After an amazing week at America’s Keswick Pastor’s & Wives Conference, I woke up thinking that I really need to get back to normal. Then it dawned on me that I really don’t want to get “back to normal”. What was the point of God teaching me His truth if I am just going back to what I was already doing? What I really need is a new “Normal”.
One important truth that stands out in my mind from this conference is this: God has given to us, his church, the unique gift of the filling of the Holy Spirit for this age – the age of the church, the last days, before Christ comes back and establishes His Kingdom. We often think of the last days in terms of the negative. Things on earth are getting worse and worse. II Timothy describes these days when “men will be lovers of their own selves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness” but denying His power – His Holy Spirit, the One distinctive gift, that dwells in us, the church, His body, His bride, for this time to accomplish His purpose “to the praise of His glory”.
In the past month or two, I have been praying that the Lord would help me to understand what it means in Ephesians 1, when Paul prays “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” What is the hope of His calling? What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints? What is the surpassing greatness of His power? I am sure that I still don’t understand this prayer fully, and I continue to ask God to show me what this means, to enlighten me, help me to know and understand these three things that Paul so passionately prayed for the church at Ephesus and for those “who are faithful in Christ Jesus”. But I believe He gave me a glimpse this week into what it means to know the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
I believe that we, the church, don’t really get it. We haven’t grasped the “surpassing greatness of His power”. We haven’t truly embraced the precious gift of His Holy Spirit, Who, when He comes upon us gives us gives us the power to be “witnesses” in our own “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth”. We haven’t loved His Word so that we long for it every morning. We haven’t “ let the Word of Christ richly dwell within” us, filling us, giving us wisdom resulting in the growth of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control” – the complete opposite of the natural man during the last days, described in II Timothy.
My father in law loved the book of Romans and often quoted Romans 1:16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Do we believe this? Do we let the Word of Christ dwell richly in us? Are we filled with His Holy Spirit so that we experience the “surpassing greatness of His power”? Do we witness the power of God to salvation as we minister to those around us?
I don’t know about you, but this has not been my “normal”. Now that I am back at home, I do have to continue on with my normal every day responsibilities at home, church, and work, however, I don’t want to do it in my own strength and power. I don’t’ have to be “normal”. I want more of His Word dwelling in me; I want more of the power of His Spirit working through me; I want to experience the surpassing greatness of His power – the power of the gospel to change lives, the filling of the Holy Spirit to “go and make disciples”, the fruit of the Spirit to love others as He loved me, and the gifts of His Spirit to “edify” and build up His church. I want God’s “normal”; I pray that God’s church will desire “The Normal Christian Life”, as Watchman Nee called it in his book by that name. We can’t just decide to do this normal Christian life by on our own, it is only by and through His surpassing power. “From start to finish” says Nee, “he is the One who does it all.” (p.172)
©Kim Olachea, February , 2012