This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Charles Spurgeon. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Spurgeon” in the search box to read more entries.
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It’s Not About Me
Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:22 NKJV)
To whom does God tell us to look for salvation? Oh, does it not lower the pride of man when we hear the Lord say, ‘Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth’? … How frequently you who are coming to Christ look to yourselves. ‘Oh!’ you say, ‘I do not repent enough.’ That is looking to yourself. ‘I do not believe enough.’ That is looking to yourself. ‘I am not worthy.’ That is looking to yourself.
‘I cannot discover,’ says another, ‘that I have any righteousness.’ It is quite right to say that you have not any righteousness. But it is quite wrong to look for any. It is ‘Look to Me.’ God will have you turn your eye off yourself and look to Him. The hardest thing in the world is to turn a man’s eye off himself. As long as he lives, he always has a predilection to turn his eye inside and look at himself, whereas God says, ‘Look to Me.’ …
It is not a consideration of what you are but a consideration of what God is and what Christ is that can save you.
For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). He has passed a sentence of condemnation on all so that the free grace of God might come upon many to salvation. ‘Look! Look! Look!’ This is the simple method of salvation. ‘Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!’
From Sovereignty And Salvation
One of the greatest—and most effective—lies that satan keeps whispering is that you have to do something to be saved. Or you have to do something to stay in God’s favor. Or your salvation is hanging by a flimsy thread.
No, no, no! A thousand times no!
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant just that: everything is done. Salvation is a free gift of God’s grace extended to you through faith in Jesus alone. Jesus paid it all, so there is absolutely nothing you or I can add to it. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Tell the devil he is a liar. Then, as Spurgeon said, look away from yourself and what you think you have to do and look only to the completed work of Calvary. True freedom and eternal joy come to the heart that looks away from itself and keeps its gaze on its Savior! When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it! It is no longer what I must do, but what Jesus already did!
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…May the Lord grant all of your requests (Psalm 20:5).
To me, the blessing of this psalm feels like the blessing God gave to the high priest to pronounce over the people of Israel (Numbers 6:23-27). But in this blessing of Numbers 6, the people are simply passive recipients of the priestly blessing.
Here in Psalm 20, David is asking God to give the people the blessing of His answer to their prayers. The people aren’t just passive but are actively involved in seeking God’s blessing. David teaches his people that they can pray for:
relief from distress
protection
help
support
acceptance of their sacrifices
fulfillment of their desires
successful plans
victory
And in case someone might think that one or two of those items aren’t worthy of God’s attention, David adds this closing line, “May the Lord grant ALL your requests.”
David also shows us the assurance with which his people can pray these prayers. He says, “Now I know…”
God is the Source
God answers out of His limitless power
God is completely trustworthy
God does “answer us when we call”
This is a blessing a leader prays over his people as an encouragement to them to pray about anything and everything that is of concern to them.
A mark of a godly leader is his prayer of blessing on the people under his care.
This is part 56 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here.
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You who answer prayer … You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior…. Shout for joy to God, all the earth! (Psalm 65:2, 5; 66:1).
Psalms 65 and 66 tell of God’s awesome involvement in our lives. He is both globally involved and personally involved. He’s not too big to care for my needs, and He’s not so preoccupied with me that He is unaware of global events.
Look at the grandeur of our Creator—
You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness
You are the hope of all the ends of the earth
You formed the mountains by Your power
You stilled the roaring of the seas
You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly
Your carts overflow with abundance
all of creation shouts for joy and sings praise to You
all the earth says, “How awesome are Your deeds!” and bows down to You in praise
You rule forever by Your power, Your eyes watch the nations
how awesome are Your works on man’s behalf!
And yet He is not just God of global events, but He is intimately involved with each and every person. He notices me!
The psalmist says, “Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me.” Then he tells how God…
forgave my sin
listened to my prayer
honored my prayer
has not withheld His love from me
Oh, come and see! See how awesome God is that the earth trembles before Him. See how awesomely loving He is that He stoops to listen to me. He is indeed a global God but He is also an intimately personal God.
The more we know our God in both His majesty and His intimacy, the more we will praise Him.
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The baptism in the Holy Spirit is what Pentecostal Christians frequently refer to as our distinctive doctrine. Notice I said distinctive, not better. Can someone go to heaven without being baptized in the Spirit? Yes! But I’ve found that living in this distinctive empowerment makes the journey to heaven so much more productive and joyful.
After the resurrection of Jesus, everything took on a whole new meaning, because the “light” had been turned on in the Old Testament palace. All of the practices that Jews had been observing for thousands of years suddenly had a new illumination in the New Testament.
Pentecost had always been a celebration 50 days following the Passover. In the Old Testament, the law was given from Sinai on the fiftieth day after the deliverance from Egypt, so in a sense, the appearance of God on Sinai was the birthday of the Jewish nation. In the New Testament, the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost after Jesus ascended to heaven was the birthday of the Christian nation for all people.
One of our foundational truths says: “All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church.”
And another foundational truth is a corollary: “The baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.”
God has always confirmed His presence with signs and wonders. From the signs in Egypt to convince Pharaoh that Jehovah was greater than the Egyptian gods to the ministry of Jesus. In fact, Peter said that the signs and wonders done by Jesus were God’s authentication of His ministry (see Luke 5:17-26; Acts 2:22; Acts 10:38).
R.A. Torrey noted, “The baptism of the Holy Spirit always imparts power for service…. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God falling upon the believer, taking possession of his faculties, imparting to him gifts not naturally his own, but which qualify him for the service to which God has called him.”
Check out this chart that walks us through the book of Acts to see how God authenticated the ministry of those who were baptized in the Holy Spirit by performing signs and wonders through them:
When a Christian is baptized in the Holy Spirit there are two types of evidence:
Initial evidence—typically speaking in a language that hasn’t been studied but has been supernaturally given by God.
Ongoing evidence—I would sum this up in the word sanctification (or as I like to remember it by saying “saint-ification”). This is the lifestyle change, the empowered living, and even the miraculous that cannot be counterfeited by man’s efforts alone.
Let’s not try to put God in a box—telling Him when, where, how, and through whom He can work. Instead, let’s yield ourselves entirely to Him by letting the Holy Spirit empower us to be effective, unmistakable witnesses for Jesus Christ.
I will be relaunching our series called We Are: Pentecostal in two weeks. Please follow along with all of the messages in this series by clicking here for the details.
Starting forth on life’s rough way,
Craig T. Owens 