"With" to "In"



Why didn't we think of that?

 Growing up as an American kid in the 70's and 80's it seemed like the dividing line between families that had alot of money and families that didn't was having a swimming pool. Back then I hardly knew of anyone that had an in-ground pool. The only people that we knew that did were wealthier people who could pay cash for one. Back then there was no such thing as pool loans. You paid with cash. And in my mind, having a swimming pool was the dividing line between being wealthy and being a middle-class family. If you had one it was a sign of wealth. If you didn't, well, you weren't rich. Simple as that.

In Mexico there are socio-economic divisions that are marked by clear signs that tell which class you are in. It is quite a bit different than the signs one might see in the U.S. Here everyone dresses like a million dollars. Everyone spends money on clothes. Clothing is not one of the signs. But there are two things that families do or don't have here that can tell whether they have crossed over or are crossing over from being poor to becoming a middle class family. One is having a car. Public transportation is a very big deal in Mexico as many people do not have vehicles. I would say at least half of the people in Merida do not have a car.  Many people either walk, ride a bike, ride a motorcyle/moped, take the bus or take a cab. Having a car in Mexico creates a dividing line, a sign that an individual may in fact be progressing or has progressed from one socio-economic level to another.



An individual mini-split A/C unit.   

The second thing that I have noticed here is that people that are progressing from the lower socio-economic class to the middle-class have an ammenity in their homes that many people in the United States see as a basic staple of life: Air Conditioning. Here we have no need for central heat. But I can tell you it is hard to live here year-round without A/C. We were running our air-conditioners every night up until December. However, many people here still do not have air-conditioning. And it can get well over 100 degrees Farenheit here in the month of May. When you combine that with our humidity levels it can feel like 120 degrees outside. Yet, many people here don't buy A/C units simply because they can't afford it. Nor can they afford to pay the increased electric costs that goes with running one.

Over the years I have come to realize that there are things that create spiritual dividing lines within the kingdom of God. These dividing lines are signs or markers that indicate whether or not an individual is progressing from one level to another. Assuming that a person has been born-again in Christ and has crossed over from death to life, an individual must realize that there are signs of progression even within God's Kingdom. Within God's Kingdom there is an initial marker of sorts that indicates that you have progressed to the next spiritual level. We are commanded to move beyond just being born-again. And this dividing line is marked by an event, an experience that affects how we pray, how intimately we hear God, what kinds of giftings we can function in and ultimately how much spiritual jurisdiction the Lord entrusts to us as we progress from season to season. This event, this experience I am referring to is called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts chapters 2, 8, 18 and 19 we see a progression in the lives of Christians from one level to another through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that seperated and came to rest on each one of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." Acts 2:1-4

"But when they (Samaritans) beleived Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.....When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus (Water Baptism). Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit." Acts 8:12,14-17

"Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately." Acts 18: 24-26

"While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' They answered, 'No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.' So Paul asked, 'Then what baptism did you receive?' 'John's baptism,' they replied. Paul said, 'John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.' On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all." Acts 19:1-7


In Acts 2 we see over 100 Christians, men and women who have spent 40 days with the resurrected Christ, receiving the baptism of the Spirit with the evidence of tongues. In Acts 8 we see men and women who have been led to a saving faith in Christ. They have become born-again. But they were men and women who did not have an infilling of the Spirit. And we see them receiving the Spirit at the laying on of the apostles hands. In Acts 18 we see the apostle Apollos (See 1 Cor 4:6,9) in his early years in Christ. He knew the way of the Lord and taught about Jesus accurately. But he was a Christian who needed to cross over to another level, specifically as it pertained to his experience in the baptisms. Priscilla and Aquilla helped walk him through this. They helped him move through to another spiritual level. In Acts 19 we see 12 men receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues and prophesy. These 12 men were already Christians. Verse one in that chapter refers to them as disciples.

What do the Christians in all four chapters have in common? Simply put, the Spirit of God went form being "with" them to being "in" them.

