When I graduated from high school an older pastor and his wife took me out to lunch. They bought me a cheeseburger and gave me a Bible. In the cover he wrote to me: “This book will keep you from sin, and sin will keep you from this book.”
We can only serve one god: Jesus or else not-Jesus. Let’s stop kidding ourselves that there is a middle ground. That there is some sort of neutral zone or time-out. There’s not. We are sowing to the spirit or sowing to the flesh. Period.
In John 5, Jesus rebukes the pharisees for their closet atheism:
And the Father Himself, who sent me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
Those verses describe the vast majority of western church goers. Gosh, I feel like they describe me most on days, too. We just don’t have the Word abiding in us. And we wonder why our pastors are having affairs, why all the men’s groups are losing the battle against pornography, and why all the women are hiding their bondage to covetousness.
We are simply not alive in the Word.
Jesus made a covenant with us. He promised us that the truth would set us free and that whom He set free would be free indeed. Free indeed — Not free for the next 24 hours, or 6 months or even 5 years. Free forever. Most of us still aren’t even free the sins that so easily entangle, let alone the little foxes.
You and I both know that the idea of the Bible keeping us from sin (see intro paragraph) is not a new idea. But even though we have “searched the scriptures” we are still struggling with the basic issues of coming to Jesus and believing in Him. The good news is that we’ll always have that struggle, it is part of working out our salvation. The bad news is that we’ll always have that struggle.
As weak and fallen humans, we have to fight our closet atheism. We can recite Bible verses without the Word of God living and being active in our hearts. It’s not burning within us. It’s not alive yet. It hasn’t consumed us and made us true disciples.
And that is why so many of us are still powerless against temptation and powerless to lead others to Jesus. We’re not living true Christianity.
So what’s this about abiding…?
What does it mean to abide? Simple: It’s just having a relationship with Jesus through the Word. Abiding is not as mysterious as we think it is. Pray-read the Bible as a dialog with God.
For me, the most difficult resistance to spending time in the Word and in prayer is the seeming foolishness and weakness of it. I so often feel like I could be spending my time in a more productive matter — especially as a man with a type “A” personality (capital “A” at that, too). I feel like I could be putting initiatives into motion or helping come up with strategies or casting vision or creating something. Anything but shutting my door and praying to an invisible God while reading a book that is centuries old and wasn’t even originally written in my language.
This seeming waste of my time is precisely what God wants from me. Living a life of true Christianity is, at its core, living a life of weakness. (Which is precisely what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.)
I have been on the journey of leadership training for a while and I am continually reminded by God that the Heavenly prerequisite for leadership is friendship with God; and friendship with God is cultivated in the secret place.
A good friend of mine says over and over and over that the Bible isn’t boring, we’re boring.
Being men and women of the Word isn’t always easy. It’s work and lots of times it is boring. But not because the Bible itself is boring or because God is making Himself un-knowable — the trouble is that we are boring and we have dull spirits.
Something else important to note is that knowing the Truth and abiding in the Word is not an event, but a journey. It’s a daily choice to simply say yes to God and no to sin. It’s following through with our commitment to pray-read the Bible and to ask God to make our Spirits alive.
And don’t forget that we can certainly do a few “tricks” to help speed up the journey and help ourselves out. Things like fasting and praying in the Spirit. Fasting helps tenderize us and make us more sensitive to the Lord. Praying in the Spirit helps unlock the scriptures to us and invites the Spirit of revelation.
Tina Russell said:
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Tina Russell
Posted on February 6, 2008 at 9:31 am
Samuel Skinner said:
You mean many of those who claim to be Christians are closet atheists? Thanks for the tip; now to see if we can get them to come all the way out…
Posted on February 6, 2008 at 11:19 am
Sharon said:
This really provoked me. Thank you. So much.
Posted on February 6, 2008 at 10:09 pm
natrimony said:
So what do you mean by “praying in the Spirit”?
Posted on February 8, 2008 at 11:01 pm
natrimony said:
I’m guessing that you don’t comment on the replies to your posts. Oh well.
Posted on February 15, 2008 at 1:15 pm
shawnblanc said:
@ Natrimony: I do try to reply to comments. Sorry about that.
As far as praying in the Spirit goes, I mean praying in tongues. This is how we stir ourselves up in our faith, keeping ourselves in the love of God (Jude 20). Tongues is a doorway into revelation and power. Also, it was the secret to the Apostle Paul’s secret life in God and his massive spirit of revelation.
Posted on February 15, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Armen said:
Shawn, I see you as a God-fearing brother, and I love these provoking posts which challenge us believers to give ourselves more to God.
However, I do have issue with your comment left above, which states that the key to Paul’s ministry, power, and knowledge was tongue-speaking.
After placing so much emphasis on the importance of getting in the Word in this post, I’m surprised you’d make such a statement of assumption, which has absolutely no scriptural grounds. Just be careful how you may be influencing others with your writing.
Posted on February 16, 2008 at 10:26 am
natrimony said:
O.K. Can the Scriptures really be opened to us without praying in tongues? I think that one would have to call this ‘a special ability to acquire biblical knowledge not assecible to the run of the mill Christian’. I don’t see where Paul tells us that the hermeneutical key to the Scriptures is ‘praying in tongues’. And, I’d have to attribute the fact that…well…Paul was an apostle to be the key to his revelatory understandings. Plus, I’m not sure that ‘praying in the Spirit’ is really synonymous with ‘praying in tongues’.
