This turned out to be quite true as I found the Lord leading me to move to Albuquerque, NM in August of the same year, just 6 short months later. My pastor lived outside of Albuquerque in the area of Sandia Park and this was the area where I ended up renting a home.
I have been an avid runner since my soccer days came to an end so consequently I like to take most of my runs in the early morning or evening. One of the things I noticed while living in Sandia was that there is not a lot of fluorescent light coming from street lamps. It is more of rural living in the foothills east of the Sangria de Cristos Mountains. Because of this, at night, if there are clouds in the sky that block the moonlight and the stars, you almost can't see the ground you are walking on. It gets that dark. I found this to be true on a recent camping trip to Colorado in the mountains near the South Platte river. Clouds at night mean no light.
Several years ago I asked the Lord to explain to me in basic terms what is the difference between our walks before we are filled with the Spirit and after we receive what I testified to receiving in the last post on March 9th, 1996. In response, I believe that the Lord has explained it to me this way.
In the beginning the Lord created two kinds of light. He created the lesser light to govern the night and the greater light to govern the day.
"And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the fourth day." Genesis 1:14-19
The lesser lights that come from the moon and the stars governs the night while the greater light of the Sun governs the day. Both have a measure of rule over darkness, but one has a greater measure than the other. When thick clouds cover the sky at night in undeveloped areas, apart from man-made light, you can hardly see per my experience. But when you have cloud cover in the day you can still see and operate. One light has limitations. The other, not so much. At night in Sandia Park, NM you can only run if/when there are no clouds out. In the day, there are no limitations regardless of most forms of weather. You can still see, walk, drive and do just about whatever without artificial means.
I believe that in Christ there are two stages of our lives in Christ. One is when the Spirit is with us and attending us. Jesus said the following:
"If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him or knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." John 14:15-17
"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." John 7:38-40There is a time and stage in the beginning when the Spirit of Christ is most assuredly with us according to our needs in him. He is with us no differently than he was with the disciples before Christ's ascension, resurrection, and subsequent waiting prior to Pentecost. He is "with" us and speaks to our hearts which are in us.
"For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.....For wisdom will enter your hearts and knowledge will be pleasant to your souls." Proverbs 2:6,10.
We hear him from day one of our relationship with him.
"What does it say? 'The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,' that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10:8-10
And truthfully, even before then as there is a depth of God's guidance and conviction in our lives even before we are fully conscience of him. Before we were born he knew us. And before we were born he set us apart for himself. And as we are born again, He is with us, he talks with us, he provides for us, he protects us.
And even as we are known unto him from the foundations of the earth, we are still not fully immersed into his Spirit until he so chooses for each one of us. Their is a time of walking in lesser light in Christ even before the greater light comes into us. In lesser light we can't really function in the full measure of the Spirit as he will give to us Baptism of the Spirit. We go from him being "with" us to him being "in" us.
Jesus told Nicodemus that there was a time when man would be born again and "see" the kingdom. However, there would also come a moment when the water of the Word would combine with the empowerment of the Spirit and cause us to enter into that very same kingdom.
"Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.' 'How can a man be born when he is old?' Nicodemus asked. 'Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!'
'Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.'" John 3:3-8
What I believe he is saying is that we see the kingdom once born again. We see it. When we are born again we are born of the water of the word of God within our hearts. We are born again. But we don't enter into it's full-on power until we enter into it via Baptism of the Spirit. We go from standing under the front porch, hearing the sounds and smelling the aromas from within it to actually crossing a threshold of the fullness of light where we come to know the Kingdom of God in all of it's power and glory for us in this life.
Paul said to the church in Rome:
"You however are not controlled by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 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 through his Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:9-11
Paul had a view of the Romans that they were mature in Christ, full of the Holy Spirit. Paul was a spiritual man who had made judgements about them as Christ was speaking through him. He judged them as a mature body of believers. After writing all that he did in his epistle to them he said the following:
"I am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another." Romans 15:14,15.
He knew of their obedience in the Lord.
"Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you." Romans 16:19.
He knew they were filled with the Spirit (Romans 8:9-11). He knew a powerful church when he saw one. Paul understood the vitality of power in the Spirit. He knew the Romans were a miraculously powerful church. The only reason he re-hashed all of the doctrinal basis of the church with them again was that he was reminding them of all it's realities in actual written form. They already knew about all of the issues he covered with them in the sixteen chapters of Romans. He was just giving them a friendly reminder.
"I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again, ...." Romans 15:15
There is a time of going from being in Christ where the Spirit is 'with' us to "in" us. Their is a time of beginnings in the lesser light to transitioning into greater light in Christ. I think we can see this in the book of Acts very clearly. And this brings us to our next point. Is Acts there to give us a doctrinal basis like Romans and Galatians. Or is it just a historical book unlike the other apostolic epistles? Should we look at Acts 2, 8, 10,18,19 as an example of how we transition from lesser light to greater light? Let's get into that next.
JEB
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