Daily Worship

Come Holy spirit

April 06, 2017 0 3

Romans 8:6-11

6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 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.

What is your favourite advert? I still often catch myself singing “Woooaaaaa! bodyform!” at inappropriate times, (I am not sure when the appropriate time is for this is.)  I love Ikea’s use of Always in the Kitchen at Party’s. On a recent trip to Australia, I discovered a brilliant advert staring Richard Marx from the 80’s. The message of adverts is simple ’buy this thing and your life will be better’. Buy the Ikea kitchen and you will find all your friends hanging out in the kitchen at your party. Use a particular web based travel site and Richard Marx may pop up with a grand piano in your workplace, or (disturbingly) your bedroom, serenading you with Right here waiting for you. 

 

Advertising isn’t the only thing that does this. Love songs try and sell us how love should be, politicians try and tell us what our future will be like, (lower tax with more public spending usually). All saying ‘do this one thing and things will be better.’

 

What is unexpected about the Jesus manifesto is that it also does this basic ‘do this and things will be better’. If you allow the Holy Spirit to work in you as a response to Jesus life and ministry, you will have life beyond life, your life on earth will change to be on God’s terms, not the normal human terms. The whole game changes and life becomes a different experience for us all. God’s focus will change and challenges us, the poor, the alien, challenging those in power and speaking into the lives of those around us. 

 

 

I am thankful that your spirit will work in me. 

Change me, Mould me.

 

I am thankful I can experience this, yet often I feel like this hasn’t happened. 

I feel deflated. I feel defeated. I feel low.

 

Yet I am thankful your timing is beyond how we understand and experience time. 

This has happened, is happening, and is still to come.

 

My body maybe dead because of sin

Yet the Holy Spirit gives life beyond life, Come Holy spirit.

 

Amen.