-N
thegreycoats@wordpress.com
Posted on February 16, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Dan Lillyblad said:
This is my first visit to your site, and I see that the above entries are dated Feb. and this is September 21st. Did the above dialogue continue, or was that the end of it? My own experience has been that I was saved in a nazarene church that didn’t speak in tongues or believe in the experience. Three years after my conversion to Christianity in 1976, the Lord led me into the experience of asking for the Holy Spirit, receiving Him by faith and speaking in tongues. I didn’t feel a lot of power, but I did begin to speak in tongues from that point on. In my own experience, the word of God came alive to me in ways it never had before. Also, incredible worship in the Spirit became available to me that I had never before experienced. It was as though my spirit wanted to express things to God, but couldn’t. After receiving the Holy Spirit and the ability to sing in the spirit, I found that my spirit man could worship God in ways that it just couldn’t do before receiving the spirit. It wasn’t a doctrinal issue, but a reality. There is a worship intimacy level available that just can’t be experienced without the holy spirit taking you there. Speaking and worshiping in tongues is part of that. It doesn’t make you better than the next person, but you can go farther with the Holy Spirit than without Him.
I believe that praying in tongues is praying in the Spirit. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:15 “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding, I will sing in the spirit, and I will sing with my understanding. The preceding verse says that when we pray “in the Spirit,: our understanding is unfruitful which means we don’t understand with our intellect what we are saying. So from this I conclude that “praying in the Spirit,” is praying in tongues. Acts 1:8 says you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…Everything following in the book of Acts was done under the power of the Holy Spirit accompanied by tongues and demonstration of the Spirits power. I would agree that the apostle Paul’s revelation and power in ministry came largely from speaking in tongues. In 1 cor. 14:18 Paul said I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all. How could He say that unless it was a vital ongoing part of His walk? This isn’t a deal breaker for spiritual fellowhsip, but there is much scriptural support for the above statements by Shawn, but you can’t bear it now. In His Love, Dan
Posted on September 21, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Ronni said:
dude, I know you haven’t updated this in seemingly forever, but thank you for leaving it up. I needed this post today.
Bad. Thanks.
Posted on October 17, 2008 at 4:21 pm
RogerinKansasCity said:
Shawn, what a seed you planted there! I live in Kansas City and have the wonderful opportunity to pray with people from the IHOP;Intl house of prayer once a week.I am surrounded by greatness at those times, because only thr most fervent and consistent prayer warriors even approach that open microphone. I have a closet issue with, how can I be polite, girly pictures. HE(our Creator) has made it very clear to me that HAS to go!I am single and thought that I had enough excuses, but this is NOT a time for excuses.
In an attempt to understand the love of God, I have realized that He sees this as an act similar to prostitution(Thanks to the online preaching of a bold Southern Baptist pastor Paul Washer) I also drink (beer) but really I know that I have been called to come away from that. I asked Him, how do I even get away from this and He told me to walk away, no turning back, just as I would ANY OTHER SIN!!I am no longer BOUND to it!!!
The bonds to porn and any other repetitive sin are BROKEN!!! for me. I have to take adventage of this opportuniy to RUN!!
So I lay this down, and do what the Spirit of the living God is telling me, I will be free.
I won’t carry that burden into church or classes or prayer!! NO MORE!!
And then my spirirual gifta will flourish!!
Shawn, thanks for the “might be an IHOPPER if thing, SOOO funny, and for leaving this post up since I’ve been back in churh(1 year)
You planted a seed, it hit me upside of the head!
God bless you, Roger in KC
Posted on August 31, 2009 at 8:08 pm
doug pumroy said:
Praying in the spirit is praying in tongues. It takes discipline to pray in tongues as much as we need to. If we walk in the spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. If we don’t walk in the spirit we WILL fulfill the lust of the flesh. Praying in the spirit is like bodybuilding for the spirit. It is work, it can be hard. There can be profound ‘mountain top’ experiences in the spirit, but also times of extreme travail and ‘fighting through’. Satan will stop at nothing to prevent us from praying in the spirit as much as possible. When Paul says our minds are unfruitful, this is not a negative. Often our minds need to be unfruitful, because our thinking can be so messed up. Tongues is always the correct prayer in the correct context at the correct time. The fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much. Our righteousness is in Christ Jesus. When we pray fervently we get more results then when we pray comfortably. Just like eating right and combining cardio with lifting can create a higher level of physical fitenss. We all need to ‘work hard’ in the spirit. Many people believe God ONLY responds to the prayers of the saints. Many think when God said ‘It is finished’, when Jesus was crucified, it meant He had done His part. Our prayers, especially in the spirit activate angels and dispatch them to war in the heavenly realm. Who knows if this is true or not?? If we think it is true there is a PROFOUND need to pray extensively in the spirit. If we think God will work either way, why pray in the spirit much? Most of the time praying in the spirit is hard work, especially getting started. There is so much doctrinal discord over this subject because demons know they are more afraid of an uneducated, ignorant saint who prays intensely in the spirit several hours a day, even if they never ‘witness’ for Jesus, than they are of a man with 46 degrees in ‘theology’ from Harvard, Yale, and any other school who ‘preaches’ out of in intellect. Jude would not command us to pray in the spirit if we weren’t all suppossed to be able to. If a person can’t speak in tongues, get baptized in the Holy Spirit. If there is still a blockage, fast and pray. If there is still a blockage, there are probably generational curses that need to be broken. Praying in the spirit is one of the most essential components of the full armour of God. Any person in authority, no matter how ‘good’ a man they are and no matter how ‘correct’ they may be about the new birth, who is teaching false truth about praying in tongues will be judged. When I pray in tongues several hours a day, often under my breath when others are around, my intense cravings for porn and masturbation disappear. I still have these demons in me, and they need to be cast out, but long, hard and intense praying in the spirit really keeps the flesh at bay. God Bless
Posted on September 27, 2009 at 10:35 pm