It has been a strange three weeks during lock down where I haven’t felt the impetus to write devotionals as much, but certainly hearing different messages and inspirations from the Lord.
This week I shared with my cell group the word the Lord had impressed on my heart on Thursday this week which was :
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins”. Ephesians 2:1
The The NKJV uses the word ‘alive’ rather than quickened, but it is the same thing and it is the word quickening that the whisper of the spirit is bringing to me in my ear at this time and so I will be obedient and stick to this term.
Father posed three questions for me to answer and to ask. These were :
What is being quickened?
Why have we been quickened and for what purpose?
Is this quickening for ourselves or for others?
What is the work that a God has called us to do?
Are we doing it?
I shared the message briefly via ‘zoom ministry’ on Thursday night, but I sensed that He wanted me to say so much more. Two days later and as I rise from my pillow, He is still whispering that word again in my ear. It is ringing loud and clear and now sounds like an imperative. I answer ‘I am here Lord poised with pen in hand waiting and watching to see what else you will say and what you desire for me to impart. Here it is ..
I describe quickening, as the life giving power that we might see under a microscope when the sperm and the egg meets together. There is activity and something taking place. There is no time to lose and the conditions must be conducive, to that life being imparted. When I think of my own conversion, I remember it well at my birth Father’s kitchen sink when I felt the power of the Holy Spirit enter me and move my body and my mouth to a crescendo and a volume, I have never had before. I found myself physically at the altar and the praises of God flying out of my mouth. Before that moment, my body was dead (and if you like) I was still a child of darkness, a child of the prince of the power of the air, flesh and sense ruled. I didn’t know I was in this awful state, neither did I see the kingdom of God coming in, but in my heart, I had asked and had desired change and change came.
We all have different conversion stories, the importance is that we receive the Holy Spirit at the time of our salvation in simplicity and we wait for the fullness, the promise of the Father to come in (see Acts 1:4). What is important for new believers is that they need to know and be told there is something more – the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The late Pastor Bonnke would say (and he said this to me personally) that one of the signs of receipt of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the speaking in tongues . This he said to a team of us evangelists, is ‘proof positive’ that you are now ready to do ministry. And ready we were. 🙃
The reason we are quickened, at the point of receiving Him, is part of our Adoption and change taking place in our DNA (see also Romans 8:5; Ephesians 1:5). It is to receive the manifold, enabling presence and essence of God, to do the things of God. This quickening , in the spiritual realm, is like thunder … we don’t necessarily hear it, but it has snatched us from darkness into His marvelous light.
This light giving and life giving power, is all part of the reason why we are quickened out of the deadness of our selves , our flesh nature, into a new birth, a new born reality and identity as becoming one like him , and as sons of God. (1 John 3:1,2). Born…. hallelujah, not by human selection or prowess, not by corruptible seed or from a Petri dish … but by the design and desire of God, to win us , others and the earth, back to himself . And so we must go do and build kingdom in our homes, frim our contacts , in the market place, the high ways and by ways of life and into lives.
Wherever we are placed in the sphere of society, community or family, the purpose of the quickening is for us to draw from Him and be used in bringing kingdom in, and glory to God.
Hayford in the New Spirit Filled Bible (and commenting on Luke Chapter 17) helps us see that the kingdom of God is not something we see by observation, but that it is a spiritual reality, dynamic force living in the man or woman of God making us kings and priests of the most High God. (See also Rev 5:10). The bible tells is that ‘Wherever the word of a king is there is power’ So we must say and also go do..!
The enemy of soul would want us to be quiet, to seek to hush us up to steal our voice to pour scorn on our calling. God knows, I know… but we don’t sit on this quickening. Neither do we make merchandise or a monument out of it. We get up and do, of his good pleasure.
Indeed , He says ‘greater things shall we do , because He goes to the Father’. (St John 1:50;5:20)
There is no greater time to run your race than during the life you have been given. Dont look to man for confirmation, many religious men missed Jesus. Know what you have been called to do and do it to the honor and glory of God. Christ in us, is the quickening power and the blessed hope of glory, to a dying and impenitent world.
Always remember , This ‘divine spark’ in us triggered by our receipt of the free gift, is not something we receive of men, can do of ourselves, by our good works , but we need to work in concert with the Holy Spirit, remain in Him, to be effective and bring about change for others. We must stoke it up, put the gift to work. So go do.
Written from my pillow
Evangelist Linda J
He called me, named me and sent me….and not any another. I will say and do..of my Father’s good pleasure.
18th April 2020