“Ephraim mixes with the nations;
    Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.

• Hosea7:8

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

• 1 Corinthians 6:19

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

• John 5:24

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

• John 17:3

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

• Ephesians 2:22

“It is one thing to have participated in regeneration and sanctification and quite another thing to enjoy the knowledge that your body is ‘the temple of the Holy Spirit.’ That is not an experience, it is a revelation, and a revelation that takes some believing and then some obeying. Many even in the experience of entire sanctification are ignorant what the apostle Paul is talking about. As saints, our brains ought to be used to systematize and make our own the great revelations given in God’s Word regarding His purpose for us. People say, ‘I have received the Holy Spirit, therefore everything I want to do is inspired by Him.’ By no means; I have to see that I instruct myself regarding these revelations that are only interpreted to me by the Holy Spirit, never by my natural wisdom. There are some saints who are ideally actual, that is, instructed as well as sanctified and living in unsullied communion with God, and there are others who are like Ephraim, ‘a cake unturned’ (Hosea 7:8). Once let it dawn on your mind that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and instantly the impossible becomes possible; the things you used to pray about you no longer pray about but do. As in the natural world, so in the spiritual, knowledge is power. All we need to experience is that we have ‘passed from death into life’ (John 5:24): what we need to know takes all time and eternity. ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God’ (John 17:3). Begin to know Him now, and finish never!”

• Oswald Chambers, He Shall Glorify Me

Boilerplate

In this mini-series, we will look at Oswald Chambers’ book He Shall Glorify Me.  The first several chapters are about the Holy Spirit.

At one time, the YMCA stood for Young Men’s Christian Association.  It was a combination of a youth hostel lodging and Christian outreach.  Few YMCA have any overnight boarding allowed anymore.  The Village People hit song YMCA was the “fun staying at the YMCA.”  Note: Corrie ten Boom stayed at the YWCA whenever possible during her years of evangelism.

But these days, membership in the YMCA is all about exercise, a pool, or more than one pool, and exercise classes.  Cheaper than most gym memberships.

Oswald Chambers spent the last two years of his life training YMCA missionaries in Egypt.  Most of his books were published by his wife after his death.  She used his teaching notes and some sermons to create My Utmost for His Highest and Daily Thoughts for Disciples.  The latter is compiled from the various books published under the name of Oswald Chambers.  The chosen book is one of those used in the compilation.

Discussion

I am going to spend three weeks on the work of the Holy Spirit, in broad strokes to some extent, since there is so much there.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Sorry, all of you exercise fanatics, but you are misusing that verse.  Don’t feel too bad.  You probably misuse Philippians 4:13 even more.  On the Philippians 4:13 thing, please read from verse 10-13.  Paul can endure suffering with strength given him by God.  That is the Holy Spirit at work, but this temple thing is that we should not sin so much, because we have God within us.  Sure, if binge eating donuts is a sin for us, then that might qualify, but I think lust and anger and pride are higher on the list than skipping a few squats.

I thought about this the other day.  There was light in the room, but the light was in the wrong place.  I could not read my Bible study guide, preparing for the next Sunday school lesson.  I shifted where I was sitting and turned on the bathroom light, which was brighter than the bedroom light anyway.  I got my Sunday school prep done after I got light where it was needed.

Well, if the Holy Spirit is within us, we are never alone.  We cannot hide in the shadows.

That got my mind down one of those proverbial rabbit holes.  In the new earth, there will be no sun or moon because God is with us.  There will be no shadow.  Think about that. God is everywhere, thus He will illuminate every shadow.  We will be cured of obesity and claustrophobia, just some random thoughts.  I am not thinking of you, or shaming you in anyway.  But someone like that is not going to fit inside a footlocker.  And they would hate being placed in one.  In case you are wondering why I got the idea, I had been tortured by a former Hanoi Hilton POW.  One of the tortures was the box.  I was fit in those days.  I had my knees touching my face cheeks.  My head was bowed, and they fit me into a footlocker, maybe a box designed specifically for that torture, but it looked like a footlocker.  They picked it up and dropped it a few times.  They removed a knot hole and blew cigar smoke into the little room left for air.  I survived.

But back to my illustration.  You place yourself in such a footlocker.  The one that I was in was jet black.  No light coming in, until the cigar smoke, there was no fresh air coming in.  But in Heaven, the Holy Spirit is still there.  The Shechinah glory of God is everywhere and if you had a Bible placed in the footlocker where you could read a page, there would be ample light.  Sorry, when I thought of that bizarre scenario, I was blown away.  And like the Scriptures say, whatever we think of, we do not come close to what Heaven is like.

But the Holy Spirit knows every cell division in our bodies, so if there are some that are not dividing properly, and I might have trouble down the road, the Holy Spirit already knows.

This inner being is not there for parlor tricks.  The body being the temple thing comes in play here in that what does the Holy Spirit, who never leaves us, do when we are sinning?  What if a gorgeous woman ran across the road in front of you, or if you are female, a handsome man – totally naked.   Whether your reaction is to laugh, to lust, or to swerve and nearly run over an old lady whose eyesight was so bad she never saw the streaker…  Whatever your reaction was, it would probably not be “what Jesus Would Have Done.”  So, does the Holy Spirit turn His head to not see you sin?  No, because when I have done something similar, that momentary flash, pardon the pun, that gets your mind off the right track, the Holy Spirit talks louder than He usually talks.  “Hey, buddy, eyes on Jesus, not the streaker!”

Hey, I only took a second glance because I thought I knew her from some place…  Maybe… Sort of.  After I have poured out my soul here, do you not give me the benefit of the doubt?!?!?!

But what does the Holy Spirit do in such times?  Does He grieve?  Does He weep?  He does guide us back onto the road, and hopefully without hitting the aforementioned little old lady.

But, the first thing the Holy Spirit ever did for me was give me understanding when I read Scripture.  Not totally, but the scale increased so much, it was as if the Holy Spirit had increased my understanding a thousand-fold.  And at that time, I had read the Bible from cover to cover at least fifteen times.

And there are many Fruits of the Spirit. I just started a series of quizzes on them yesterday morning – three posts ago. I am still a work in progress, and I think the last to arrive will be patience (forbearance). I give God a hard time, testing his forbearance with my lack of patience.

And when those major decisions in life are on top of us, I have begged the Holy Spirit to be on my timing (the earthly deadline type timing) and not on the God timing.  That does not work, but the Holy Spirit does answer our questions on God’s timing.  In other words, when God is ready to use us for something.

I wanted to be a writer when I was a sophomore in high school.

My mother’s response was her usual response, “You idiot!  You know nothing.  What would you write about?  No, no, no!  You will be an engineer and that is final.”

I cannot say that was a discussion.  It was a lecture.  I was required to say, “message received and understood.”  In military speak that is “Roger.”  But my mother wanted “Wilco.”  Message received, understood, will comply.  The roger is redundant in that will comply means you received and understood.

But fifty to sixty years later, I have the blogging platform in which I can write.  That was not there 60 years ago.  The internet was not there sixty years ago.  And I know a lot more than I did as a sophomore in high school.  My mother hated me, but her comments (other than “you idiot”) were valid.  God knew that, and He knew that I would find my voice when He wanted me to start shouting.

Closing Prayer

Father, guide me.  You are within me.  You guide me all the time, but do I listen all the time?  Not hardly.  Help the world calm down for a moment, or me to calm down in the midst of chaos.  I know your voice rarely gets louder.  You want me to want to hear.  Help me when you need me to be very attentive.
In Thy Name I pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.