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Easter Season 2009
Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps you trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches you. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
Ecumenical Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
21After Jesus had greeted them again, he said, "I am sending you, just as the Father has sent me." 22Then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone's sins, they will be forgiven. But if you don't forgive their sins, they will not be forgiven."
*John 20.21-23 (CEV)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
Grace does not come except with the Holy Spirit. It bears the Holy Spirit upon its back. Grace is no stationary thing, it is ever becoming. It is flowing straight out of God's heart. Grace does nothing but re-form and convey God. Grace makes the soul conformable to the will of God. God, the ground of the soul, and grace go together.
*Meister Eckhart
If the soul is vigilant and withdraws from all distraction and abandons its own will, then the spirit of God invades it and it can conceive because it is free to do so.
*Abba Cronius, Desert Father
* * *
The famed evangelist D. L. Moody was to have a revival meeting in England. An elderly pastor protested, “Why do we need this ‘Mr. Moody’? He’s uneducated, inexperienced, ... Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?” A younger pastor rose and responded, “No, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on Mr. Moody.”
* * *
Jesus told his first followers to "receive" the Holy Spirit. We hear the same spoken to us, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
The Holy Spirit is the continuation of the ministry of Jesus in, among, and through us. How do we join in this?
We "receive." We do not get the Holy Spirit. We do not struggle to have the Spirit. We do not convince the Spirit to take control of our lives. The way for the Spirit to fill us, and for us to be being filled with that Presence, is in receiving. We can prepare to receive, to put ourselves under the monopoly of the inner Presence of Love.
* * *
Spiritual disciplines, or practices, are means to open to keep being filled with the Spirit. Among these is close friendship with those who evidence a Spirit-filled life. Indeed, being too close to those who are religious but not Spirit-filled can discourage your openness to the Spirit.
Among other practices to open to the Filling of Spirit is music and worship. Spiritual music has a special way of opening us to the sense of the Sacred, and the filling with that Power. We could claim music is the universal language of Spirit.
Yet, we must be prepared to invest the priority, energy, and time in this preparation to receive, or we will not receive. And there is little about us, and even in the hallowed walls of our churches, to encourage us to pay the price of discipline to be ready to receive the Holy Spirit.
Ronald Rolheiser speaks of this need for depth in Spirit, and the casual way many of us address - better, fail to address - the fundamental need:
It is not that we have anything against God, depth, and spirit, we would like these, it is just that we are habitually too preoccupied to have any of these show up on our radar screens. We are more busy than bad, more distracted than nonspiritual, and more interested in the movie theater, the sports stadium, and the shopping mall and the fantasy life they produce in us than we are in church. Pathological busyness, distraction, and restlessness are major blocks today within our spiritual lives.
Just notice what goes for discipleship in many churches. Pathological busyness. Yet, learning to relax into our own restlessness might be a first step toward preparing our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit.
We try to save our churches by how? - More to do. Possibly, less distraction - even "church" distraction - might led us to a more Spirit-filled way of Christian life.
* * *
One Christian told about an experience of his little daughter.
When our second daughter was quite young, she once heard the line in a church song, "Send the fire! Send the fire! Send it we implore thee. Fill us with the Holy Ghost as we bow before thee." The opening words "Send the fire!" startled her and thinking literally of the worst case scenario she tugged on her mom's skirt and said "Do they really mean it mommy? Do they really mean it?"
*http://net.bible.org/illustration. "Holy Spirit, Filling."
Possibly, much of the spiritual aridity and ineffectiveness of many churches and those professing Christianity is the lack of firm faith in this blessing of Spirit Filling. How can we talk seriously of preparing to receive the filling of Spirit, if we do not take seriously that this is as much for us as it was for the first followers of Jesus? "You mean Spirit wants to fill me, revive me, saturate me, be as near to me as my heartbeat, ...?" Yes, Jesus really meant it.
* * *
Lord, You take my heart away with Your love
and I am willing to put on my faith in Your plan.
Come and take my life.
Make my soul refreshed in truth now.
I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.
Cleanse all of my mind that is not of You.
Break me, teaching me how to find rest in Your hands.
Come and take my life.
Make my soul refreshed in truth now.
I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.
Want you come and fill my soul?
Whatever it takes,
I'm needing to make Your will be done
and I'm letting go of my control,
for I see what You've done in me.
I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.
I am ready for You.
Take my heart and make me new now.
I am ready for You
to come and fill my soul.
Come and fill my soul.
Want you come and fill my soul?
*"Ready for You." Performed by Kutless. Songwriter, Jon Micah Sumrall.
QUIETLY RESPONDING
How do you prepare yourself for ongoing filling by the Presence of the Holy Spirit?
Blessings!
Rev Dr Brian K. Wilcox
Saturday the First, Easter Season
April 18, 2009
* * *
*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis. Brian is an ecumenical spiritual leader, open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Contact the above email to book Brian for Spiritual Direction, retreats, or workshops. You can order his book An Ache for Union at major book dealers.
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