#21.1 - Sevensational: The Spirit of The Lord
Hello friends! I hope you have all had a good week! I have been struggling with some sickness (*coughstrepcough*) but…GOOD. I have more to look forward to than this temporary yet uncomfortable illness. God has delivered me from my Egypt and the desert itself. I have new employment which is with a medical facility that has been around for a very long time and is still flourishing. The best thing for me about it is…it is a faith based facility and the people there are phenomenal. So I want to just take a moment here and now to thank Abba for all that He has done for my family and I. Thank you Abba for hearing my cries and delivering me from the confusing and trialing times and especially from what was not meant for my life or the sake of my family’s future. You knew what I needed and when I needed it…even when I couldn’t see it. I am humbled and I am blessed. I cannot sing your praises or thank you enough…so to add to it…I will write what you have called me to write about because I love you.
Not too long ago, I heard a GORGEOUS song by Mitch Wong called “Seven Spirits” and the moment I heard this song in my car was when Holy Spirit called out to me, “Share who I am.” As I have spent some time with this song for several weeks now, I find it no coincidence that I am now singing beautiful harmonies with this song when I worship despite previously believing that I couldn’t sing harmony well at all. Harmony is “working together” and here I am…working together in a calling to share who Holy Spirit is. Welcome to “Sevensational”, a series about The Seven Spirits and how the enemy can interfere with your obedience to Holy Spirit. The Seven Spirits are not separate from Holy Spirit…they ARE Holy Spirit. To give you a mini outline, The Bible outlines Holy Spirit’s character:
The Spirit of the Lord
The Spirit of Wisdom
The Spirit of Understanding
The Spirit of Counsel
The Spirit of Strength
The Spirit of Knowledge
The Spirit of the Fear of the Lord
It amazes me what characteristics Holy Spirit has and how He moves…all positive elements to our obedience. There’s a flipside to be aware of though…because as God’s children are meant to have this divine and essential relationship with Holy Spirit…the enemy doesn’t want us having that so he will try to interfere…this goes back to spiritual warfare and the “Stages of Attacks” I have previously written about:
Stage 1: Confusion
Stage 2: Chaos
Stage 3: Theft
Stage 4: Destroy
Stage 5: Kill
The enemy cannot attack Holy Spirit because God has already won and Jesus has already defeated the grave. The enemy can try to attack us and distort Holy Spirit’s character through false portrayal to us. I am going to do my best to lean into my calling to write about who Holy Spirit is and I am grateful to have finally arrived at writing this series out and leaning into week 1 of Sevensational: The Spirit of The Lord.
To give you some deeper context, “The Seven Spirits” are found in Isaiah. I feel a need to shout-out to my family because God has bestowed another pulchritudinous non-coincidence to me…my cousin, Gram, and Auntie have all been deep diving in an at home Bible study on Isaiah and the kicker here is…until writing this…I didn’t even know the Seven Spirits were in Isaiah. I am going to take a moment to share that I enjoy stories and context when I read or play video games. Despite the fact that I know The Bible is historical and faithfully non-fictional God’s word provides us spiritually nutritional stories that we are meant to heed wisdom from and even more so…walk in Jesus’s footsteps which are splayed out in The New Testament. Isaiah is in The Old Testament which in my opinion The Old Testament is way more grim without Jesus’s physical presence here on Earth which is written about in The New Testament. I actually even recently asked MGST, “Why even read The Old Testament (we are in Leviticus right now and it’s been very…interesting to say the least) because it seems so grim without Jesus!” He chuckled and said, “You have to have a before and after…like your concept of “Pre-Jesus and Post-Jesus” (which I also brought up during the last Alpha class I assisted with). The Old Testament is old for a reason…not due to age but due to the fact that Jesus wasn’t born, hadn’t physically lived, hadn’t been on the cross, died, went to hell, and wasn’t resurrected yet. Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection changed everything to NEW. Does this leave Isaiah to be moot then? No, because the before is vital to reveal the new…without the old…we wouldn’t have the new…so Isaiah is essential. I found a solid resource to back up why Isaiah is important…not only was he a prophet but what was going on in the world at the time reveals a lot of beneficial context. Yale Divinity School (which is a part of Yale University) has a wonderful Bible study on Isaiah that is SO good; you can find here: Yale Bible Study - Isaiah. Yale Divinity School gives significant cultural and world context as to what was going on when Isaiah was writing, “The Book of Isaiah is the most complex book in the Hebrew Bible. According to the superscription, it contains “the vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jtham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” His call vision in chapter 6 is dated to the year of Uzziah’s death, which is variously calculated as 742 or 734 BCE. The latest recorded episode in his career is at the time of the invasion of Judah by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 BCE (Isaiah 36-39). It appears, then, that he had a career that may have spanned forty years. Not all the material in the book, however, can be attributed to this eighth century prophet. Conventionally, the book is divided into three sections: 1 Isaiah (chapters 1-39), 2 Isaiah (40-55) and 3 Isaiah (56-66). 2 Isaiah comes from the end of the Babylonian exile, about 539 BCE, and 3 Isaiah from the early postexilic period. But not all of chapters 1-39 can be ascribed to the eighth century prophet. The oracles against Babylon in chapters 13-14 are most naturally dated to a time after Babylon had replaced Assyria as the main threat to Judah (towards the end of the seventh century BCE). The provenance of many of the oracles against foreign nations in chapters 14-19 is uncertain. Chapters 24-27, often dubbed “the Isaiah apocalypse,” because of the analogies with the imagery in Daniel and Revelation, is usually dated to the fifth century BCE. Chapters 34 and 35 are similar to Second Isaiah, and probably date from the late exilic period. Chapters 36-39 are paralleled in 2 Kings 18-20, and seem more at home in the historical narrative. Several shorter passages in chapters 1-39 appear to date from a time after the Deuteronomic Reform (Isa 2:1-4), or after the end of the monarchy (11:1-9). Passages introduced by the phrase “on that day” (e.g. 7:18-25; 11:10-11) are usually thought to be later editorial additions. The prophecies of Isaiah of Jerusalem are found mainly in chapters 1-12; 20-23; and 28-33. Isaiah of Jerusalem was one of the eighth century prophets, with Amos, Hosea and Micah, all of whom were noted for preaching social justice.” Side note after reading that, I find it no coincidence that last week I wrote about “church hurt” but I will leave that there…this is strictly about Isaiah and The Spirit of The Lord, but I do love witnessing those non-coincidences.
Now that we have significant cultural and world context as to what was going on when the prophet Isaiah was writing, The Seven Spirits originate from Isaiah 11:2 (NIV):
“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
So like the “mini-outline” above, but pulling from scripture this time…all together we have:
The Spirit of the Lord
The Spirit of Wisdom
The Spirit of Understanding
The Spirit of Counsel
The Spirit of Strength
The Spirit of Knowledge
The Spirit of the Fear of the Lord
And here we are in week 1 of Sevensational The Spirit of The Lord. The Spirit of The Lord is the first of the seven spirits because bluntly, Isaiah is speaking about Holy Spirit Himself! The Spirit of The Lord IS HOLY SPIRIT. I want to take a moment here to say, Holy Spirit was always around because we have a Holy Trinity (3 in 1 God) but in Acts Paul writes about Holy Spirit in a way that God’s children still experience to this very day. How do we receive The Spirit of The Lord? Holy Spirit was given to God’s children…believers adopted into God’s family who hail King Jesus, son of God, to dwell within them at the moment of salvation…the moment we choose to use our free will to repent and to be saved by Jesus from our former sinful existence. The old “Pre-Jesus” self died and we surrendered to live in Holy Spirit, with Jesus in our hearts, and with faith in God at the helm of our born again life…Post-Jesus. In other words, we get The Spirit of the Lord / Holy Spirit when we repent, convert, and believe that Jesus IS The Son of God. How does Holy Spirit work? This is a loaded question! The mysteries are far and wide…especially if you look at the earlier blog posts where I write about non-fictional miracles God still performs to this day…none of which would occur without Jesus or Holy Spirit (more reason the 3 in 1 God exists…they operate and live in unity). Holy Spirit is gorgeously mysterious. Most recently I witnessed Holy Spirit blatantly at work when I was at the doctor’s office the other day as I was getting scoped out due to this illness. The doctor was evaluating me and asking me about my past medical experiences in which I told her about spending a good portion of my early life at Riley Children’s Hospital with an IV in my noggin, my 2 foot long blood clot in my leg in and having my lungs filled with bilateral pulmonary emboli in my late teenagehood, and