Just before his departure to sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus gave his followers what has been called the Great Commission. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mt.28:18-20). No church would say that command was only for the early church but would declare that command to be the church’s prime directive until his return.

Sadly, the contemporary church often only hears that command as the command to teach the world correct doctrine, live moral lives, love one another, and be kind to your neighbor. That is certainly part of the picture but Jesus taught and commanded his disciples to do much more than that. They were commanded to represent or re-present him to the world not only by preaching the gospel but also by presenting the Kingdom of Heaven with power. They were to do so by healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons. That was the pattern of evangelism Jesus used and the pattern he commanded his disciples to use. It was also the pattern of evangelism in the early church as well.

Jesus commanded his apostles to teach every believer in every nation to obey everything that Jesus had commanded them to do. He didn’t tell them to teach some of what he had commanded or only the intellectually acceptable parts of the gospel or everything except the miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit that clearly demonstrate the victory over Satan that Jesus established by his resurrection. Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will in heaven is health, joy, freedom, life, etc. for his children. If we cannot deliver his will on earth in concrete ways, then that prayer is only a sentiment not a reality.

The Holy Spirit gave spiritual gifts to the church so that the demonstration of the Kingdom of God on earth could continue after the ascension of Jesus and the death of the apostles. Miracles were never dependent on the presence of Jesus or the apostles but on the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus performed miracles only after he had been baptized by John at which time the Spirit descended from heaven and remained on him. Jesus commanded his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they received power from the Holy Spirit because they could not be effective witnesses until they could operate in the power and authority of Jesus. The same is true for us. Jesus has left the earth and resides in heaven. The apostles have died and joined Jesus. The Holy Spirit, however, is still with us. If we cannot demonstrate authority over the dominion of darkness by the power of the Spirit, our testimony is lacking for all that the Spirit does points to Jesus.

The point of all this is that we cannot fulfill the great commission without demonstrating a gospel of power which was what Jesus commanded his disciples to deliver. Paul attempted an intellectual and somewhat “acceptable” approach to the gospel in Athens in Acts 17. He brought out his best rhetoric and his best classical arguments for one God and Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. The results were more than disappointing. His next stop was Corinth. By the time he reached the great metropolitan city and center of pagan worship he had totally revised his approach to evangelism. Paul confessed to the believers there, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:1-5).

As you read his letter to the church in Corinth, it is clear that he not only demonstrated power from the Holy Spirit personally as an apostle, but imparted those same spiritual gifts of power to the church. Many in the church today point to abuses of spiritual gifts to discredit their existence or their authenticity.   To be sure, the church in Corinth abused the gifts, but Paul did not discredit the gifts or tell them to stop operating in the gifts. Rather he instructed them in the proper use and motivations for the gifts.

In the days of the early church, the effective preaching of the gospel required a demonstration of Kingdom power and authority. It still does. The Great Commission envisioned the full reproduction of the ministry of Christ not just a tame or partial version of that ministry. Until the church again embraces the power and full ministry of the Holy Spirit, we will not have been obedient to the Great Commission nor will we reap the full harvest of those Jesus died for. For those of us who embrace all that the Holy Spirit has to offer, our part is to exercise the gifts in love and according to Biblical principles. Our part is to offer thoughtful responses to the questions and concerns others have with no aroma of spiritual pride or we fall into the trap that the Corinthians had fallen into – exercising the gifts without the love or humility that also marks the presence of the Spirit. Pray that the church will come to embrace the gifts and leading of the Spirit so that we can be all that Jesus paid for. Blessings.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:15-19

The idea of being filled with the Spirit is an important and consistent theme throughout the New Testament. Apparently, it is not a steady state in the life of a believer or Paul would have no need to admonish the church to abstain from drunkenness and instead be filled with the Spirit. Although the Holy Spirit is always present within a believer, we are not always “filled with the Spirit.” Not only that, but since Paul commanded the church to be filled, we apparently have a part to play in that filling or refilling. So what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit and what is our part?

I don’t know that I fully understand everything having to do with being Spirit-filled. In fact, I’m certain that I don’t. But I would like to share some thoughts on the subject. First of all, I am led to think about the symbols of the Holy Spirit in scripture. He is likened most often to fire, to wind, to oil, and to water. We typically think about being on fire rather than being filled with fire. We think of being blown by the wind or overpowered by it rather than being filled with it. We think of oil being on us rather than in us. But Jesus likened the Spirit to streams of living water pouring out of us (Jn.7:38), so I think water may be the thing we think about when attempting to understand being filled.

