Simple Things

"I hunger for the simpleness of the gospel."

I CANNOT DO complicated things. I want the steps made simple. Step 1. Step 2. In as few words as possible. This is why I mostly wrote novellas in fiction. I simply can’t write excess. This may surprise you, given the length of some of these devotionals and the depth of them. Those are in the Spirit, and being frank, sometimes He goes on and I’m finished paragraphs earlier. A woman of God who prophesies explained how God works through her, that when He begins to speak, she just writes and usually doesn’t remember what she wrote when it is finished. Often, her eyes aren’t open in the process. My mother has prophesied and faced this as well. Others will write out what she spoke for her to read. This may all seem odd to you, but I bring it up only to make a comparison. The Holy Spirit works in willing vessels, and there is nothing scary about how He works. He can quicken our mortal bodies as is needed.

But left on my own, I’d write shorter and simpler. This bleeds into all the other facets of my life. When things involve too many steps, too much reading and understanding, I step back. I’d rather not get involved if it’s too involved.

Church has become complicated, a vast organism of departments and programs and people groups that shifts and scatters this way and that. Of sermons dug from the mind and the education and not the Spirit. I explained this yesterday, when speaking of the anointing. First, that the anointing is the Presence of God. It is the Holy Spirit and not an object. It is not a bottle of oil or a backstage pass. It is our most loving Papa speaking and working. Second, that it should be what He wants to do in the manner He’s chosen to do it on the subject He desires.

I saw a woman lay hands on two others in a most violent manner. His power flowed through her, but her mannerism bothered me. I heard a sermon by a man I know was called into the ministry, I’ve heard his testimony, and He is placed where he is by God. Yet, the content was not the Spirit’s heart and some of it was not what the Word of God has stated. Why do we see these things and hear these things and God’s anointing still be upon them? This is the question which dogged me for days.

The answer involves several things. God is love. That is the greatest. He loves all that are His. He honors the gifts He has placed in men and women. That is another large portion. He also will work through whomever is among those who need Him. I refer to Caiaphas as an extreme example. He was the High Priest who hung Jesus on the cross. Yet, the Spirit, it says, prophesied through him that “it was expedient that one man should die for the people (John 18:14).” He hated Jesus to the point of murder but spoke God’s Words. I am not going to that extreme with these but am making a point.

I also want to draw your eyes to 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. Here the apostle Paul, describes God to us. Remember, he is a man who also murdered Christians but then loved them. Verses 4-8 are God’s nature, what He is and what He is not. But in the first three verses, we are told it is possible to speak in the tongues of men and angels without one drop of God being involved. He is love. We can have the gift of prophecy and have great revelation of the Word of God yet not love those listening. Our motives can be wrong. Again, Paul saw this in the church. He said some preached Christ of strife and division, but at least, in his view, Christ was preached (Philippians 1:18). Then it says we can have faith to move mountains and even give our bodies to the point of death to spread the gospel, yet if there’s no Spirit of God, no fruits of Him affecting our motives and our behavior, then we are wasting our time.

Here's the sermon which is technically correct. It contains the Scripture. It speaks truth, and the one called to that position is speaking, yet though the anointing on the Word is evidenced, it isn’t WHAT or HOW God wants it delivered. Back to that church organism that crawls up and down the walls of the cities, expanding and contracting, instead of wiping away all the folds and frills and just placing Jesus on the altar. On the throne. It comes down to that for me. I love people. I love those who are seeking, needing, Him. I love worship, both singing and silent. I love sermons spoken into my ear which fill me with life and peace.

I hunger for the simpleness of the gospel, for our hearts being His heart, and our mannerism looking just like Jesus. Who gave His life so that we could be united to Him and in that fullness know His will and His desires and mirror them. Without adding to them or inserting our opinion.

“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Revelation 22:19 KJV)


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com