HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE
THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE
Pentecost Sunday, May 28, 2023, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
This year Pentecost Sunday falls on Memorial Day weekend, where we as a nation honor the men and women in our military who have given their lives to secure freedom for our nation as well as other nations.
The earth, the world system as well as the Church are in a time of transition, overturning, and upheaval. There is mass migrations of people, war, and rumors of war. Governments of nations have gone mad with evil of every sort to destroy morality and stable governments. Any child of God must be grieved and pained as we behold the horrendous conditions in the world about us.
We as Christians have this assurance, God knows all about the needs of His own as well as the actions of evil governments and their leaders. We the church have a greater power than all the demons of politicians and militaries of the world. That power is a person, He is the Holy Spirit.
This Pentecost (2023) as in the day when Pentecost fully came, my prayer is that I and those who desire the nuclear fusion of the Holy Spirit will arise and seek God earnestly for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus to function in our midst.
We are so blessed at Eastgate Church, we have the presence of the Lord in every service. The Lord receives our worship, and the Glory covers the house. the Word of God is preached in power and revelation light. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are in operation from the pulpit as well as from the corporate body of Christ. Powerful visiting prophets, and preachers minister to us monthly. Prayer goes forth for the people and the nation. Widows, orphans, and the poor are supported. Yet, I cry out for healings, miracles, salvation of the lost, as well as backsliders to return to Christ. I cry out for the people who are not sitting in these chairs to be hungry for more of God.
If we the church will continue to seek the Lord, then God will again send us forth by the Holy Spirit to invade the kingdoms of darkness. The New Testament Church never got involved with all manner of human programming to get the job done.
They waited upon God until they were fired with the breath of Heaven --- fired with His love and truth --- and then God sent them. Because they were sent of God, they set off a chain reaction of life wherever they went.
In Christ we have a new nature. We are a new man/woman. We are living by the Spirit of Life. The soul is not now our life-spring. We are no longer living in it or drawing from it. We use it. We come to live our life in the Spirit and by the Spirit. We still use our soul faculties just as we do our physical, but now we are servants of the Spirit and we have yielded our members (body and soul, i.e., mind will and emotions) to be led by the Holy Spirit. When we yield to this Grace, then we are vessels ready for the Master’s use.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Ro. 8:14).
It is God’s desire that we simply flow along in the movements of His Spirit in the winds of His guidance and influence. We are “born again” by the blowing of the winds of God.
John 3:8: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So, is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
How then can we plan, arrange, and predetermine our course of life? We are born into the Kingdom of God in a way we cannot understand; and the same winds of Heaven will carry us along with the currents of His will --- if we are not afraid of those heavenly currents. We can neither plan the day of our birth, nor chose our calling in life. It is all according to the sovereign moving of His Spirit in our lives, revealing Christ, and making us to know that we are born from above into an entirely new realm that is not subject to natural law.
After being “born of the Spirit,” we discovered the challenges of growth in this realm. But God provided a quickening by His Spirit, where our weaknesses are overshadowed with His strength, and the resurrection life of Jesus actively functions within us. As the “Outward man” perishes so there is a renewal of the “inward man…day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).
God is bringing forth a masterpiece of His wisdom in His sons and daughters. Nevertheless, our pursuit is not to acquire more and more knowledge that we may write more and more books; but to know His will, and to walk with God in the ways of Truth. The Holy Spirit is Truth. Only then, can His purposes be fulfilled in our lives and the lives of His people. With another birthday behind me, I have been going through a heart-searching, judgment of self. “Lord Jesus, help me to be a better person. Lord Jesus, help me to fulfill what you called me to do. Lord Jesus, please forgive me for all my failings, selfishness, and shortcomings.” Yes, He forgives me, but there must be heart-searching.
Bind the words of God continually upon your heart and tie them about your neck. When you go out, it shall lead you; when you sleep, it shall keep you (Prov. 6:21).
Then truth is wrought “in the inward parts” and our desires are motivated toward God. We will not fall into deception, for He will guard us in our times of “sleep” when we are not aware of the dangers that the enemy is about to unload in our pathway. Suddenly we are awake, and we realize what has been going on, and the Truth talks with us, and reveals to us more and more of the hidden treasures of His grace and wisdom and knowledge.
God tries the reins of our hearts to see if we are looking for success and achievement, or simply for Him --- and for a way of life that will be a delight to His own heart. The Spirit of the Lord is a liberating Spirit; but as we walk in the Spirit, we will soon discover that the pathway of true liberty is a pathway which liberates us from ourselves, and constrains us to walk in the ways of God.
The Holy Spirit is for all. His administration is to reveal Jesus’ goodness and greatness, not ours. Christ has been crucified; therefore, we have been forgiven. Christ has been glorified, therefore, we will be glorified; endued with power from on and high; and we can walk, move and live in the Glory of God on this side of the grave.
If we are faithful to be led of the Lord into living truth, and into realms both heavenly and spiritual, then we will find ourselves doing the right things regarding the temporal and being in the proper place geographically. If we are moving in the Spirit, and walking in God’s will, we will always discover that we are in God’s place at God’s time.