Water is powerful, cleansing, refreshing, and life giving. No water, no life. No Spirit, no spiritual life. When filling a vessel, water intrudes into every nook and cranny of the vessel but does not truly fill it unless it is empty of everything else. For instance, we ordinarily speak of filling an aquarium with water but that language is inaccurate. The truth is that the aquarium can still be half full of gravel, plants, coral, and fish. Accurately, it is only half-filled with water. To be fully filled with water means that everything else has to be removed. Most of us, as believers, are only partially filled with the Holy Spirit while our container is still significantly filled with self, worldly desires, and sometimes an occasional demon or two. That, of course, is the average condition of most new believers. The idea is for a new believer to begin to let the Spirit displace and push out everything else so that we become Spirit-filled. In the New Testament, men and women who showed exceptional boldness or who operated in signs and wonders were said to be filled with the Spirit. It didn’t take years for that filling to occur. It only took faith and surrender and could happen in a few minutes if the heart was right.

That idea of being Spirit-filled is still somewhat vague so let’s define it in practical terms. Being filled with the Spirit is about the degree to which the Spirit manifests his character and power in us which ultimately depends on the level of control we turn over to him. When we are filled with the Spirit, the Spirit is leading and manifesting his presence so that the works of Jesus might continue through us. The more of our life we release to his direction, the more the old man and the demonic is displaced. Both the old man and the demonic are all about self-sufficiency. The lure of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the capacity to obtain wisdom without God and in doing so to become like God ourselves. To become God-sufficient removes self and Satan so that the fullness of the Holy Spirit can be expressed through us.

Jesus expressed this condition when he said that he could only do what he saw the Father doing and could only speak what he heard the Father saying. I believe he chose that condition daily. Jesus was so submitted the Spirit that he waited for the Spirit to initiate his actions, his words, and his decisions. When we willingly become an extension of the Holy Spirit he will fill us and then we will do the works of Jesus. So how do we move in that direction?

A great deal of the ground we take in our effort to be Spirit-filled will be gained through prayer. The first baptism or filling by the Spirit occurred at a prayer meeting on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). We can safely assume that those gathered together in prayer were surrendering their hearts and lives to Jesus not offering up a shopping list to satisfy the natural man.

First, we must maintain a sincere desire to be filled with the Spirit – to be fully directed by the Spirit and to manifest his character, his values, and his priorities. Inviting him to take the lead, to reveal our self-sufficient strongholds, to change our hearts, and to give us a sensitivity to his leading will likely need to be a daily prayer. Fasting will help break the power of the flesh and the Word will feed and shape the spiritual man.

Secondly, obedience to the directions and urgings of the Spirit will be paramount. Jesus said that if we love him we would keep his commandments. We simply exchange our agenda with his on a day-by-day basis. Sometimes we resist this kind of surrender because we fear that we will be lost in the process and no longer have any identity or significance. This surrender of control isn’t giving up who we are but rather discovering who we were meant to be.

Gifted athletes engage coaches and them give up control of their diets, workouts, and strategies to the coach so that he can help them to become everything they can be as an athlete. It is the coach who through an objective eye can see faults that the athlete himself could never detect. It is the coach who will push the athlete to run one more lap or do one more set of exercises that the flesh of his client would never be willing to do. By giving up control to the “expert,” the athlete will become much more than he could have ever become on his own. God has carefully and uniquely made each of us and does not want to erase us or our individuality, but rather to maximize who he made us to be in partnership with the Spirit. Our part is to fully cooperate in that enterprise.

When we willingly and consistently surrender to his leading, then the Spirit can radically transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. He can entrust gifts, spiritual power, and kingdom responsibilities to us that will be world-changing. When the Spirit is directing us we can walk in boldness knowing that we are on an assignment from God and that he will resource and protect us as we complete his assignments. When we begin to experience the fullness of the Spirit then revelation will flow our way because we will be living in intimacy and friendship with Jesus who will tell us all things because we have become friends and not just servants.

Paul commands us to be filled with the Spirit because to give up control and dominion is an ongoing decision of the will. Being “filled” is a constant goal of every mature believer. In reality, the flesh works to erode our dependence on God and push us back toward self-sufficiency. Some days the flesh will win a few battles and we will have to retake that ground. However, if our heart is sincere in seeking and surrendering to the Spirit, then he will do marvelous things with us even when our “spiritual aquarium” still has some rocks, plants, and coral in it. As we persist in prayer and obedience to the Spirit, the debris in the aquarium will diminish year after year. Our goal is for only water to remain. When that occurs, then we will have truly become like Jesus.

Have you ever thought about what God uses as catalysts for radical change in men and women? Most of us would quickly say that we want to be more like Jesus and would welcome anything that would accelerate the process. If you asked the standard Christian how God changes us, he would probably respond that Bible study, prayer, and church attendance are the keys. Those are undoubtedly good things and even essential things in the life of believers, but what do we see in scripture as the most catalytic change agent in the lives of God’s people from Genesis to Revelation? That can be answered in one word – Encounter.

