled with fear and trembling. Third, I see in Scripture an enemy whose whole goal is precisely to give us “peace” about spectacularly wretched decisions. Fourth (and most important), I see nothing in Scripture telling us to look for peace in our hearts as proof the Spirit is behind something.
Augustine, a fifth-century Christian saint, summed it up best: The will of God? “Love God and do what you will!”
Some decisions are “trivial” and should be treated as such. God just wants you to make what seems like the best choice and move on without fear...
We should make decisions based on the best wisdom available to us at the time, and then trust God with all the butterflies....So, if you want to know which grocery store God wants you to go to, don’t wait for a warm feeling; find out which one has the best deals.
We should make decisions based on the best wisdom available to us at the time, and then trust God with all the butterflies....So, if you want to know which grocery store God wants you to go to, don’t wait for a warm feeling; find out which one has the best deals.
Much of the stress we feel about discerning the will of God comes from assuming we are responsible for both sides of this contract.
Sometimes, God gives spiritual gifts that have little to do with natural abilities, in part to highlight that power in ministry comes from God, not from our talents.
“I would go into the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit, that I might know how to speak a word in season to the weary." - Spurgeon
Discovering your vocational abilities is part of learning how the Spirit wants to use you on earth....Perhaps you feel something deeply satisfying, even divine, in some kind of “secular” work...I know doctors, businessmen, lawyers, forest rangers, artists, nurses, and waitresses who feel that same sense of satisfaction — something akin to the “pleasure of God” — when they work...The Spirit of God works through all of his people as they engage their abilities to arbitrate a case, build a wall, paint a picture, treat a body, or tweak an assembly line.
The act of proclaiming and applying God’s Word to people in particular situations is the primary form of prophecy.
Have you ever had the strong impression to pray something specific for someone, not sure quite where it came from? Or a strong impulse that you needed to warn someone or remind them of a certain promise of Scripture? This very well might be the spirit of prophecy at work within you.
more havoc has been wreaked upon the world following the words, “God just told me . . .” than any other phrase.
Never claim the authority of God on your words, even if you feel convinced the Holy Spirit might be speaking through you.
Prophetic speech is strongest when tied to actual Scripture.
The gift of prophecy has a purpose: building up the church and guiding in mission. Use it only for those things.
The more Scripture you know, the more illumination the Holy Spirit can give regarding his will for various situations. God has never brought to my mind a Scripture I did not already know. Memorizing Scripture is like stocking myself with ammunition for the Spirit to fire as I pray — promises I can claim or warnings I can heed.
Be Cautious, But Not Cynical
As we’ve seen before, Paul often interpreted open doors as invitations by God to preach the gospel and closed doors as God’s direction to go elsewhere.
Open doors don’t always mean God is behind something...
Every open door should be viewed through the lens of Scripture and in the counsel of godly wisdom.
Every open door should be viewed through the lens of Scripture and in the counsel of godly wisdom.
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. (Deut. 29:29)
Think about it again: the most radically stupid decision humans ever made was to crucify Jesus, and yet God used that as our salvation.
Every believer has times in which they feel as though God is distant. Or absent altogether
God sanctifies us by humbling us. He works his salvation out in us by taking us through the valley of the cross, which often means feeling alone and abandoned.
If you are a believer, that feeling of being alone is always an illusion. In fact, it’s a divinely designed illusion — designed to strengthen your faith.
The essence of the cross was substitution. Jesus faced our aloneness — the utter abandonment we had brought upon ourselves through our sin — so that you and I would never have to. The Father turned his face away from his Son so that the Father would never have to turn his face away from us.
So when we feel abandoned — that’s all it is, a feeling. A lying, deceptive feeling. It has to be. Jesus faced the full measure of our aloneness in our place and put it away forever.
Here is a life-saving spiritual lesson: What you “feel” is not usually a good indicator of what really is
Tim Keller says a revival is “the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit (conviction of sin, regeneration and sanctification, assurance of salvation) through the ordinary means of grace (preaching the Word, prayer, etc.).
Martin Luther described his role in the Reformation: I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept . . . the Word did everything.
If you want to see revival, pray, pray, pray, and then pray some more
The key to a new movement of the Spirit of God is not found in a new technique, but in the “old” paths of gospel proclamation, earnest prayer, and yearning for the Spirit.
Sometimes we will hear how God is using some new discipleship method, preaching, or worship style to awaken others elsewhere; and we assume the key lies in that new method. Don’t be deceived. Faith in God’s mercy, not a new program, is the catalyst for releasing the Spirit, not the open-air preaching of the Great Awakening, the new music style of the charismatic renewal, or the cluster groups of the Brazilian revival that supplied the power of awakening.
Immediately after Jesus ascends to heaven, the early church remains in the upper room for ten days. We don’t know everything they did there, but we know that the main thing they did was pray (Acts 1:14)...Today, we shuffle the zeroes around: we pray for ten minutes, preach for ten days . . . and only three people get saved. What a difference the placement of those zeroes can make
Our most important assignment, I believe, is to believe. God overflows with all the compassion and power necessary to save, and he can do more in a few moments than we can accomplish in 10,000 lifetimes. So as we labor, we ask. We keep our hands to the plow, but always looking to heaven with the hope that he will send down the power of the Holy Spirit just as he promised.
There is no “secret” to the Holy Spirit’s power, you see. It’s a promise God holds out to all who will seek it through persistent prayer.
This is what God does with all those whom he wants to fill with the power of his Spirit. He leads them down a path of humiliation and failure. He breaks them. He makes them weak in themselves so they can fill up with the power of God.
Here’s the bottom line: You will never be full of the Spirit so long as you are full of yourself.
if dependence is the objective, then weakness becomes an advantage.
A. W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.
No comments:
Post a Comment