Thursday May 16, 2019

Paris Coffee

The last 2 weeks had flown by, and I had forgotten to get one of the students to tell us about an attribute or characteristic of God as we had been doing, because as I see the end of this current season, I had been trying to inspire and teach the students to be able to feed themselves; to seek out truth on their own, like the scripture says in

Acts 17:11 (NKJV)

These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 

My brief outline was this:

Holy Spirit is

• Helper ~ 1 Corinthians 2:10
• Guide ~ John 16:12-14
• Teacher ~ John 14:25-27 (although we did not have time talk about this aspect this week)

The Holy Spirit is a Helper

John 14:15-18

15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper/Comforter, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Jesus sends a helper after him: why?

I’ve read this or heard this before, so I did not originate this.

If Jesus was the answer to the current age of men, he would not be very effective (I know you are think woah there buddy, he died for all our sins, he was God incarnate, what do you mean “not very effective”)

If Jesus was still around, in his physical or spiritual body, take your pick, he is a singular entity. Jesus was seen with his followers in location A, but no where else. Then he would be at location B, but not A, or anywhere else.

If a married couple needed counseling in today’s modern world, they could ideally call him up (if you could get a call through) and say “Hey Jesus, we need your help, we are having problems”. Best case scenario, he could just show up in our midst and help out that couple, if he was still physically here, (he’d have to hop on a plane…? I mean ideally he could walk across the ocean, but that would take even more time) and I he wasn’t interpreted by other people on his cellphone, he would get a few minutes to minister to us, before he has to move on and go minister to the other 7.5 Billion people in the world. It just wouldn’t be effective, that was not what God has intended His sons’s role to be in our modern era. The Helper was sent to help all of us that have access to the Holy Spirit, any time we need help. No waiting, no calls, no emails, no full inboxes. We just need to pause and seek His guidance and wisdom through God’s Holy Spirit which we have invited to reside within us. It’s really an amazing system!

Even more so from the Old Testament age where His Holy Spirit would only land on the very few people we read about in the Bible. I’m sure there were more than we realize, because we get like a sentence describing one guy, there was so and so, and he reigned for X numbed if yeas, and then he died. We don’t know much about so and so, but he was worth memorializing in name, but we don’t see what the Lord did through his or her life.

To sum up, the Holy Spirit is our Helper, if we have troubles, if we need to know what to do, we have unfettered (unrestricted) access to talk to God, to seek His wisdom, and his guidance.

The Holy Spirit is a Guide

John 16:12-14

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

My first job out of high school was that of a guide. I worked for the Boy Scouts of America in a camp called Philmont; 140,000 acres of woods, trails, streams, lakes, bears, mesas, hiking, backpacking fun.

As a guide, called a ranger, I took crews of 8-16 scouts and leaders into the woods for a few days and teach them to survive for the next 10 days. Although scouts spend their months camping, or hiking, they are usually doing weekend trips, where they can keep food in a trailer, in coolers, and if you some how forget something or run out of something, there is a vehicle you can run for supplies. A 10-day trip is not like that, you have to carry your own food, filter your own water, keep Bears and minibears (anything smaller than a bear that wants your food, like skunks, raccoons, squirrels, etc) from stealing all of your food. This requires training and guidance.

We did not sit down in a class room and teach about filtering water, or how to hang a bear bag (a bag high enough in the air and far enough from the trunk of a tree that a bear can not get its paws on it).

We instead did a shake down, which means we got everything out of or bags, loaded the stuff you needed and tried to get some of the scouts or leaders to leave the stuff they didn’t need. From large items like, you don’t need that ax, fires are not allowed on Philmont property, because it’s essentially always in a drought, nor hand held video games, basketballs, deodorant, and is even let them know, you need neither a fork nor a knife for eating with, all the meals are spoon ready. Most people listened, some did not and brought “extra baggage” (which could have its own spiritual implications later).

We then left, making sure we had enough food and water for a few days and the tools to equip us to succeed. Then, as we ran across a stream, we would take a break, drink some water, and I would physically show them and teach them how to purify water with a pump or tablet.

But it’s more than that, I showed them where to get the best tasting water, not the stagnant pools, but the fresh running water, which direction your water bottle should point when filling it up (it’s not what you think), how to bleed the lid to purify where your mouth will go when it’s time to drink the water, etc, etc.

You can study and learn a lot of things, but it is infinitely more valuable to have a teacher with you, when you are in the trial, in the exact spot you need to learn something, to show you exactly what I do, how to do it, what not to do, to be able to ask questions to help clarify things. A guide is an amazing resource to have.

Just as the Holy Spirit is a guide, in the passage, it talks about things we cannot bear now, because it won’t be useful to us now, it won’t make sense, but as we run across the downed log, a flooding steam, a wild animal, the guide will train and teach you what is important when you need it.

… ya, that’s what I should have said….

God is such a great provider. We need to be able to hear the guide. We can become so busy and never take time to meditate on the word, or after prayer. We do a lot of talking to God, but we need to slow down to listen.

As an example, as we were playing a card game before I started the study, I took my sticker which comes on our drinks at Paris Coffee and placed it, secretly on a students shirt.

Then pointed it out at this point in time. If we are too busy to feel the pull or guiding direction of ate Holy Spirit, always filling our life with music, podcasts, tv, friends, we won’t notice when He is trying to guide us. Just as we were so busy having fun, he did not notice me put a sticker on him.

We need to learn to slow down, and take time to listen to Him for guidance. It takes time to be able to attune your spirit to hear Him, but with more practice, we can be able to hear Him in the loudest room, in the most busy situation, the stressful times, the sad and sorrowful times.

It’s hard to hear the guide if we don’t know what He sounds like, with all the voices of the world.

Take time after prayer and reading today, to sit quietly, take a walk in His amazing creation, and listen for Him to gentle tug on your heart.

He is there, always there, waiting for you to listen.