An encounter with the living God is the most remarkable catalyst for change in the Bible. The encounter can come in various packages – a voice from heaven, a burning bush, an angelic visitation, a dream or a vision, manna in the morning, healing, resurrection, miraculous deliverance from lions or fire, miraculous provision, victories over impossible odds or fire dancing on your head and strange languages coming out of your mouth. The Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, David, Daniel, Joseph, Saul of Tarsus, Peter, etc. were profoundly changed by personal encounters with God rather than increased time in the Torah. Even David who sings the praises of the Word of God throughout the Psalms apparently was able to experience God in the sanctuary as he “sought his face.” David’s emphasis on the amazing goodness of God’s Word and his commandments came from his experiences with God and the knowledge that keeping God’s word carefully aligned us for even more encounters.

By the time we get to the book of Acts, encountering God through the Holy Spirit became a daily event in the life of believers as they experienced unusual boldness in sharing the gospel, found themselves healing the sick, casting out demons, uttering prophecies, and learning to be led by the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. Our standard catalysts of Bible study, prayer, and “church attendance” were never intended to be ends in themselves but are intended to lead us into regular encounters with God.

The Pharisees with whom Jesus had so many unpleasant conversations were men of prayer, men of Bible study who “searched the scriptures,” and men of the synagogue. But they were not changed. They could not recognize Jesus for who he was. As Jesus said, they were clean on the outside but rotten on the inside. There were, of course, a few truth seekers among them. Nicodemus was one. When he came to Jesus by night seeking some spiritual insight, Jesus told him that he needed to be born again – born of water and the Spirit. A better translation of “born again” might be “born from above.” In other words, Nicodemus needed a life-changing encounter with God through the Holy Spirit.

Three years with Jesus seemed to have had minimal effect on the disciples because they were encountering God through Jesus rather than having direct personal encounters. No doubt, some of the things they saw Jesus do rocked their world and opened their eyes to greater possibilities than they had ever been offered in synagogue but their direct encounter with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was the truly transformative moment for each of them that was a gateway for more encounters.

From the beginning, God did not want man to simply know about him but rather to have personal encounters with him. That is why he would walk with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the evenings. He still desires that. If your spiritual life has simply been an effort to acquire more information about God, to know your Bible better, or to be certain of your doctrinal standings then you have missed the point. The point is to encounter God in a supernatural way. I am not trying to diminish the value of Bible study. It is essential, but it is not an end in itself. It is not just an ancient picture to be hung on the wall and admired, but a living map to lead us into life-changing encounters with the creator of the universe. Scripture says that if we seek God, with all of our hearts we will find him. Notice our goal is to find him, not just find out about him. May you encounter him today in a way that changes your life forever.

Many of us who pursue the Holy Spirit and the gifts he distributes are hungry for more.  We want increase. Jesus said that the Father gives the Spirit without limit, so it is legitimate as co-heirs of Jesus to want more and more. The question is how do we gain that increase of anointing? If you are like me, you have already been asking but, perhaps, have not seen significant increase.

Of course, prayer with fasting is a tried and true way to receive more as well. When some of the apostles were unable to cast a demon out of a boy, Jesus did so easily. Later, when they wondered why they had been unsuccessful, Jesus answered, “This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting” (Mt. 17, Mk.9). Since Jesus did not ask the boy or his father to pray and fast before deliverance and because he did not pray before casting out the demon, we must assume that he was saying that a life of prayer and fasting carves out more authority in the spiritual realm than simply a life of prayer. That’s bad news for those of us who don’t enjoy fasting.

However, there is a third way to gain increase and, perhaps, this is the most significant of all for the time in which we live. In Ezekiel 47, the prophet was given a vision of the temple and fresh water that flowed out of the throne room of God and became a river. Ezekiel said, “As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this” (Ezek. 47:3-6)? As the vision progressed, the prophet was shown a number of trees growing along the river whose “leaves will not wither” and whose “fruit will not fall.” We are told that those leaves would be for the healing of the nations and their fruit would be for food.

The river, of course, represents the Holy Spirit moving out from the throne room of the Lord. In the gospel of John, Jesus declared, “’If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” (Jn.7:37-39). The Spirit gives life to us and that life is intended to flow out form us to the people around us. Notice that the further the river flowed, the deeper it became. This life-giving water did not pool around the temple but flowed down to the sea where its fresh water would mingle with salt water making it fresh also and creating and environment for abundant life. Very often in scripture “the sea” represents the nations.

