1 Thessalonians 5:19 (NIV)
Do not quench the Spirit.
I always thought that verse was second person singular: “Don’t you quench the Spirit in yourself.” I was wrong.
God: Criticizing someone filled with the Spirit is like throwing a bucket of water on a flame. It leaves them cold and empty.
Me: Been there. Done that. I’m sorry.
Watchman Nee gives us a very good reason to be filled with the Spirit.
“Let God but occupy all the space himself, and what room is left for the evil one?“
Watchman Nee was a 20th century Chinese author and church leader. After the Communist revolution, he was persecuted for his faith. He was imprisoned the year I was born. He died, still in prison, the year I was married.
Rock-solid advice from the pen of a godly man.
Joel 2:28-29 (NIV)
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I am grateful that God poured out his Spirit on women as well as men. I wouldn’t want men to have all the fun (and excitement, and work, and challenge, and adventure, and reward). I am humbled and honored to share the opportunity.
Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday? What is Pentecost?
The Holy Spirit descended on the believers during the Feast of Pentecost, and thus started the Christian Church.
Without Pentecost, we wouldn’t be in church each week. That’s something to remember on Memorial Day weekend, when we honor those who died for the freedom we enjoy—including the freedom to be in church.
Ephesians 5:22-23 (CEV)
A wife should put her husband first, as she does the Lord. A husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the head and the Savior of the church, which is his own body.
Suppose you were someone who knew very little about Christianity and Scripture. Imagine that you stumbled on this passage and thought, “The Church submits to Christ the way Shirlee submits to Wade. Christ loves us the way Wade loves Shirlee” (fill in your own names or the names of other married couples).
[Hmm, Honey? I think our relationship might need some help.]
James 4:7 (ESV)
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on this verse, January 30th, 1876. Here are a few words from that sermon.
“I desire to whisper one little truth in your ear, and I pray that it may startle you: You are submitting even now. You say, ‘Not I; I am lord of myself.’ I know you think so, but all the while you are submitting to the devil.“
Words worth pondering.
The last Titus 2 study focused on submission:
Titus 2:3,5 (NIV)
Likewise, teach the older women . . . to be subject to their husbands.
The Greek word used here, hypotássō, has two parts: hypo (under) and tasso (arrangement). It means to rank below, be subject to, to obey. Wives to husband. And we 21st century American women bristle and sputter, “it cannot be!”
Satan spins lies at both ends of marriage. At one end, women are devalued, mistreated and disrespected. At the other end, men are devalued, deemed unnecessary and disrespected. There’s gotta be significance to submission, or the enemy wouldn’t work so hard to distort it.
Today’s constructive thought comes out of the last Titus 2 Women’s study.
How significant are the things you and your spouse fight over?
Are the disagreements over something with eternal significance? Will it matter five years from now? Will it matter 500 years into eternity?
Make sure the battle is worth the fight.
