Appropriation

The Lord was pressed in on my heart years ago, about “appropriating” Truth to my life.  This was impressed on me none other by the Holy Spirit Himself.

The question is how I began to even recognize Him in my heart. 

When I was 20 years old, all confused, banged up from youth and childhood, I had someone tell me I needed to know the Holy Spirit.  Frankly speaking, I grew up not hearing much about this third Person of the Trinity – I remember Him being referred to as “it.” So this person gave me a book to read.

After scanning through the book and seeing passages of Scriptures, I decided to get on my knees as a 20 year old and say this to God.  “God, I honestly do not know anything except that I’m a mess, but there is one thing I do know.  I need YOU and anything you have or are, that will get me through this life and planet.”  

  

Yes, that is what I prayed.  God answered this prayer, because I did indeed begin to recognize someone else lived in me, in this body (temple) of mine, none other than the Holy Spirit Himself.

Things did not come overnight for me when it came to “putting two and two together.”  They just did not.  But somewhere along the line I also began to recognize that if I was going to spiritually understand anything, it was going to have to be from the Holy Spirit granting me that understanding.

And after all these years though, the bottom line is KNOWING the Lord and His Word through the Spirit of God who came to live in my heart WHO grants us God’s wisdom and spiritual understanding.  The Spirit of God IS the Spirit of Truth and cannot be anything other than this – ever.  Thank God for this because if we want to have Truth taught to us by God’s Spirit, we will know the Risen Christ and the true Grace of God.

The “appropriation” the Lord wanted me to do has definitely taken on a deeper meaning for my heart and life.  I realized that I would never have true faith without true facts of God’s Word and that I would get nowhere in appropriating, if I did not appropriate exactly what was important to God – TRUTH.

And so here are just a few things that are exactly what I believe the Holy Spirit has taught my heart – and that these are the type of things that make sense and bear witness to the heart.  Then, it is faith in these things which truly bring real transformation:

1   Only the blood of Jesus Christ and His cross has made us right with God, cleanses our consciences, and is the power over sin in this life.  God Himself has said it is FAITH in God’s Truth about His Son that brings about not only being born again, but conformity to His Son – not religion, not flesh striving to be a “better” Christian through our flesh, not trying to “feel” better about ourselves by repeating phrases that still focuses on self or even self-help books and seminars…

2     Jesus Christ Himself is Lord and Savior – ALIVE, seated at the right Hand of the Father yet now lives in us by the Holy Spirit.  It is HIS Spirit that is life, Truth, and the ONE who can and will produce fruitfulness by continuance in our faith and trust in Him, not by fleshly means or modes.  Galatians 2:20 Read it over and over again.

3 God is the One WHO leads the mind into ALL Truth – God’s Truth brings life and peace and maturity.  The rest falls away and is called by God teachings and commandments of men.

4  The song of Heaven is about God’s Eternal Song concerning His Son:  the Lord Jesus Christ, AND HIS Everlasting Blood of the Covenant, which God redeems mankind BY and only through again, because of the blood of His Son’s cross.

5  We can be secure in Christ by abiding in Him, holding to Him – His Spirit lives in me and wants to show me more deeply and richly, the Truth of His Person and the Father’s GREAT Love.

Oh there is definitely more, but the smashing point is that ONLY the Spirit of God can change our language, and all our thinking that give God’s meaning of His Word of the riches of Christ Himself.  Otherwise we will only flounder and not understand how deep the blessings are, to be in Christ Jesus and what our Lord Himself has done.  God does not use contemporary thinking.  (A/k/a the world’s modern wisdom and help) J  It is His Word that transforms us.  His Word is FOREVER.

Thus the war.  For Satan works to keep us from having His Spirit UNVEIL God’s Son.  There are all kinds of things we could focus on, talk about in regard to Christianity.  But I’ve noticed that whenever God’s Spirit laser beams or targets exactly something that is a TRUE gem of God’s Word and brings ecstatic JOY, I have witnessed a subtle interference from the powers of the atmosphere.

So I will stress again that the blessed Truth is what the enemy wants to keep people from truly knowing.  The idea is to press through, shake it off and definitely POSSESS with confidence God’s TRUTH, by the true power of God’s Spirit.  For God wants us ALL to know the same things, speak the same things and with one mouth, one heart, glorify the God of our salvation and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Oh what a Remarkable Redemption,

Sue Gaither