The point is this. The further the river flowed from the temple the deeper it became. It was intended to pour into distant nations and become a source of healing and life as trees grew up along its banks. Increase in the gifts of the Spirit occurs as we move out from the church and into the lifeless places around us. We will see greater increase when we begins to exercise our gifts in the dark places of our communities that are distant from God, rather than keeping them in the safe confines of our church sanctuaries. It’s not that these gifts are not for the body of Christ – they are. But they are not only for the body. They are also for the lost and hurting who are far away from the throne and as we take the Holy Spirit to those places and those individuals, the river gets deeper – greater anointing is given.

If you go on mission trips, you have probably noticed that God worked through you in greater ways on the mission than when you came back home. That may be the “river principle” in action. The truth is, however, that we don’t have to go overseas to find those who are far from God. We may only need to go next door or to our closest “big box store” or Starbucks.

To go out in public and exercise the gifts of healing, prophecy, encouragement, deliverance, mercy, and miracles takes a willingness to risk. We always risk rejection and being thought of as weird. We also risk that moment when healing doesn’t occur, prophecy seems to have missed the mark by a mile, or when some spirit hangs on and for some reason we, like the apostles and the boy, can’t deliver. However, it is in that territory that the river gets deeper and if we want increase, we will need to move out from the sanctuary to the nations around us. How else can we be trees for healing and fresh water for life for those who are still far from God?

If we want increase, then we have to let God place us in situations where more is needed. The good news is that when we move away from the sanctuary God does not stay there, he goes with us and in the going we will experience the increase we have been asking for.

Most churches in America today still only give the Holy Spirit an honorable mention, even though he is an equal member of the Godhead – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Most believers know that the Holy Spirit lives inside them in some way but beyond that they have little knowledge of the Holy Spirit as God, as a person, and as the source of power for living out the commands and mandates of Jesus. It’s amazing that scripture puts so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit while the church, by and large, gives little attention to this third part of the Trinity. And yet without the Spirit, we can in no way live the life that Jesus has called us to live.

In fact, Jesus said that the best thing he could do for his followers was to leave them, return to the Father, and send the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:7). To his disciples at that moment, that must have seemed like an empty promise. After all, who or what could replace the presence of Jesus? He was the teacher, the healer, and the provider. He could calm storms with a command, walk across lakes, feed thousands with a box lunch, and drive away demons. What could be better than that? However, Jesus kept insisting that he was leaving but, ultimately, his followers would be better off. Peter would become the proof of that pudding.

Peter had been part of the Lord’s inner circle for three years. He had heard every sermon, seen every miracle, and been taught how to pray by the Son of God himself. For three years, he had Jesus himself as a personal mentor and role model. What could be better? But Jesus in the flesh had limitations. He could teach like no man had ever taught but his influence was from the outside in. Now he was going to send a teacher and a counselor whose influence would be from the inside out. The difference is stunning,

With all the teaching, the training, the mentoring, and Jesus as his personal life coach, Peter still stumbled along. Although he got a few things right, there was still such a shortfall. Even on the night of Jesus’ arrest, Peter was arguing with James and John about who was the greatest disciple. A few hours after that, Jesus was arrested and Peter, along with the others, scattered into the night. Although Peter followed from a distance, he still denied even knowing Jesus three times in the courtyard of the high priest. After discovering the empty tomb, Peter still did not believe Mary’s testimony that she had seen the risen Jesus until Jesus made a personal appearance with his disciples. Where was the teaching, the training, the modeling, the prayer, and the effect of seeing hundreds of miracles then?

Fifty days later, Jesus fulfilled his promise. He returned to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to his followers. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were in an upper room adjacent to the Temple courts and the Holy Spirit fell on them, filled them, and overwhelmed them. Suddenly the inner influence and power of the Spirit took Peter into the Temple courts where he declared the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness, revelation, and power. What Jesus could not do in Peter’s heart in three years, the Holy Spirit did in a few hours. Jesus was right. It was better for him to go so that he could work from the inside out of those who follow him through his Spirit.

Something else shifted with the internal presence of God in each believer as well. Early in the gospels, Jesus gave power and authority to his twelve apostles and then later to seventy-two other disciples. These men went ahead of Jesus preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons. Their demonstration of the kingdom was to point to Jesus. Both groups came back “blown away” by what they had been able to do in the name of Jesus. And yet, that power and authority seemed only temporary. We have no record of the apostles or other disciples operating in that kind of power after that season of ministry. However, after his resurrection, Jesus instructed his followers to wait in Jerusalem until he sent the Spirit to empower them as well as transform them. After Pentecost, the gifts of the Spirit defined the ministry of the church. These gifts which included healings, miracles, prophecy, etc. were not just for a brief season but for a lifetime. We are told that Peter walked in such an anointing that even his shadow would heal those it touched.

