THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT – UNITY THROUGH ONE MIND WITH THE LORD AND THE RESTORING POWER OF THE SANCTITY OF TRUTH
I have often heard it said that someone is glad when he or she comes across someone who thinks like them. This is especially true when it comes to the Lord, His teachings, and His Truth. This feeling has been felt many paths over the last 2000 years who have finally discovered the Truth of the Lord as taught by the Spirit, and not merely a man.
It is no secret and shouldn’t surprise us that in the last days for those who truly walk with the Lord and abide by His teachings they will experience persecution, resistance, and even rejection, both from the world and even within the church. More than ever the Lord is establishing His Bride in the earth – and this Bride will be clothed in the garment of praise, will be filled by the Spirit, will walk in the glory of the Lord and will have shaken loose the yokes of the world. The Bride will look very much different from the institutionalized church of modern-day religion, man-made traditions, and idolatry where man has replaced God as the head as we often see in churches of various denominations.
It is therefore those who seek the Lord’s Truth above all who often find themselves feeling like a rebel or an outcast. Suddenly the truth as revealed by the Spirit clashes with the “truth” as preached in so many churches. It is quite a shock when the Spirit of the Lord leads a believer back to the true path of God’s Word, void of man’s imagination, intervention, and interpretation. For this reason, this supposed “rebel” is often quite shocked when he comes across the path of those who think similarly to them and so they feel not so alienated or confused. So it is in the last days for the Lord is making those understand – they have held onto His Truth even if it doesn’t make always sense – they are in fact the Bride!
The last great outpouring and move of the Spirit is thus going to bring many people to a crossroad for the Spirit of the Lord will challenge our “truth”, our “understanding” and our “perception” of God’s Truth and Kingdom. Spiritual eyes will be opened, for are we truly follow Jesus or just some kind of Jesus? Are we following the Lord or are following man?
For this reason many will feel that maybe this is not God talking to them and they will even reject the leading of the Spirit, claiming it to be the devil. Yes, many will even be offended by the Spirit, some will reject Hm and some will try and argue and some will even try to flee like Jonah. The simple truth is that the church has become so intertwined with 2000 years of tradition, religion, or legalisms that we hardly at times know what is the truth of the Lord or what is the way of the Lord. So get ready, because many people will come to this crossroads and they will be given by the grace and mercy of the Lord the opportunity to walk the true path of God or continue down the path of religion.
It says in Jeremiah 6:16-17 this is what the Lord says:
Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
I appointed watchmen over you and said, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But you said, ‘We will not listen.’
The Church (corporate by definition) will come to this crossroad. For those who listen they will be restored as the Bride in the power of the Spirit, yet those who choose for whatever reason not to listen will ultimately fail to walk in the fullness of God.
How long do we truly expect God to settle for a Church that continually adapts truth for our own gain or need? If there is truly one truth, why then the thousands of denominations? The Lord calls for a Bride that is submitted to the Head – Jesus.
Jesus made it very clear in John 16 that the Spirit of the LORD has to come – there is no other option. There is no other choice. He has to come to teach the Bride the Truth. And what is one of the main works of the Spirit? Is it not to unite the Bride through the sanctity of truth? Jesus prayed in John 17: Sanctify them by[d] the truth; your word is truth. And who needs to teach us the Truth? Is it not the Spirit of the Lord?
And this is why we need to understand there are only two lines of thinking: either we have the mind of Christ or who have the mind of the world. There is no middle path. It says in 1 Corinthians 2:
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Unity in the Bride will come into fruition when we have the mind of Christ because they with the mind of Christ walk in the Truth and the Way of Jesus. There is no other truth. There is no other way. Anything less than 100% truth is deception and a lie. This is why Jesus said the Spirit will come to lead us in all truth.
When Paul prayed for the Ephesians he said the following:
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We need the Spirit of the Lord more than ever because it is by the Holy Spirit that the Bride will truly unite by the sanctity of the Lord as taught by Jesus. It is by the strength of the Spirit that we truly dwell in Jesus and Jesus in us. We cannot walk in God’s Truth and thus be united by His Truth unless we abide in Jesus, for Jesus is the Truth and the Way and Life. If we truly want to live and walk in the glorious power of the Lord, we need to submit to the move of the Spirit. Only then will we have the mind of Christ and we will speak, walk, and act in His Truth.
Paul writes in Romans 12: A Living Sacrifice:
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.
There is indeed a great need in these days more than ever for our minds as believers to be truly conformed by the Holy Spirit so that we know the true way of the Lord and not the way of man. And we can only know the of the Lord when we truly submit to the Spirit.
We may say but we do submit to the Spirit, yet if one looks at so many false doctrines floating around and how believers act upon them, you have to wonder where is the true submission? After all, the Spirit of the Lord will quickly show the way of the Lord and what is false and what is right to those who submit to Him. This is why we cannot stand before the Lord one day and say we were led astray by some or other false teacher/preacher of the Word. This is why the Spirit of the Lord was poured out – to defeat deception and division.
There is a reason why Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians about two kinds of wisdom – the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. The wisdom of this world will clash with the wisdom of the Spirit, for the wisdom of the world is conformed by man’s intervention and understanding. Even today, there are believers whose wisdom based on their theological education, experience and intellect get in the way of the wisdom of the Spirit. There is only one way to walk in the wisdom of God and that is through the Holy Spirit, and for us to do this we need to submit to His Truth, and we need to get rid of our human wisdom. There is no other way.
We are about to see how children speak greater truth than theologians in the last days, because children simply can submit to the Spirit without fuss or indoctrination. No matter our education or titles or if we run a mega-church, no man is ever greater than God – not even close.
We need to the anointing and wisdom of the Spirit more than ever in these last days, for us, Paul warned many will listen to seducing spirit (2 Timothy4) and as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2 false teachers will be in our midst to create division, confusion and to open the way to apostasy.
Come Holy Spirit, and lead us in the true way of the Lord so that we will truly have the mind of Christ and to be united with the Lord and each other in the Name of Jesus. Amen