One of the purposes of the Holy Spirit coming to abide in His people is to guide us “into all truth” (Jn. 16:13). He will lead us into spiritual realms where we are “seated in Christ in the heavenlies” (Eph. 2:6) --- A place in God where we recognize we ae “dead” as far as the world is concerned, and our life is “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:8).
We can know the Holy Spirit personally as the Spirit of Holiness (Romans 1:3-7); Holy Spirit of Comfort; The Spirit of Promise (Eph. 1: 2-14); The Spirit of Power (2 Tim. 1: 6-14); The Spirit of Grace (Heb. 10: 26-30); The Spirit of Glory (1 Peter 4: 12-19); The Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8:15); The Spirit of Wisdom; and so much more.
The Law of the Spirit of Life functioned in the Lord Jesus Christ when He was here. All his miracles, healing, deliverances, and authority over the Law of the spirit of Death were done in complete union with the Father. “I can of my own self do nothing; as I hear I judge; and my judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me. (Jn. 5:30). Because he walked in this way, earth harmonized with heaven wherever He went, and responded perfectly to His every desire.
We have the life of God in us now by new birth, by the renewing of our spirit. Because we have this life we are constantly being exhorted as to how we can release that life for the blessing of the Church and the world about us. Satan tries to wear us out, beat us down, distract us with foolish controversies, and discourage us with our own weaknesses. Yet, when I am weak, He is strong. He will never leave me nor forsake me; only use every challenge to bring me higher in the Spirit, closer to His Glory.
Jesus came to crucify the Law of Sin and Death; and having accomplished this there was no need for Him to remain any longer in the earth.
By His death on the Cross, and His enthronement in the heavens, He release the Law of the Spirit of Life to the members of His body in the earth.
He came again in a new energy, a new force, a new principle, a new Law of Life in His people. This new Law would be as effectual in the people He left behind as it was in Him when He was here. This is the clear teaching of our Lord, and this was the burden of His heart when he told the disciples he must go away. But He would come again in a new way, in the Holy Spirit of Truth to abide within them and to rule and reign in their lives in a new principle and Law of Life. There would be released from the throne a new energy, a new dimension of glory that would be as effectual in them as it was in Himself when He walked in the earth. This is what He prayed for:
Jn. 17:23: I in them, and you in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that you have sent Me, and have loved them, as you have loved me.’
Jesus was not talking about us being ONE in any other way than in becoming ONE WITH HIM, as He was ONE with the Father. It has nothing to do with ecumenicism, getting all the churches together in one great organization. Satan is even promoting that, as surely as he promoted the building of the city and the Tower of Babel. For this union or “fusion” with one another is possible only as we are fused together by renewing grace, and come into union and harmony with the Lord Jesus. Man’s way (brick for stone and slime for mortar -Gen. 11:3) only ends in confusion. Going along with man’s way will only strengthen the Law of Sin and Death, and give it greater acceleration in the lives of the unregenerate. Jesus went away to His exalted throne in the Heavens that He might perpetuate in the earth the very same life, the very same glory, the very same SPIRIT OF TRUTH that He was when He was here. His people would do the same works that He did, and even greater --- because of His enthronement in the Heavens as the High Priest in a “more excellent ministry.”
This is the secret of the early beginnings of Church life. The same law that functioned in Jesus was now in His Church. The Holy Spirit was Lord in the midst of His people, just as Jesus was LORD on the throne of Glory. For He was not another Lord, but the same SPIRIT OF JESUS. God began the Church in great simplicity of spiritual movements in the earth and He is going to finish the work in righteousness --- not in failure.
We blame the times, the “evil day” in which we live --- BUT THE KINGDOM OF GRACE CAN COPE WITH ANYTHING THAT SATAN OR EVIL MEN CAN BRING TO BIRTH.
It was the FIRE of God’s presence and anointing that consumed the handful of disciples who waited upon God in those early days and caused them to become involved in a mighty chain reaction of the Holy Spirit that brought multitudes into the Kingdom and set cities aflame with the presence of God. Twelve men moving in God set Jerusalem aflame with the gospel of Christ. Not by their organizational ability, but by the fire of God.
The Holy Spirit wants to be LORD in our midst, as the Lord Jesus is Lord on the throne. It is He who initiates God’s plans and purposes in the earth and ordains the walk of His servants who are committed to do His will.
God is love and he that dwell in love dwells in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. This is the end of the journey for those who are led by the Spirit --- and “end” of course that is swallowed up in eternity. The Holy Spirit brings us to the heart of God, and we struggle no more with the tangled underbrush of the wilderness way.
The Law of the Spirit of Life working in His people has brought us into the full desire of God’s heart. We find our home in God --- and God finds his home in us.
I have written volumes of sermons on the Holy Spirit and no sermon or book can reveal Him. I pray He reveals Himself in His Glory.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries Church
10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane. Richmond, TX.
Scripture from N.K.J.V – I entered into the labors of George H. Warnock, (1912- 2012) “Chain Reaction in Realms of the Spirit.” Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Brother Warnock.