3 July 2018

SOME KEYS TO ENABLE THE SPIRIT FILLED LIFE

By John Ollis

Most of my readers know that I am convinced that the major key to the Spirit filled life is that of learning to live The Surrendered Life. For some time now I actually use Paul’s words in Romans 12:1 NKJV when I  daily pray and present my body to the Lord.  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
I feel I need to write a blog on what Paul meant by continuously presenting our body to the Lord. We sure want our body to be an instrument of righteousness and service to the Lord, and we need to consider the various components that make up our body, that need to continually come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
In our body we have Three Major Drives which are hunger, sex and survival, unless the Lord has control of these drives, we will have nothing but difficulty in our walk with the Lord. We also have Five Senses which are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, also important in our daily life, but again unless they like our drives are controlled by the Lord we will again end up in defeat at frustration.
In our body is also found our SOUL which is comprised of our Mind, Emotions & Will and these too must come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If we let thoughts settle in our mind, then sin is conceived and our emotions are stirred and we make an act of our will to disobey the Lord and we violate God’s laws for our life.
Every human being is born with a Conscience which is often dramatically weakened prior to our coming to Christ, and we must seek to have it renewed & strengthened, so that whenever we are tempted to sin, it activates and we choose not to yield to sin.
When we are born again, and the Holy Spirit comes into our life, for the first time intuitively we feel the presence of God for the first time, and now have the desire and ability to commune with God.
When Paul speaks about presenting our bodies He means so much more than just our physical body, but surely includes those things mentioned above, the three major drives, the five senses, our soul which includes our mind, emotions and will, and our spirit where God now abides, which includes our conscience, and our ability to intuitively be conscious of God’s presence and the ability to commune with Him.
That is why Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ..
God’s plan is that every part of us come under the Lordship of Jesus and that we learn to let Him be:

  • The Lord
  • The King
  • The Ruler
  • The Master
  • The Boss                                          IN EVERY PART OF OUR BEING

TWENTY FOUR HOURS A DAY/7 DAYS A WEEK

That us why we need to pray the words of Psalm 118:27 KJV Bind the sacrifice with cords even  unto the horns of the altar. May Jesus tie us down to the altar with the cords of Calvary love.
I heard an Australian Teaching ministry share recently on Christian television what he thought was:

SOME THINGS WE NEED TO CONTINUALLY SURRENDER TO THE LORD

All starting with the letter “T”
Our TIME
Our THOUGHTS
Our TONGUE
Our TOUCH
Our TREASURE
Our TALENTS
It is too simplistic to simply pray “I present my body to you Lord, we need to be SPECIFIC, may I encourage you to go through this blog slowly, and take note of every area I have mentioned, and even if it takes you five or ten minutes more each day, be specific and verbalise, everything you are, and everything you are is totally surrendered to the Lord. The degree and depth of your surrender is far more important than what you do for the Lord.
Again, I concede there has been much repetition in this blog from previous blogs, but if we get the surrender part right, then we will be walking in a new level of victory and purity, and power.