my most recent near death experience of the gastrointestinal bleed in my 30’s. The doctor’s eyes had widened after I matter-of-factly summarized what I had medically experienced and she said, “You shouldn’t be alive!!!” MGST was in the room with me and we chuckled before I said, “God saved my life in more ways than one.” At that very moment I realized the doctor had a cross tattooed on her left hand (which I do too non-coincidentally enough). The doctor nodded her head and said, “I believe that!!! There would be no other explanation for that!!!” I could tell she was still in awe and I appreciated that not because of myself…but because of what God had done for me…because I could tell Holy Spirit was actively moving. When one experiences Holy Spirit…one finds themself in a state of awe. At times I have become desensitized to my experience, not because I don’t find myself in perpetual awe. Previously my focus was on the traumatic experiences and how everything felt when I was going through it. My mind can easily go back and remember everything as if it were happening all over again. Thanks to Holy Spirit, Jesus, and God…I focus on what The Holy Trinity has done for me…which makes the trauma of those experiences…able to be verbally summarized and matter-of-factly stated. Seeing the awe on the doctor’s face was a reminder of the awe I felt when I received The Holy Spirit after my repentance. The non-coincidences in life…have been created by God, able to be given to us by Jesus, and moved by Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps bridge the spiritual to the physical. Holy Spirit is able to move us and others in the right place and in God’s right timing…to create spiritual AND physical experiences. This goes back to Acts 2 where people became FILLED with Holy Spirit as they spoke in tongues…all who witnessed the group speaking in tongues were in awe! Some people even believed the group was drunk which Peter contests by saying, "These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women,I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.” Holy Spirit helps move the miracles, wonders, and signs into the right place at God’s perfect timing…meant for us to experience The Spirit of The Lord in awe.
As stated above, we receive Holy Spirit’s power and we are more apt to do that when we are obedient and surrendered. Once upon a time, I met with a wonderful pastor named JH. JH and I had an interesting discussion about Holy Spirit in a class that he was leading called "Discover Purpose” and I will forever be in awe over this visualization of HOW HOLY SPIRIT WORKS because when I was having that conversation, I felt in my spirit that it was truth…I had experienced it before and I will have had experienced it again (which I have written about). Pastor JH said, “Think of how water flows in a creek with large rocks in it. The water has no option but to flow around the large rocks in the creek. Now, we are blessed because Holy Spirit flows like the water in the creek, except we aren’t like rocks (or shouldn’t be)…we are able to receive The Holy Spirit’s direction (God’s plan for us to move and act) or Holy Spirit can flow around us onto other people who receive Him. If our hearts are hardened or non-receptive to Holy Spirit…Holy Spirit will flow around us like the rocks in the creek because we chose to miss an opportunity to move and act for God’s kingdom. Here’s the kicker…God will have His way regardless if we are used by Holy Spirit which is why Holy Spirit will flow onto others and we are left knowing that we were disobedient.” The imagery I got there was pivotal to my faith because after all God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit have done for me…I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to be Biblically and divinely empowered. Acts 1:8 speaks of Holy Spirit’s power, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Who would want us to miss such a calling or opportunity to be used by The Spirit of The Lord our God?!
The enemy. The enemy may not be able to attack Holy Spirit, but the enemy can indeed try to hinder God’s plan for us and God’s plan for us is to be obedient to Holy Spirit. To be obedient to Holy Spirit we must have…The Spirit of The Lord…the very topic I am writing about and as we know we receive The Spirit of The Lord when we repent and accept Jesus into our hearts. The enemy doesn’t want you to have faith in God, the enemy doesn’t want you accepting Jesus into your heart…the enemy doesn’t want you to have a relationship with The Spirit of The Lord. The enemy will try to prevent you from repentance by means to attack you which goes back to the stages of attacks:
Stage 1: Confusion
Stage 2: Chaos
Stage 3: Theft
Stage 4: Destroy
Stage 5: Kill
What are some specific ways the enemy can try to interfere with The Spirit of The Lord impacting us (believers and non-believers)?
