Listening

Mark 3

[3.28-30] “Listen to this carefully. I’m warning you. There’s nothing done or said that can’t be forgiven. But if you persist in your slanders against God’s Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, sawing off the branch on which you’re sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.” He gave this warning because they were accusing him of being in league with Evil.

Lord Jesus--The lesson here is simple: basic mistakes cause huge problems. The warning is clear. Crediting the work of God to evil is a basic mistake. The questions are good ones. Where does this power come from, but the answers that thes leaders came up with were the product of their stating point.

The work of the Holy Spirit: how it is expressed and how it is experienced in the life of the believer is something that expresses it self in simple things.  We can call them many different names, but the thought is much the same--fruit, results, or harvest.

Matthew 7

16 You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thornbushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

The equation is simple but not easy.Grace+light = Fruit =results in lives. Why do I lose track of that so easily? Who does the judging of the fruit, Lord? Certainly, not me...it is so easy to get this thing twisted. We can fail to heed the warning that you gave and run the risk of making the same mistake as the Pharisees. But we can also get so concerned with grieving the work of the Holy Spirit that we end up paralyzed.

Ok, so where is the practical in this? You were restoring to health those twisted by the results of sin. Evil never restores, it only twists away from health, healing and wholeness.  It is all about the listening and watching your work, Lord.   You push me toward your light every time.

Peterson, Eugene H. (2006-06-15). The Message Remix 2.0: The Bible In contemporary Language (p. 1796). NavPress. Kindle Edition.