GREENE STREET LETTERS: Wait For Him!

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Wait For Him!

Acts 1:8
But you shall receive POWER when the Holy Spirit has come upon you....

Step#3
Made a decision to turn my will and life over the to care of God as I understood Him.

The Great Trade Off...
The Divine Exchange....
The Point of Connection.....
When will (my choices driven by my own internal desires) and life (that which enables me to move and interact in the natural world) is released by my own choice....
Now isn't that strange....When I choose to give up my right to choose, I win....
I no longer put myself in the place where I use "addictive logic" to get through my day, instead I began to learn how to follow a pathway to peace.

When I walk out Step #3, I am, as the big book says, rocketed into a new dimension of living. The Holy Spirit, given to me by God the Father, is a promise that was made to Jesus upon his resurrection and return to heaven. God the Father promised to send us a helper, a comforter....His Holy Spirit. He, the Holy Spirit, is the POWER that the steps refer to. Not a doorknob...not your coffee cup...not some unknown, unseen, unheard of source of Power...but the third part of the Triune God.....God the Holy Spirit.

Waiting on God for the anointing of His Spirit is the great condition of spiritual blessing and fullness of power. The ones that Jesus Christ employs as His witnesses will qualify for it by a better spirit than their own—the Holy Spirit, His representative.

Read the Gospels.....Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
Look up every reference to the disciple named Peter.
How would you sum up his life as written in these four books?
Looser!
He was always saying the wrong thing.
He was always doing the wrong thing.
Even on the night Jesus was arrested, in an attempt to save Him, Peter draws a sword to defend Jesus. Does he kill someone? Does he drive the attackers away? No...the best he can do is lop off a man's ear. Even then, Jesus takes the time to put the ear back and heal the man.

Go to the book of Acts and read Chapters 2 and 3.
The Holy Spirit is poured out on the band of believers, Peter included.
The once bumbling, stumbling, awkward disciple, now full of the Holy Spirit, stands to deliver the first sermon preached.
3000 were added to the number of the church that day...
Was it Peter and his dazzling oratory?
Or was it Peter, full of the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit?
I think the later.

IF I am to move from my old life of spiritual darkness and sin/addiction, I am in need of being filled with such Power as God possesses through the giving of His Holy Spirit.
Simple as that.

God on you...
mb

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Looking At The World Through Cracked Lens

As ol' Paul wrote in his Corinthian letters.."We see in part and we know in part." Now what piece of this bit of wisdom do we not get? I wish to not run around acting and trying to be some sort of Biblical G00-Ru (I meant to spell it wrong). Or a sage of sages.

I simply want to be able to communicate some of what God has given to me. Why? Do I think what I get is better than what you may have received from Him? Nope. But I do think encouragement comes when we share our daily story of struggle and victory in an effort to encourage each other.

Thanks for letting me share.

Time to soldier on..

mbb

Our Statement of Faith

We believe that God is the eternal king. He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love. From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit equal in power and glory. we believe that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born into sin, subject to God's judgment of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness. We believe that Jesus, God's Son, was sent to this world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Mary, fully God and fully man in one person. He is humanity as God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, ushering in God's kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. Jesus' atoning death on the cross took God's judgment for sin which we deserved as law-breakers. Jesus' resurrection and ascent back to heaven opened the door for those who received salvation to begin a relationship with God.

Little Nets Into Deep Waters

Fishing nets were designed for one purpose only. To catch fish. Nets are no good if they stay on the boat. Nets serve no purpose if they are never used. I think maybe God sees us this way. We are all created for a purpose (by the way, the creator gets to define what our purpose is). Any other use besides the one we were created for does us no good. But when the creator places His hands upon us, casting us out into those scary, dark places with deep waters, it is then we can see the reality of our purpose. He knew there would be a catch waiting for us. I think I will be the net God has called me to be.

The Twelve Steps

As a community of people in recovery, we affirm that our higher power is Jesus Christ. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Just as God told the children of Israel He was going to give them a promised land, He has revealed to us that He desires to give us a "Promised Life." When Israel got to the promised land, God instructed them to go and in a possess it, fight for it and claim it. In recovery, the 12 Steps are the directions given to us on how to fight, possess and claim this promised life.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Wait For Him!

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THE REALITY OF THE NAME OF GOD