Stage 1: Confusion - This attack begins in the mind. The enemy is good at lying and encouraging doubt. When we don’t have The Spirit of The Lord or know/obey The Spirit of The Lord we are “walking by faith and not by sight” as 2 Corinthians 5:7 Biblically calls us to do…faith is trusting God. God’s word also says in Ephesians 6:12 (NIV), “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” The bridge Holy Spirit provides us from the spiritual to the physical…isn’t always physically seen right away…this goes back to having faith and trusting God. Often as humans it’s easier to rely on what we can see instead of turning to God’s truth for all the answers. God’s truth was provided to us…when we jokingly socially say “There’s no manual for life”...the truth of it all is…there is a manual for life and it’s The Bible. When you’re confused…pray and open God’s word up…that is physical truth and divine proof that you can always rely upon. Don’t let the enemy confuse you with lies that Holy Spirit doesn’t exist or that He cannot make a person move to do God’s work…it happens every day regardless if you are obedient or are a believer because God will always be victorious and have His way. Resisting The Spirit of The Lord is sinful according to God’s truth in Acts 7:51, “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit”. Don’t waste your time resisting The Spirit of The Lord…He is here on God’s behalf for us…so come to the winning side where death is defeated and life begins…a place where The Spirit of The Lord can allow you to flourish…a place where obedience is beautifully splayed from the spiritual to the physical for God’s kingdom.
Stage 2: Chaos - Doubt leads to chaos…chaos is physical representations of confusion. If you choose to not believe in The Spirit of The Lord you will open yourself up to further stages of attack which no one wants for you but especially God doesn’t want that for you. If you choose to be disobedient to The Spirit of The Lord…you aren’t doing what you are called to be doing for the kingdom of God and Holy Spirit will move around you. In my blog, “Bee-ing a Holy Weirdo” I write about how Holy Spirit moved around me. I saw a vision of people holding hands and praying around the lead pastor’s house during his illness and I could’ve acted upon gathering a group of people to help make that come to fruition but I felt I wouldn’t be heard or listened to (Stage 1 attack personally had) because “I’m weird”, “I’m new”, “No one knows me”, and “Who am I?”. Another member of the church was obedient and planned a prayer group to hold hands and pray around the lead pastor’s house. I felt the effects of my disobedience BUT I asked God for forgiveness and went to the prayer group (where I got stung by a bee - I’m allergic and it’s a whole story that I encourage you to read if you haven’t). The effects of being disobedient DON’T FEEL GOOD and they dishonor God…you’re not called to be disobedient…you’re called to honor God with your free will. That being said, there are some people that try to use Holy Spirit for personal gain…this is sinful and grieves The Spirit of The Lord, Ephesians 4:30 (NIV) clearly warns us, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Don’t let chaos or confusion alter God’s plan of redemption for you…The Spirit of The Lord is here to guide us spiritually and help us physically. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) tells us about the fruits of the spirit, “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” When one is walking in and with The Spirit of The Lord…those fruitful elements will be revealed…no exceptions.
Stage 3: Theft - Disobedience to The Spirit of The Lord robs us of being used by God. As stated above…missing out on God’s calling for you isn’t a good feeling. It not only robs us of obedience and honoring Abba…but the missed opportunity in disobedience usually doesn’t just alter things for you…it alters things for others because “you knew better than God”. Robbery is one of many examples of chaos…the physical representation of confusion. We know “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 (NIV). The thief AKA the enemy can attack through trying to steal our obedience or faith. When we are obedient and lean into The Spirit of The Lord we aren’t robbed of the experience to honor Abba and we don’t miss opportunities to share with others who God is and how He works in us. We need Holy Spirit to avoid being robbed or robbing others….the enemy wants nothing more than to steal hearts away from God; God is love…the enemy is not…he is the opposite. God’s plan for us is to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV). Your path is straight…upright…structurally supported, honorable. This is the opposite of the enemy’s plan for us to be robbed, experience chaos, be left in confusion, experience destruction, or be dead. Disobedience and non-belief are not the “straight” path that God clearly states that He wants for us…so don’t open yourself us to be robbed because the cause always has effects…the sowing and the reaping: Galatians 6:7 (NIV), “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Stage 4: Destroy - Moving onward in Galatians…Galatians 6:8 (NIV), “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” I am going to share the definition of destruction because it is THE OPPOSITE of what God’s plan is for us and The Spirit of The Lord guides us in God’s plan…not the enemy’s plan of destruction. The word “Destroy” according to Merriam Webster, “To ruin the structure, organic existence, or condition of : damage beyond repair. To put out of existence. To neutralize, to annihilate, to vanquish. To defeat.” Unless we are talking about that New Testament Life where Jesus' victory destroys sin and overcomes the world…destruction doesn’t really sound like a positive thing to me. The enemy will try to attack through destruction because destruction is a type of severance. God’s plan for us is NOT to be severed from The Spirit of The Lord…The Spirit of The Lord was freely given to us as 1 Corinthians 2:12 (NIV) says, “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” The enemy attacks in the very world we live in and seeks to destroy and sever. Lean into The Spirit of The Lord our God and we become empowered to combat enemy attacks that include all 5 stages. I am going to end the point of destruction with 2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV), “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (Special Parenthesis Rabbit Hole: Shout out to my bestie Amber, I am proud of her for embracing FEARLESSNESS! This scripture brought Amber to mind as the Spirit God gave us does NOT MAKE US TIMID!!! We are free from the bondage of fear. GLYASDI!!! <3) Nowhere does it say “God gave us the spirit of destruction”. We must remember that Holy Spirit empowers us, God loves us because He is love, and Jesus’s way, truth, and life structures our self-discipline.
