THE KINGDOM'S SECOND MAJOR DEATH

As if it wasn't enough that Roman soldiers took great pride in terminating by execution the Son of God, churches have repeated the shame.  We have done so by eliminating the presence, and subsequent activity, of the Holy Spirit.  Because of the Spirit being put away from both our walk and our talk, we continue to grapple with accepting Him as well as believing Him for this current age.

Strangely and shamefully, through the years, man's balky religion has taken a great stab at killing off the Spirit of God.  What we have left is some disorder of Father and Son.  Rejection has shelved the Spirit.

At least two things have caused a segment of Christianity's misfire.  One, the Holy Spirit was argued out of our confines because we didn't care for some doctrines like speaking tongues or divine healing.  The baby and bathwater both went-a-flying.

Second, our sheer ignorance perpetuates this disastrous stance.  The Bible is wonderfully laden with Holy Spirit accounts.  From cover to cover the wild and the weird and the wowing take place because of the beyond imagination work of the Spirit of God.

Father, Son, and Spirit are so intertwined that when one is referenced it could include two or all three.

Romans 8:9-11 has interesting and inter-inclusive wording: However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.  And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

Ta-Da!!!

The Spirit...the Spirit of God...the Spirit of Christ...Him...Spirit of Him....His Spirit....all of this is significant.  An amputation of a third of the god-head is both unacceptable and disastrous.

Why has this gone on?  Why has the Holy Spirit been quenched in our circles?

Control.  Man is obsessed with control; even in religion's court.  This exacerbates the problem (is that a word) in that as powerful as God is, He will not override the unbelief of the individual.  If man wants to boss and bellar about how the Holy Spirit doesn't work, God will humbly abide...and He won't work.

The Kingdom's second major death, after Jesus' upon the cross, is that of the Holy Spirit within the hearts of men.  We have killed Him off and buried Him in our tombs of organization and control.  This must halt if we are to be true disciples of the One who died that all might live....by the same Spirit involved at the resurrection.