“There’s got to be more to it than this! I know I’m saved, but where is the joy? Where is the power to resist temptation, to witness and to pray effectively? Where is the holiness of life that I really desire? Where is the intimacy and sweet communion with Jesus that I know should be there? Is it really going to be like this, business as usual, boring, routine and defeated until I go to Heaven? Is this all there is to the Christian life?”

Could you have written that?

The angel of the Lord told Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people FROM their sins.” Not left to wallow in their sins in defeat. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

“Oh, but the devil!” Jesus shared in our humanity, our flesh and blood, that through His death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

“Yeah, but you know my old sin nature. I can’t help myself. It’s just the way I am.”
If anyone is in Christ; he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should be no longer slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Therefore, DO NOT LET sin reign in your mortal body.

“OK, I’m dead to sin, but I still don’t seem to have the ability to live consistently in joy and victory.”

HEAVEN’S THRONE GIFT

When Jesus purchased for Himself a Bride, peopled from every nation, tribe and tongue on the earth, He did not leave Her as an orphan to fend for Herself the best She could until He returned. His blood cleansed us (and continually does so) to make us a fit vessel for His gift to us, to make us a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit (please, He not “it”) indwells us to empower in prayer, in spiritual warfare, in witnessing, to give us the joy of the Lord and to make us holy.

The simplest definition of a Christian is a person in whose body the Holy Spirit lives. If you’ve been born again, you’ve been born of the Spirit. If you do not have the Spirit of Christ; you are not saved.

“So, what am I missing? What is it I’m looking for and can’t seem to put my finger on it?”

YOU NEED TO BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.

Tozer said, “Make your heart a vacuum and the Spirit will rush in to fill it.”I’ve read, and even preached in by-gone days, several formulas on how to be filled with the Spirit. The truth is, there are no Steps 1, 2, 3 spelled out in the Scriptures. Certainly there must be a total dissatisfaction with the way you are now, a craving hunger for the fullness of God, a death to self, a desire to glorify God in all you do and a shamelessly persistent faith that will not be denied. But if I could reduce it down to ground level, I would say, simply, empty your heart, your life, and even your house of the filth you’ve become immune to and give the Holy Spirit a clean place to take over. He is a Person, an infinitely Holy Person. And He is to be trusted.

The mercy of God is an ocean divine
A boundless and fathomless flood
Launch out in the deep
Cut away the shoreline
And be lost in the fullness of God.
–(A.B. Simpson)

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Dan Grindstaff Ministries