A Closer Walk With Thee

I wanted to put something into practice that the Lord has revealed to me recently. Everyone who has accepted Christ as Lord has His “Kingdom Privileges.” Number one, you have the Holy Spirit living in your mortal body to be your Helpmate. He is in you guiding you through this life from this day forward. Though God knew each of you that would be coming back to Him, many of you were uncertain as to when, if, or how that would happen. In saying that, the Lord has already been standing guard over His sheep before many knew He was there. He is LORD!

As often said, if you had the most expensive item in your possession but did not realize that you had it, how much good would it serve you. Use that analogy for the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit was actually living in your mortal body and you did not realize He was there, would you even call upon Him for His help and guidance? Probably not! Take a more common analogy. If you purchased a lottery ticket worth millions of dollars and forgot you had it. Your ticket had all the winning numbers, but again, you forgot you had it. What good would just having the winning numbers do for you? Perhaps you lost the ticket or accidentally threw it in the trash. Unless you are aware of this good thing that you already have in your possession, how can it serve you?

Many claim to love and serve God yet they don’t follow His instructions or reap the benefits He freely offers to His children. I say all this to let you know that a much closer walk is available to all of God’s people. It appears that only a few of you take advantage of His divine offerings. Do they actually realize that God Himself lives in them? The Holy Spirit is the third of the Godhead: God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each has its functions, and each is fully God. Until you become conscious of the fact that deity lives in you… your behaviors, acts, and deeds probably will not change that much. Does it grieve the Holy Spirit to sit in you and watch you as you defile what belongs to Him? Use your imagination.

Let’s start with a few confirmations. What did Christ say about the Holy Spirit before He left the earth ascending back to be at the right hand of the Father? He said in John 14: 15-17.

“If you love me, keep my commandments. I will ask the Father to give you another Helper, to be with you always. He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. But you recognize him, because he lives with you and will be in you.”

Many times, writers and people such as me take passages of scripture and use them to prove our point one way or the other. In this case, I wish to use it only as a confirmation of what our Lord told us. You decide if you wish to believe in the passage, which is the promise made by Christ, or not! He made that promise to His disciples and by proxy to everyone. Remember, He is the Savior of all mankind. That was His promise to all who accept Him as Christ the Lord. If you do not accept Him… the promise is still there but the ones who do not accept are the ones who refuse His promise to them. It’s not the Lord who denies them but they who deny Him do the refusing and thereby block having a closer walk with the Lord.

Christ often asked the recipients of His healing powers if they wished to be healed. The reason is that God gave mankind free will to accept or deny Him. Until mankind is willing to allow God to override their free willpower, He will not force them, nor will the healing come forth. In a like manner, if you wish to have a closer walk with God, through Christ, that intention must come from the one who has the free will power to say yes, or no. God already has everything He needs. We must come to Him to get what we need from Him. Many people have a problem surrendering their willpower to God. That is mainly because of ignorance. They don’t know God. To know God is to love and revere Him. Until that threshold has been breached denial is quite common among mankind.

If you are not a person who believes in the written Word of God that’s a different problem. God inspired mortal men to write the Holy Scriptures so all would not only have a written manual to follow but also to read and see what God has done with and through man since the beginning of time. Though some may not realize this, the Word of God is a living entity. You might see it as only words written on parchment paper, but it is much more than that. It is actually alive and contains the living Spirit of God Himself. Hebrews 4:12. God is Spirit. God is Omnipotent. God is everywhere all at the same time. Therefore, just as God hovers over all He created, He is in those written words fully alive as we know things to have a living presence.

In fact, God is fully present in your face right at this very moment, but you cannot see God because we cannot see Spirit. We can sense Spirit, but it is an invisible entity that has no shape or form that is recognizable to the human eye. That same Spirit is everywhere as God wants to be. It was the same Spirit that spoke to Adam and Eve and walked in the Garden of Eden with them. Did He take on shape and form for Adam and Eve? I don’t know because I wasn’t there. However, it is written in the word as so. I personally believe in the written word. Why do I believe so? Because God reveals Himself through my heart through the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit that I mentioned above. It is through this indwelling that we are able to have a much closer walk with God because He is literally and figuratively inside of you if you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Pick any book of the Bible in either the Old or the New Testaments and you will find God fully present throughout. For those who are chosen, He is consciously and fully present because God reveals Himself to those who love Him and obey His commands. When you do what, and, as God request of you, then there are no restrictions that bind you. This does not mean that you will have an adoration as many have had through the years, but that God warms your heart to give a boost to your faith and belief. The more you know the more you grow and the more He reveals. Christ told us that if we had the faith of a tiny mustard seed there would be so much more we could do through the substance of “real” faith. Our version of faith is mainly through lip service and not through heartfelt trust and belief.  Here is the scripture as written in the book of Matthew.

“So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20.

As you can see… that is quite a bold statement. It reveals the kind of faith that comes through God but is only available through the power of God, not by the hands of mankind. Christ had it and used it on numerous occasions, but we know that He is God with all His powers. We on the other hand have to go through His powers to achieve the promises He made to us. O ye of little faith. Don’t worry, you are not alone. I’d dare say that not one you know, or has ever known that kind of true faith. Christ wants to let us know what is possible. “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” That would be found in Luke 18: 27.

Obviously, these scriptures are given to me as I write because most assuredly I do not know all these passages off the top of my head. Much of it was through the years of reading, studying, and accepting the personal training by the Holy Spirit that indwells me because of my acceptance of Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

I don’t want to make this a very long read because either you believe it… or not. To those who God is speaking to right now, they have enough here to explore and turn directly to the Source. I am only a messenger delivering a message to the people of the Lord. I am able to do this because I sought a closer walk with God and He delivered. What else would you expect? My main issue is to accept my calling, to be true to it, and allow the Spirit to take the lead. I tried the other way for a long phase of my life, and it just did not work very well. Once you get to this point you can go out and tell others what God has done for you. What He’d done for others, He’ll do for you. You might remember that old sweet sounding gospel, “It is no secret, what God can do.”

Do just as I have done and ask the Lord to help you achieve a closer walk with Him. He will not deny you because you were made… created… just for that purpose, to be the objects of His great and many affections. To almighty God be the glory. Selah!