Jesus was right. It was better for us that he returned to the Father and sent the Spirit so that the presence of God could live within each of us. We are called the Temple of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. The word for “temple” does not refer to the larger complex and courts of the temple but the “naos” which was the Holy Place and Holy of Holies where the glory of God rested. As a result of Jesus leaving and sending his Spirit, we are each the Holy of Holies.

The Father sent the Son, the Son returned to the Father, and the Son sent the Spirit. Jim Cymbala points out that the Holy Spirit is God’s current agent on the earth and wonders why the church has neglected the Spirit of God in its teachings to the point that few believers know much about the ministry and gifts of the eternal Spirit. Since just about everything in the kingdom is received and activated by faith, our ignorance of the Spirit keeps us from receiving and walking in most of what he has for us. There are empty church buildings all over America that attest to the absence of the Spirit rather than his presence. Jesus made it clear that his followers could not be effective witnesses of his reality until they received power on that Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. For us to be effective witnesses who live lives that point to Jesus, we too must have the fullness of the Spirit.

A life that is not plugged into the power and resources of the Holy Spirit, even if a person believes in Jesus, will look minimally different from those who don’t even know him. That is not an effective witness. It simply takes the power of the Spirit to overcome the flesh, facedown the enemy, and demonstrate the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

On the other side of the equation, there are churches that make the Holy Spirit and his gifts the central emphasis of all they do. Jesus clearly stated that the Spirit would bring glory to Jesus, not himself (Jn.16:14). We must always keep our eyes on the giver of the gift not just on the gift itself. But the giver also expects us to love the gift, enjoy the gift, and use the gift to its fullness. It his case, the gift is the Holy Spirit who brings the presence of God to us. Certainly there are excesses in some churches regarding the Holy Spirit, but that should not deter us from experiencing the Spirit as Jesus intended. I remember Bill Johnson saying that he feared lack more than excess when it came to the Spirit. I would agree with that.

Jesus told us that the Father gives the Spirit without limit (Jn. 3:34) so we may assume that he wants us to receive the Spirit without limit. May we and the church be open to everything God wants us to have via the Holy Spirit so that we can be effective witnesses for Jesus and be a people that stand out from the world rather than blending in. Ask for it all.

I continue to find it odd or at least interesting that no physical description of Jesus was given by those who lived with him every day for three years, saw him crucified, and saw him resurrected. I have to believe that the Holy Spirit prohibited them from doing so because any biographer would have been almost compelled to do so in detail. In scripture there is hardly any reference to his physical appearance at all.

Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah and speaking of his physical appearance said, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isa.53:2). The post-resurrection accounts in the gospels would tell us that he still had holes in his hands and a tear in his side from Roman spikes and a spear. But other than that, we don’t know if he was short or tall, stocky or thin. We don’t know if he had a great smile or crooked teeth. We tend to assume he was muscular because he was a carpenter/stone mason but we do not know for sure.

In some ways, this omission in scripture may have a downside. It leaves us the freedom to make Jesus in our own image – to imagine him as we think a Messiah should be…often with a worldly slant. Philip Yancey discussed this phenomenon in his book The Jesus I Never Knew. He says, “The first semi-real portraits of Jesus did not come until the fifth century, and these were pure speculation. Until then, the Greeks had portrayed him as a young, beardless figure resembling the God Apollo.” He goes on to say. “I once showed to a class several dozen art slides portraying Jesus in a variety of forms – African, Korean, Chinese – and then asked the class to describe what they thought Jesus looked like. Virtually everyone suggested he was tall (unlikely for a first-century Jew), most said handsome, and no one said overweight…We prefer a tall, handsome, and above all, slender Jesus.” Some ancient traditions suggest that Jesus was hunchbacked or had leprosy. If you are like me, you may find the notion of Jesus as a hunchback or leper somehow offensive…unless you are a hunchback or leper. In that case you would find it comforting. Until some recent Christian films, Hollywood had always portrayed him as the tall, muscular, slender, very handsome Jesus with perfect diction, perfect teeth, a straight nose, and, at times, with blond hair and blue eyes (really unlikely).

The problem with casting Jesus in our own image is that we may also cast his motives, his values, his perspectives, and his character in our own image as well. That could be dangerous because then our standard of comparison will simply be between us and someone just a little more moral than us. Jesus was much and is much more than that.

