Unmistakable Change

In my devotions today I was again reading about the anointing of Saul to be Israel’s first king by Samuel the prophet (1 Samuel 10). What grabbed my attention was another general principal for the Christian found in a very specific prophecy (v.6):

“Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you (upon Saul), and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.“

The principal involves what happens when the Spirit of God is in anyway involved with human beings — they are changed. Saul received unction, or an special enduement to prophesy when the Spirit of God came UPON him. In other words Saul was enabled to do what he otherwise could not – he was changed. As we read on about Saul, after he had been made king, he began to do wickedly before the Lord resulting in the Lord’s rejection (see 1 Samuel 15:26) and ultimately the departure of God’s Spirit from upon the man (see 1 Samuel 16:14).

For those who trust in Christ it can NEVER be as it was for Saul because the Spirit of the Lord does not reside temporarily UPON us but dwells WITHIN every believer (Roman’s 8:9-11):

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

(See also 2 Tim.1:14, 1 Corinthians 3:16 and James 4:5)

My focus today is however on our understanding that the presence of the Holy Spirit either within or upon us will make us new ~ it will change us. If our understanding is correct, why are so many believers living what seem to be unchanged lives?

The Spirit cannot help but manifest the character of God. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) is that character but I don’t have to tell you that those traits (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance), which are not incrementally added to a believers life but present all at once in the Spirit are often not ALL apparent in those who have received the Lord.

We block, we quench (1 Thess.5:19), we hinder and grieve (Ephesians 4:30) the Spirit through our own choices and attitudes and as result do not bear witness to the change Christ makes in a life.

Are such people not really Christians?

Didn’t Paul regularly deal with believers who didn’t act like it (for an example read 1 Corinthians or Galatians) and yet he called them brethren – brothers and sisters in the faith and he challenged them to change.

In light of all this I want to challenge you today as I am challenged: if you want to move your little part of the world closer to Christ – if you want to be more like Jesus then learn to cooperate with the Spirit within you; your yielding will usher in a change that will be unmistakable.