"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 see him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." John 14:16,17

From "with" to "in." Jesus told us that there is a progression from "with" to "in." I went through this progression. I first heard about Jesus when I was 8 years old. I had seed planted in my heart that, from that time laid dormant within me until I was 24. At age 24 I gave my heart completely over to the Lord. I began to hear his voice. I began to have dreams and visions. I began to repent from many things. And I was water baptized as a sign of this repentance and obedience to his voice on April 9, 1995. The Spirit was "with" me. He was speaking to me. He was showing me initial steps of repentance and faith to take. But he was not "in" me. He was speaking to my heart which was in me but he, the Spirit of Truth, was not fully in me.

On March 9, 1996 I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit came "into" me. I spoke in the tongues of angels.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels....." 1 Corinthians 13:1

I pray in the tongues of angels every day as I am with the Lord in prayer. We are commanded to do so. We are to speak to God often and utter mysteries with our spirit by his Spirit.

"For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit." 1 Corinthians 14:1,2

We are commanded to pray both with our minds and with our spirits.

"So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind." 1 Corinthians 14:15

We cannot do both apart from the infilling, the baptism of his Spirit. Once a man receives the baptism of the Spirit he operates in measures of God's grace and ultimately measures of spiritual jurisdiction that he can and would not otherwise.

I have written in previous posts about fundamental facets of Spiritual Prayer. I can tell you plainly that a man or woman can never enter into the fullness of spiritual prayer apart from the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the gift of tongues. You just can't. Often I do not know what to pray for. So I fill in those gaps of time, those periods of time when I am seeking discerment in prayer, with the spiritual tongues of angels.

"We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Romans 8:27

The resurrected Jesus is the one that baptizes us with his seven-fold Spirit.

"But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Matthew 3:11

"These are the words of him who holds the sevenfold Spirit of God and the seven stars." Revelation 3:1

"The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Sprit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord." Isaiah 11:2,3

And as the resurrected Jesus baptizes us with his seven-fold Spirit, the blessed Holy Spirit, we come into measures of power, grace, gifting, calling and holiness that we wouldn't otherwise.

We are commanded to wait on God in our early days.

"They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." Isaiah 40:31

"Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Acts 1:4,5

We wait on the Lord. In Acts 2,8,18 and 19 we see people that had been waiting on God in some shape or form. They were waiting on the next thing God had form them. The were looking for the next thing in God. As they did, God filled them and they went forward as God allowed them to. But not until they received the infilling. We are commanded to wait for it. The "it" being Him.

We started in the beginning with physical parallels. In every society you can see socio-economic signs that indicate the purchasing power and economic class of each household. In some countries it's a swimming pool, a car or something as simple as air-conditioning. When you see these things they are an indicator of how far someone has progressed financially.

The same applies spiritually. There are indicators in the kingdom of God that show how "enriched" people are spiritually. Certain things show how wealthy people have become spiritually speaking. It's not physical wealth. It's spiritual wealth. Possessing certain things, having certain experiences, can serve as an indication of the progression of spiritual health and wealth in the lives of believers. The Baptism of the Spirit and the power and gifting that flows out of that empowerment is one of the foundational signs of progression and growth, spiritually speaking. It's a sign of progression. It's not the end all. But it will affect what kind of doctrine, counsel, prophesy, gifting and level of empowerment that a believer abides in. And ultimately, whether we want to believe it or not, it is an indicator of how much spiritual maturity a believer will be able to attain.

I have been eager to write about this for some time but have been waiting for the Lord to show me the context in which to do so. This is so fundamental yet so necessary that if not experienced will cause an individual to come to a screeching halt in their relationship with the Lord. It creates stagnancy like you cannot imagine. People can get put on hold for years, decades, even for the rest of their natural lives because of the absence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Don't let this happen to you. God wants to pour out his Spirit in these last days on us and our children. Remember the words of the apostle Peter:

"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgivness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call." Acts 2:38,39 

The promise is for us and our children. Get in the position of receiving. Adopt the doctrine that God has made his Spirit available to us and ask for it. Ask and wait. Ask and wait. If we have it then we need to pray that our children receive it as well. That is where Christine and I are at with our sons.