So why did the Holy Spirit choose to leave out an accurate and detailed physical description of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? Why did Jesus appear differently to many of his followers after the resurrection? I’m sure there are layers of reasons for this but I can certainly think of one – our penchant for obsessing over the outward appearance of things and people. When God sent Samuel in search of a replacement for King Saul, he first observed David’s brothers and felt certain that the tall, handsome, muscular brother was surely the next king. After all, he looked so “presidential.” But God gently admonished Samuel and reminded him that God does not look at the appearance of a man but at his heart. David was his choice. Surely God wants us to take on the same perspective.

In John 10, when Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd, he said that his sheep would recognize his voice not his face. Jesus said in another place that out of the mouth comes the abundance of the heart. In other words, my words – especially in unguarded moments – reveal my heart. The voice or the words of the Shepherd give us a much better take on who he really is than his appearance.

I mentioned to a friend one time how interesting it was to me that God so often chose extreme people in whom to deposit amazing spiritual gifts. Some were not just extreme in commitment but sometimes in appearance. She wisely responded that she thought God did so intentionally to see if we loved truth enough to look past the external appearance of the one delivering it. Maybe that is why Jesus, according to Isaiah, was neither handsome nor presidential in appearance so that it was the content of the man rather than the packaging that drew multitudes to him.

When I was in college, I worked at a publishing company. All kinds of people worked there and of course, as a college student, I was always surveying the new female hires to see if they were pretty and single. One day a new girl came on the floor. She was married but she was also one of the most homely girls I had ever seen. She was tall, very thin with knot knees, stringy hair, crooked teeth, and a long slender neck and slightly drooping shoulders. She wore little to no makeup and I actually felt sorry for her the first time I met her. I was amazed that she was married and had children.   However, as I spent time around her at work, her personality was amazing. She was genuine, positive, totally uncritical, always had a good word for everyone, laughed easily and yet showed genuine compassion for others. In a few months time, I no longer felt sorry for her but actually began to envy her husband. Her inner beauty truly overcame her outward appearance to the point that her physical qualities meant very little to those who knew her. In some small way, I think she and others like her show us the power of Jesus. The gospels don’t give us the physical description because it doesn’t matter.

Look how we worship celebrities and fawn over their appearance – their clothes, their hair, their skin, their teeth, their bodies, their mansions, etc. – ignoring the spoiled, shallow, arrogant, demanding person that is often on the inside. Appearance can and does get in the way of what’s most important. That is a lesson we all need to learn better.

The other stunning thing about Jesus was that not only did he have an amazing heart but always looked at the heart of others rather than their appearance. He was never swayed by fine clothes, palaces, or power. Neither was he put off by a bad reputation, poverty, weakness, brokenness, disease, demons or even leprosy. That, I think, was his power to draw others. If we are to reach people for Jesus we must learn to love them and to love them we must learn to look past the externals. We must see their hearts and minister to their hearts. It is there that Jesus wants to do his work and make his home. May Jesus give each of us the capacity to ignore the wrapping and look diligently to discover what is inside the box.

The Book of Nehemiah is the story of a man who was sent by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that had lain in disrepair for years after the Babylonians had destroyed the city. The walls of a city marked its strength, its size, and its boundaries. They provided protection against all enemies and the more impressive the wall the more impressive were the citizens of a city. The walls of Jerusalem were essentially rubble. So extensive was the damage that no one had bothered to rebuild the walls in years.

By the providence of God, Nehemiah was given permission by King Artaxerxes of Persia to return to his native land and repair the walls. The hostility of the neighboring tribes around Jerusalem was as great then as it is now. They delighted in the ruins of Jerusalem and would have blotted out the Jewish race if it had been in their power to do so. When Nehemiah arrived and began to rebuild the walls, the tribes around them began to strategize ways to prevent the wall from being built. There are three main characters in the story that oppose Nehemiah – Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arab.

When the work began they immediately mocked and ridiculed the effort. Their strategy was discouragement and mocking as they tired to convince the Jews that they were not up to the task and that all their efforts would end in failure (see Neh. 2:19). They also accused them of rebelling against the king by rebuilding the wall. Even though Nehemiah had letters from the king giving him authority to rebuild, the enemies of God kept insisting that his authority was fraudulent. Nehemiah’s response was simple. He declared that God would give them success and that the surrounding tribes had no part or say in or power over what God’s people were doing.

As the story progresses, Sanballat and Tobiah continued to ridicule the work that was being done. They kept pointing out the ultimate impossibility of the task and that what had already been done was inferior and would not stand (Neh. 4:1-3). They kept declaring that even though the Jews might make an effort and a start, ultimately the task would be too hard and what was built would not last. Their efforts would prove to be pointless. Nehemiah simply prayed for strength and victory.

As the wall began to take shape, the enemies of Jerusalem began to panic. “They plotted to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it” (Neh. 4:8). Burt again, Nehemiah prayed and posted a guard against the threat. As fear and discouragement began to creep into the hearts of God’s people, Nehemiah’s response was, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight…” His counsel was to get their minds off their own ability or capacity and fix their minds on the strength and power of God who had called them to the task.

