When God Talks to God…

Jesus in the Heavenly Temple, interceding for us. In English? I don’t think so!

What does it sound like when God talks to God? “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26). I’ve heard several interpretations of this passage: I’ve been a groaner in prayer, no words, just my spirit and heart communicating with God. Maybe no words were possible. But Paul seems to suggest that the Spirit is praying for me with “wordless groans.” I don’t even know what that might sound like, but we’re meditating on God the Spirit and Jesus in the Heavenly Temple, who are interceding for hundreds of millions of Christians at every given moment.

Fiber optic cable can carry over 400 gigabytes per second. Mind boggling. How much more mind blowing is the idea that when God speaks to God on our behalf, not a word is lost in the communication. God doesn’t lose anything. “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:26).

 

God Making Treasure With Treasure

Let it rain!

“Walking with Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, is SO MUCH BETTER than anything you could do FOR God, better than any work, any art, because [in the Spirit] you become the art, you become the work.” Phil Vischer. Though the world considered us worthless, Jesus saw something valuable in us, a treasure worth the sacrifice of His life. After the cross and the resurrection, He sent the Spirit, a priceless treasure, to co-mingle with our spirits and produce a greater treasure, a greater work of art, a masterpiece, one that can bless thousands of other people. The Christian life is not about working for God, but rather, about God working through us. “Christ in us, the hope of Glory” (Colossians 1:27). A glimpse of the heart and power of God.

Worthless to the world, future evangelist and worshiper of God.

The Fire of the Spirit

Because of the intense desert heat, some bushes probably burst into flames, but this bush burned and was not consumed. Something worth checking out.

I was recently reading II Corinthians 2:19-22 in the NLT. Jesus is “the divine Yes!” to us, and “that is why we say, ‘Amen!'” God has “placed the Holy Spirit within our hearts as the first installment of everything He will give us.” I thought about the summer of 1977, when I said, “Amen!” to God’s “Yes!”

Shortly thereafter, I found myself full of the Holy Spirit. I said to God, “If this is what Heaven is like, you can take me now!” God replied, “Not yet, I have important things for you to do. This is just a foretaste.” Or we might say, “My experience with the Spirit is just a glimpse of the awesome glory of God.” Hard to describe it, but I can say that the fire of the Spirit is to the soul what God’s presence was to the burning bush that Moses saw. It was ablaze but was not destroyed.

God the Dynamo, inside me

I got an even more powerful one inside me.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus promised us “power” (Greek, dunamis, from which we get “dynamo,” an electric generator). A generator can generate power but it depends on another source, wind, water, or the movement of an engine.

Inside me is a divine Generator, a source of energy that is constantly renewed through prayer, worship, and just being in the presence of my Maker. That Living Water that flows through me keeps my spiritual generator cranking out the amps. When I experience it, I get a glimpse of the awesome God who raises the dead. I have the power that spoke the universe into existence. It comes from the One for whom nothing is impossible or even hard. His name is not “The Force.” It’s JESUS!

Faithful to His Promises

              

My faith expressed in prayer + My faithfulness to pray and “not give up” + God’s faithfulness to His promises = “All things are possible.”