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Luke 11:13

Ask of him and wait. Be Baptized in the Holy Spirit.

In Christ,

JEB

P.S. One of my very good friends in the Lord has an 11 year old daughter. She just received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He told that she goes into hours of prayer just praying in the Spirit. Isn't that exciting? Praise God for what he has done and will do for us.

The First Shall be Last...The Last Shall be First

Last week, I, Jay, took a 5 day trip back to the states to tie up some loose ends from our move to Merida and to visit with friends and family along the way. On the first day of my trip on August 3rd the Lord spoke the same thing to me on three seperate occasions in the same day. Each time it was through a different set of circumstances but all of them tied in together and all of them together had one meaning. Here is the story.

My flight out of Merida left at 7 AM via Continental Airlines. I had to be at the airport at 5 AM. After getting my boarding passes and getting through security, while sitting at the gate watching the rest of the passengers arrive, an American couple came and sat down next to me. We were on the same flight to Houston Airport to catch different connecting flights. I struck up a conversation with them and found out that they were a Christian couple, that he was actually a pastor of a church in South Carolina and they had taken a trip here to check on a Christian Seminary in Merida that they were affiliated with. As the conversation continued I asked them how long their layover was in Houston before catching their next flight. They told me they had an hour and a half. I knew this could be a problem for them because it usually takes a minimum of one hour in the Houston airport to deboard your plane, get through customs, claim your bags, go through immigration, go through the baggage security check for domestic flights, catch a rail train to an adjoining terminal, recheck any bags at the gate and then board your plane. I know this first hand. I endured this back in May coming back from Merida on my first trip down, trying to catching my adjoining flight to San Antonio, RUNNING through parts of the airport. It was very stressful and I almost missed my adjoining fight.

Needless to say I was concerned about this couple making it so I offered to help them through the process. I had a 3 hour layover before my adjoining flight to Shreveport so I offered to take some of that time to help them with guidance, carrying bags.....whatever. As we got into Houston our first obstacle presented itself right away. This couple and I were both seated in the back three rows of the plane. There were over 150 people seated on this plane. It was packed. It took us at least 15 minutes to deboard. Then we got to immigration and there was a very long line. We processed through immigration and then got to the baggage terminal. The stewardesses had announced to us that our luggage would be on carousel #8. It wasn't. I got to the baggage carousel ahead of them and figured out that the luggage was on carousel #7. So when they got there behind me I redirected them to the right carousel. They grabbed their bags. We headed to the security checkpoint to get our scanned through for our next flight and found ourselves in a very, very long line. I looked at this couple and told them not to panic, that the line would move quickly for us. And boy did it ever. God saw to it. Right at that moment a security agent walked right up to me and this couple and said, "Right this way." They took us an opened up a new security screener and placed us in the front of that new line. A smile came over my face and a passage of scripture came to my heart.

Matthew 19:30 "But many who are first shall be last, and many who are last will be first."

I remember hearing that in my heart and feeling a sense of peace and joy for this couple. God was helping them in their time of need. You could see they were stressed. They were an older graying couple and they needed help. God took them out of last place in line and put them right through the screening process, helping them to make their adjoining flight on time. And as an added bonus I got to go with them....because I was helping them by being in the back of the line with them. The thing that I understand about this, even as I write this, is that if I had left the weak to themselves and gone on and only been concerned with myself, I would have ended up farther towards the front of that long line at the baggage screening. But it would have taken me longer to actually get through that checkpoint because I wouldn't have been standing in the very back of the line with that couple when we ALL got promoted to the front.

The Father blesses us when we hang out with the weak and serve them in humility. He promotes us in due season....to the front of the line. The world has pushed the weak and the less fortunate to the back of the line with no concern for their welfare. But God in his sovereignty raises us up at certain points in time with resources to help each other. The resources I had to give these two members of the Body of Christ was extra time, physical strength and a knowledge of the airport in Houston to help them while they were in a tight spot. The Father offered me an opportunity to give out of my abundance and in the process all of us were blessed.