Toward the end of chapter 4, the threat of attack had risen so that the people carried building materials in one hand and a weapon in the other. They knew that God might not keep them from conflict but would give them victory over the enemy if they would stand and fight.

In Chapter 6, the wall was completed though the gates had yet to be reset. At that point, Sanballat and Geshem invited Nehemiah to a meeting to ostensibly discuss peace regarding the wall. Peace often means compromise and, in this case, was seen as a ploy to get him away from Jerusalem and simply kill him. Nehemiah’s response was on point. “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer” (Neh.6:3-4). Their response was a threat to slander Nehemiah before the king with a report claiming that not only was Nehemiah rebuilding the wall but was also planning a revolt against Persia and planning to have himself declared king over Israel. Nehemiah could have stopped building and run back to Persia to defend himself, but instead he simply told them that their accusations were untrue and continued to build the wall.

The next ploy of Nehemiah’s enemies was to frighten him with reports that assassins were on the way so that he must leave the work and retreat to a safe place. Nehemiah saw through the scheme and recognized it simply as an intimidation tactic. His response was, “Should a man like me run away?” He knew that, as a leader, if he gave into intimidation and ran the rest of his people would lose heart. Even if he thought the report might be true, he hand to stand and trust God to save him.

In the face of all the intrigue and opposition, the text says, “So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” (Neh.6:15-16).

To rebuild the wall in 52 days was a miracle. God didn’t do it for his people but did it with his people and moved them to work through a man he sent to lead them. What I notice in this is that Satan uses the same tactics against each of us when we try to move ahead on assignments or a dream given us by the Lord.

First of all, he mocks and ridicules our idea or the idea that God might do something great through us. His first attempts are always to make us feel unqualified or disqualified to do the work of the Lord. How many things may God have given us to do that we never picked up because we felt unqualified for the task?

Secondly, he impugned their motives. He accused them of having rebellion in their hearts as they began to rebuild. How often does Satan accuse us of having selfish or fleshly motives for the things we want to do for God. If we are spiritual we want pure motives for the things we undertake. To begin to dissect our motives and over- analyze our hearts can create emotional paralysis that side tracks us in the very beginning.

If we push ahead on the thing God has put in our hearts and begin to create something, Satan’s next scheme is to convince us of how inferior our work is and that it will fail and we will be ridiculed by men. We suddenly will see every weakness or imperfection in our attempts to serve God and will begin to feel foolish forever thinking we could accomplish something significant.

If we continue, even in the face of self-doubt, Satan will then offer distractions to get our focus off the call on our lives and onto other things. These will not necessarily be sinful things. In fact, they will probably be good things…but not the one thing God has called you to accomplish. If there has been opposition to the goal you are pursuing for the Lord, those who have opposed you may try to get you to compromise your vision or your dream for the sake of peace.

Finally, if you still continue to push ahead he may try intimidation and place seeds of fear in your mind. You may begin to imagine illness, poverty, the loss of loved ones, the loss of financial security, etc. if you continue your pursuit of a ministry, a career God has called you to, the writing of a book or a song, raising godly children, or life in the mission field.

Nehemiah faced each of those challenges but never waivered from the task. He was sure that God would resource him, protect him, and direct him to fulfill the work God had given him to do. He had insight into the devil’s schemes and knew what it was when it came his way. We need to be wise as well and also aware of his strategies so that we are not deterred by his ploys against us. If you have drifted from a call or a dream that you believe God gave you in the past, take a close look to see if you fell prey to one of the devil’s schemes. Recognize it. Renounce it. Repent of coming into agreement with the enemy and get back to the call and promises of God that once moved you. There is a miracle that God wants to do through each one of us. Blessings in Him today.

For the first 20 or 25 years of my Christian faith, I was taught by good people who loved Jesus that God did not deal in signs, wonders, and miracles in our time. For them the Biblical witness that such things had happened in the past was sufficient. The view was that Jesus and the apostles performed miracles in the 1^st Century in order to validate their claims. Miracles validated Jesus as the Son of God and miracles validated the apostles as those who represented him after his death and as those who spoke and wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Once those “validations” had been written down they provided the credentials needed for Jesus and the twelve for future generations and so miracles ceased after the New Testament was written and the miracles were recorded.

Not only were we clearly taught that God no longer operated in the miraculous but also that those who claimed to operate in signs and wonders were either deceived by their own emotionalism or were purposeful deceivers themselves who were simply taking money from the weak and ignorant who still believed in such things.

