Necessary

"No part of our humanness can be used well without Him."

I REALLY DON’T want to see the worst part of you. Worst, not weakest. Though that seems like an unkind statement, instead, it is compassion. I want you at your best, full of the peace of God, walking in complete health, financially sound, and speaking the words of God through the Presence of the Spirit. There is this verse in the Remedy translation, which sparked this in me. Ephesians 4:14 says:

“Then we will no longer be children—unable to think for ourselves and easily confused, tossed back and forth by every new and emotional teaching brought by the scheming trickery of charismatic speakers.”

What I see in this verse is the trickery of those charismatic speakers. We think we know and recognize them when they are speaking, but words are subtle, and our emotions, our lack-of-knowledge is involved. The Holy Spirit is NECESSARY to truth. He is NECESSARY to our attitude, to clear thinking, to kind speech. No part of our humanness can be used well without Him. I remember this commercial that put together all these clips of people saying the word “dude.” One word with different inflections meant different things. We can scream it or whisper it. It can be said in love or sar-chasm.

I shouldn’t have to guess what is meant by what is said in a pulpit nor feel conflicted and condemned by it. God brings no condemnation, none, not any. People bring lots.

Jesus spoke none. No one heard Him and gave up on God, except those filled with Satan, and even then, they didn’t realize it. His heart when He preached the good news was to turn men’s eyes toward a gracious, loving Father, who had sent Him to save them, to heal them and bless them. He didn’t let the (then) enemy say anything. In unclean spirits, He silenced them; in a storm, He quieted it; in a doubtful heart, He gave encouragement. He brought peace to people’s minds and hearts. We’d rather say our piece. But who do we want to please, ourself or Jesus?

“The devil tempts us through our emotions, so don’t give him any opportunity to confuse you or lead you astray.” (Ephesians 4:27, Remedy)

Peter had an outburst at Jesus’ words. Jesus “began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31),” and Peter couldn’t take it. “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee (Matthew 16:22),” he said. Jesus responded not by getting onto Peter but by rebuking Satan (Matthew 16:32). Two different things. He understood Peter’s emotions, why He said what He said. He is human, now perfected. Peter would become a strength of the church, an apostle to the Jews. Jesus prayed for him, that his faith wouldn’t fail (Luke 22:32) and spoke words of love to him after His Resurrection (John 21:15-17).

Stood up against someone outspoken like Peter, someone misspoken like Peter, are we like Jesus? If someone takes our favorite seat, sings that song we can’t stand, preaches a sermon we disagree with, do we set it at Jesus’ feet or say how we feel? Because truth falls away in the heat of our anger. When we speak first without considering our words, we will not see what God wants us to see, and we will hurt people. We will become like every other scheming charismatic speaker seeking to trick listeners into only seeing their point-of-view.

Being educated and ordained, even called by God, to the ministry doesn’t justify it. We should do like Paul, who said all he knew, all he’d learned and accomplished, was dung next to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8-9) and fall in love with Him so much that we feel His breaths before we say anything and so have no heart for our own opinions and emotions except in giving them all to the Father, whose goodness rescued us from ourselves in the first place.

“The entire body of believers is joined together with Christ: each member draws their strength from him and then ministers in love to the needs of the rest of the body as each part does its assigned task.” (Ephesians 4:16, Remedy)

“And walk in love—esteeming and delighting in one another—as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a slain offering and sacrifice to God [for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance.” (Ephesians 5:2, AMPC)

“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:” (Philippians 3:8-9)

Photo by Zaur Ibrahimov on Unsplash


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