And the story doesn't end there. I then ended up on my adjoining flight to Shreveport....and I can tell you I have never flown on such a small plane in my life. It only sat 33 people and it had the propellers on both sides, not the jet engines you see on most planes. I ended up sitting in the very back of the plane, seat 16A. I was in Last Place on this plane. After all the passengers boarded the lone stewardess walked to the very back of the plane, looked right at me and said, "We need two people to come sit in the very front row of the plane....right now!" She looked at me as if I didn't have a choice. So I got up along with another lady and we went and sat right in the very front row. The obvious reason for this was to balance the weight of the aircraft for take-off. But God was reaffirming something to me for the second time in as many hours. The stewardess looks at me and the other lady that was moved to the front with me and explained to both of us that being in the seats we were know sitting in came with a particular set of responsibilities. We would now be expected to help the other passengers off of the plane in the event of an emergency. We were now "Deputized." We both agreed and the plane took off.

So here I am again for the second time in the same day going from being in the back of the line to the very front of the line in a matter of seconds. And both instances are happening because I was either serving the Lord by helping the weak and needy or.... being positioned to help others in case of emergency. 

And it doesn't end there. Jesus likes to clinch the nail. Let everything be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses (2 Cor 13:1).  So I finally get to Shreveport around 2PM. My former pastor who I was staying with had to leave town unexpectedly because of a death in the family. So I ended up staying with two of his grandsons in his home who were house-sitting for him. One was his grandson Josh (20 years old) and the other was Matthew (11). I had known Josh since he was seven years old but had never met Matthew prior to this trip. I ended up taking them out to dinner at Chile's as a thank you for picking me up at the airport. As we were at the restaurant, getting reaquainted and talking about all sorts of things, Matthew looks at me and says;

"The First Shall be Last.....and the Last Shall be First."

I'm not kidding. God was speaking to me through an eleven year old boy who was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and french fries. And at this point I was slowly starting to realize that the voice of the Lord was echoing through a multitude of circumstances. In Romans 1:28 it says the following:

"Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind...."

I italicized and underlined the word "retain." In the Greek that word means "echo." What Paul is saying in this verse is that people get in trouble when they don't allow the voice of the Lord to "echo" in their hearts. God speaks with an echo by saying the same things over and over to cause truth to settle into us. The Lord speaks through the mouth of babes and he speaks through the symbolism of our physical circumstances...among other things. He speaks in dreams, visions, through the mouths of prophets.....

For God does speak -  now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it." Job 33:14

The Lord speaks to us in a multitude of ways and with and echoing voice. His voice echoes. What was happeing to me that day was an echoing of his voice in circumstances, through people, and within my own heart. His voice was echoing.

And what was he saying to me? The conclusion of the matter is this: We live in a time where God is sitting in judgment on his people, our communities, our circles of fellowship and the world itself. This is an hour of judgment at all levels. And what we will see him doing as we go forward is promoting many members of the Body into more and more of the fullness of their callings. We are going to see people who are Last becoming First.....and we are more and more going to see people who are spending their lives in fleshly self-promotion going to the back of the line. God is humbling the wicked, publicly and privately. He is blessing the righteous who are willing to serve the Body in humility, but he is humbling members of the body of Christ who have been living in self-promotion, not living lives fully dedicated to him.

The counsel I am going to walk away with from the events of August 3rd are this: Be were God has placed you, endure hardship like a good soldier, be among the weak as God positions you in the Body and among non-believers. He will empower us. He will equip us. He will provide for us. He will provide for each one of us in differnet ways and at different times, often through each other. Be humble. Be meek. Be gentle. Serve one another in Humility. The Lord will see your willingness and your humility and he will promote you in due season. He will make the First Last and the Last......God will make First. He promoted Joseph. He promoted David. And he will promote us in small ways and in large IF, IF we are humble. Let God assign you to the back of the line, the back of the plane, so that he can promote you.

Be Blessed
The Blackshears