Breathe in me, Breath of Heaven

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

Adapted from a prayer by St. Augustine

Prayer changes you

Ezekiel 36:25-27 (New International Version)


25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

What a great image of baptism, huh?

I'm not a huge follower of Christian radio in general. It tends to have plenty of gospel in the music but have a tendency to overcompensate for it by having too much law on the talk. Be that as it may, the other morning I was channel-surfing on the drive to class and happened upon this message on prayer from John MacArthur, pastor at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California.

If you follow the link, you don't have to buy anything, but I encourage you to either listen to the broadcast episode or read the transcript. The gist of his teaching is that when we as God for something, He doesn't just give us the gift, He implants the very giver- His Holy Spirit, into our hearts. This really backs up the idea that when we pray, God changes us. (Which by the way, I'm convinced he does psychologically, chemically and physiologically too -see report on NPR)

Luke 11:11-13 (New International Version)


 11"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If 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!"

MacArthur's lesson really reminded me of a couple of things that I think of as central to my faith walk and among the most important reasons for prayer.

One is that if we want to be more like Jesus, we want His character traits. What are they? Look at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5;  meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, pure hearted, peacemakers. Or the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Or how about 1 Corinthians 13;  not envying, not rude, keeping no record of wrongs servants, Or Philippians 2; humble servants?

The other is that if we want to develop these character traits and become more Christ-like, we need to spend more time with Him.

"Come near to God and he will come near to you." -James 4:8a.

Think of God like tree. Humans exhale carbon dioxide, trees exhale oxygen. We cough our prayers to God and He offers us in return THE "Breathe of Heaven." Mystical? maybe, but it seems to me what this world could use right now (myself included, maybe me especially) is a little less material and a little more mystical.

"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." ~Micah 6:8.

How do you come to really love mercy so that you are more likely to act justly? How about by walking humbly with God? Spend some time praying and God will spend time infusing you with His Spirit.

Burn Baby Burn

I've been insanely busy with the end of the school year, but I really wanted to share some Scripture and a few notes about the church holiday of Pentecost and the gift Jesus sent us on that day, His Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:1-13ff).

Joel 2:28-29 (New International Version)

29 ...I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Before Pentecost, in the Old Testament, you pretty much only see God's Spirit resting upon one or two people at a time, a prophet like Moses,  Elijah, a priest like Aaron or Samuel, or a king like David. One guy served as God's representative, His mouthpiece on Earth. 

But now, we all are called, gathered, and sustained by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ and we all are commissioned to serve as His prophets, priests, and kings (or pirates). He can speak though you. You can intercede for others with Him. And we can all lead by example and administer God's work.

John 16:12-15 (NRSV)

12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 "He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 "All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." 

Here's an awesome thing- the Spirit is there when you need Him. Mind you, He's gentle and you can grieve Him. Why would He want to live in you is you're full of anger and selfishness, lust and greed? And you have to give Him something to work with- sure, God's omnipotent and He can certainly work like magic if/when He wants, but the more time you spend reading the Bible, praying, worshiping, or in Christian fellowship, the more God's Word gets written on your heart so that the Spirit can help you tap into it whenever you're in a situation when you need Him. Big Lutheran perspective- the Holy Spirit never draws attention to Himself or to you, He always directs us to Jesus, His sacrifice and victory and His teachings and examples.

I love to remind people that if there were a proof that you're living a Spirit-filled, or Spirit-led life is not whether or not you can speak in tongues or perform miracles. The evidence is that your character is becoming more Christ-like. Jesus told us Himself that you'll know a tree by it's fruit:

Galatians 5:22-23 (New International Version) 

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Now, if you have God Himself living inside you, you have to know that God can use you. It's not about what you can or cannot do, it's about what He will do through you. What does He want to do through you? What did Jesus do in the New Testament? Tell about God's love, announce God's forgiveness, share mercy, accept and love those who others deemed undesirable, heal, feed, serve, sacrifice for others, love.

2 Timothy 1:6-7 (New International Version)

6For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

And with that He (Jesus) breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." ~ John 20:22

Happy Pentecost

Just a few words about one of the three most important holidays in the Church year. I feel guilty for this being almost a passing thought. Pentecost truly should be as celebrated as Christmas and Easter. We Lutherans especially, it seems tend to overlook the third person of the Trinity. Many mainline Christians seem to think of Him as an it, something God fills you with, as opposed to an equal godhead with the Father and the Son. What a shame, so much that we leave to "Pentecostals" and "Charismatics" who we write off as somehow "fringe" Christians. How much we forfeit that might have been ours.

It seems to me that it's fitting that Pentecost falls on Memorial Day weekend this year, because in my mind, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit Acts 2:1-21 is analogous to democracy. Just as the Age of Enlightenment and the American revolution made every citizen an active participant in their government, replacing the previous practice of "Divine rite of kings," so the coming of the Holy Spirit brought (See also Joel Chapter 2) about meant that rather than God's Spirit descending upon any one individual prophet (say Elija), Priest (say Aaron) or king (like David)- He lives in each and every Christian believer, anointing all of us for Divine service, as...

• Prophets- speaking Gods' Word
• Priests- interceding on behalf of others with God (say in prayer for instance)
• and as Kings- leading by example, letting God's Kingdom come in and through us as His servants

Personally, I read Martin Luther's "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" to say that the "office of public ministry" is really no more than just another vocation wherein we are all the King-of-King's ministers, but I suppose I'd better be careful with that one because I'll no doubt irk some Missouri Synod clergy as toying with heresy- but hey, when Luther postulated that Jesus built His Kingdom on the foundation of Peter's confession, rather than on Peter- blowing away the Roman Catholic dogma of the Divine right of priestly succession, Rome considered Luther a heretic.

But I digress, the point is, Pentecost, the birthday of the Church ushered in a sort of democratization of a relationship with God. No longer did people have to go to some temple on some mountain and have a priest intercede for them, but instead each of us can approach the throne of God with confidence because first Jesus removed our sins and then, because we were justified, the Holy Spirit could come in and God could not only live among us, but could live in us.

Mind you, it's just an analogy. German philosophers like Hagel tried to come up with some hair brained theory of the Holy Spirit as something called the "Zeitgeist" where through out history certain nations or nationalities were possessed by God, first the Egyptians then the Jews, then He experimented with one man in Jesus, then the Germans (thus the Nazi brand of holy nationalism- yikes!) So needless to say, we should be careful when we claim to speak with the authority of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps that's why mainstream denominations like Lutherans cower away from the Spirit, and cling to hierarchies and quasi-political structures and "offices" and orders- because we fear the cult of personality that has led many a televangelist astray.

At any rate, whatever danger may come, I pray:
Come Holy Spirit,
Come
Live in Your Church members
So that we might go forth and proclaim Jesus' victory
as Your servant prophets,
Your servant priesthood of all believers,
and as sons and daughters of the one true King!
In the name of the Father, the Son, and You, the Holy Spirit, three-in-one
Amen