Stage 5: Kill - Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM WHO RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD IS LIVING IN YOU…IF meaning…you use your free will to have faith in God, have a relationship with Jesus, and be led by The Spirit of the Lord AKA Holy Spirit!!! Being vulnerable for a moment, I remember a time in my life where I wasn’t leaning into a Biblical lifestyle and in fact even questioning reincarnation. One weekend night I was having a party at my home with a group of friends (which wasn’t uncommon because I love bringing people together and hospitality. My buddy JGun, his girlfriend JG, and many others were playing board games over philosophical discussions. JGun and I decided the topic was getting heavy and decided to go smoke a cigarette on my porch. As we were standing on the porch together looking up at the summer night sky I randomly said, “If reincarnation is real…I hope I never come back here; I am done with this place.” This was a time in my life I was encountering all 5 stages of attacks and my faith was in the world…not God despite the fact that I was trying to find Him again. I remember that short conversation vividly because as I don’t believe in reincarnation…I do believe and have faith in God’s truth because I felt my spirit brought back to life. Romans 8:11 is talking about The Spirit of The Lord AND our personal God given spirits. When we talk about “spiritual health” it relates to our spirits!!! When we are at church, our spirits get fed through the messages. When we pray and maintain a relationship with The Holy Trinity…our spirits get fed. When we are obedient to Holy Spirit…our spirit and others spirits…get fed. I don’t know about you but I enjoy eating…being fed is nourishment…we need nourishment to survive…the opposite of kill/death. The enemy tries to attack us by killing us not just physically…there are other types of deaths…mental death…emotional death…and spiritual death. We have life because we have Holy Spirit…this means we can combat Stage 5 by having a deep and meaningful relationship with Holy Spirit.
It is easy to consider the stages of attacks the enemy can throw at us because we have all experienced them…the attacks often lead to sinful bondage. God’s children experience hope and their light should reflect freedom. Jesus offers us freedom…like ”That New Testament Life” like in 2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV), “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”. Besides the clear “Spirit of The Lord there…freedom is the other imperative word there. Merriam Webster defines freedom as, “the quality or state of being free: such as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. Liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another.” When we are disobedient to Holy Spirit or have delayed disobedience…it’s a form of bondage (sin) and it does not lean into the liberation God wants for us and Jesus gave us. We cannot live in sin and expect freedom…freedom comes through knowing The Lord is The Spirit and having The Spirit of The Lord within us…as stated above…we do this through repentance, sanctification, and unparalleled faith in God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit/The Spirit of The Lord. For my brothers and sister in Christ, bask in freedom…lean into what Holy Spirit is guiding you to. For my friends who aren’t believers…don’t let the world tell you what real freedom is…you won’t find it that way…the world is not for you…God (who literally is love) is for you…I encourage you to pray to see where you are led and to seek what God has to offer you…because it’s nothing this world can offer you…not merely existing…it’s abundant and full of life.
The “Song of the Week” is going to be different when I write a series unless otherwise noted. The song I am posting today…will be the same song posted at the end of each blog in this series because I have sat with it for months and studied it physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I am now able to sing harmony within it after eons of believing I can’t sing harmony at all. It may be annoying to have the same song posted each week but I encourage you to meditate on this like I have because The Spirit of The Lord guided me to this song…and led me to cogitate it. That being said…I find it no coincidence that the lyrical flow is built around, “Fill me with The Spirit of The Lord”. Mitch Wong - Seven Spirits
For The Spirit of The Lord, for freedom, for divine guidance, for life, armor of God, and God’s Biblical Truth, for the perpetual experience of being filled with The Spirit of The Lord…I am…#Satisfied.
