We have a choice. We can live the life of Christian hypocrites, or live a life characterised by the presence and the ministry of Jesus Christ. And if we choose the latter, we can only succeed by the enabling presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is described as Holy for good reason. We can be enamoured by and desire to see signs and wonders, and this is potentially good. But if this is not set in the context of prioritising holiness, it can and will be disasterous. Holiness is the context that allows what we do do carry the flavour and savour of Jesus Christ.
And for this we need the Holy Spirit. We need to seek Him. Thirst for Him. Ask the Father to pour Him out, through Jesus Christ. We must learn to yearn, as the Christians at the first Pentecost had yearned. And we must not stop yearning until the HOLY Spirit breaks through to touch our lives with holiness.
But we also need to desire to walk this way. The outworking of holiness in our lives is not automatic. There has to be a harnessing. A discipline to seek Him and then, when He comes, to walk with Him.
At the Reformation, the Reformers saw something of this. Martin Luther saw our absolute inability to please God of ourselves, or to walk the way of Christ. John Calvin sensed it and argued that Christians should seek to walk in the guidelines of the Law of God. But it was the anabaptists who most clearly grasped it - that Chriatians are called to walk Holy lives, which can be enabled only when we seek the Spirit and resolve to change the way we live.
A prayer
Lord, this day help me to see and recognise afresh the way of Jesus Christ. By Your Spirit, let me sense true holiness. And strengthen me in my will, that by Your Holy Spirit's enabling, I should walk that way.
In Jesus' name, Amen