If any of our fellowship ever attended a healing service it was always with an eye to prove fraud in what was claimed. If a few claimed to be healed then they were viewed as plants by the evangelist or people whose illnesses were actually psychosomatic and, thus, when they “believed” they were relieved of a psychological condition rather than a real illness. Any in wheel chairs or on crutches who did not walk away were solid proof that the healing gifts claimed by the evangelist were fraudulent. Out view was that if the gift truly existed, all would be healed. Since all were not healed, then the gifts no longer operate. Since we never saw healings in our churches, it was easy to believe that God no longer operated through spiritual gifts. It never occurred to us that we might not be seeing healing or any other kind of miracles simply because we had no faith for it and never asked. As James, the brother of Jesus, put it, “You have not because you ask not.”

Even now, many Christians associate the claim of “signs and wonders” with backwoods, superstitious folks like snake-handlers in West Virginia or with “healing evangelists” who ask for money every fifteen minutes and who read letters about miracles that were made up by the public relations staff of the ministry. On rare occasion, these Christians may be confronted by a healing that has been confirmed by doctors to be both real and inexplicable. When asked about the undeniable healing, they will answer that the body and mind are complex and not yet fully understood by science (i.e. God wasn’t involved) or that God heals on rare occasions to give us brief windows into heaven so that we know what good awaits us on the other side. They then rush to affirm again that God rarely does such things. He may do it from time to time but only as a sovereign act and never through men or women who are operating in gifts of the Spirit.

But Mark says this, “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it” (Mk.16:20). These “signs” were exhibited after the ascension and were done by disciples, not just his apostles. If just telling the stories of what Jesus did when he walked the earth was enough, these disciples could have done just that. They could have done so even more powerfully than we can because many of them were eyewitnesses to the miracles.

An interesting phrase in Mark’s closing comment is, “and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word.” It seems that Jesus had no problem with continuing to work miracles through his disciples as evidence that what he had said about himself was true. It seems that Jesus did not feel as if just telling the stories was all that was needed. Earlier in Mark’s closing chapter he had quoted Jesus as saying, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people and they will get well.”

The natural reading of these verses would never suggest that Jesus meant that those signs would accompany his followers for a few more years and then fade away. These are marks of the kingdom. Jesus preached the kingdom. The pattern has always been for the followers of Jesus to preach the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God and then demonstrate its reality. The good news of Jesus Christ is that our sins are forgiven in him. The good news of the Kingdom of God is that the forgiveness of our sins provides access to the kingdom of God and access to the kingdom provides the blessings of “on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s provision is available to his children whether they are with him in heaven or still serving on planet earth. Miracles are part of that provision.

When God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt and led them to the Jordan River, twelve spies were sent into the land to confirm what God had said about the land he had promised to Abraham and his descendants. They came back with evidence from the land – huge clusters of grapes, pomegranates, and figs. This evidence was to confirm what God had already told them about Canaan. The intent was to bolster faith. God had told them that the land was a land flowing with milk and honey (an expression of abundance and fertility). Evidence of that truth was brought back and shown to the people so that they might have even more faith in the remaining promises of God. Of course, unbelief took over and instead of focusing on the proof that God’s word is true, they focused on the size of the enemy and their own weakness. Because they did not believe the word of God or the evidence of its truth, they never entered the land.

Signs and wonders are like grapes and figs brought back from Canaan. They are evidence of what else lies in store for those who believe and enter the kingdom through Jesus. Like all signs, they point to a greater reality that is accessible through faith. In addition, signs such as healing, prophecy, and deliverance point not only to the power of God but to his goodness and compassion.

The denomination that I was part of in my early years in the faith made the mistake of believing that Jesus only healed to prove that he was the Son of God. And yet, on many occasions in the gospels, he clearly healed and delivered out of deep compassion and not just to produce evidence that he was Messiah. In fact, he told many whom he had healed to tell no one about what he had done.

Signs and wonders should still accompany the preaching of the gospel and should still be part of the provision that God has laid aside for those who enter the promised land of God’s kingdom. Signs and wonders not only confirm the Word of God but continue to express his love and compassion for the suffering.

I believe the Spirit is awakening the church to these realities today but we still have far to go. The gospel in many places has been reduced to a simple doctrine to be believed intellectually and a call to moral living rather than an opportunity to share a supernatural experience with God.

Experience is always the greater teacher. Miracles allow us to experience God not just hear about him. An old adage says that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. That is true in our faith as well. Of course, every experience must line up with the word of God and be grounded in scriptural truth but what is more consistent in scripture than the intervention of God on behalf of his people with miracles? That principle is at the heart of every great story in the Bible. If we want God to continue to produce great stories in our lives then we will need to ask and believe for miracles. Blessings today.