Heart Tracks - The Invader

"Death has no more dominion over Him... in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise, reckon also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God." Romans 6:9-11....."The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house. He invades everything...He takes charge of everything; my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals....The weakest saint can experience the power of the Deity of the Son of God if once he is willing to 'let go.' " Oswald Chambers

Henry Blackaby said that when once the Father has spoken to and revealed Himself, His will and His way to us, His immediate demand upon us is that we "reorient our lives to what He has just spoken." Two key words here; "immediate" and "reorient." Somehow, we find ways to avoid doing what those words require.

In my very early ministry, I had a man in the church who, when confronted about one or more of the areas of his life in which he was failing to obey the Lord, would say, "The Lord's been speakin' to me about that." His response is far from unknown in the rest of us. Somehow, we have come to the place of thinking that when the Father speaks His will for us, it's okay to enter into a "discussion" with Him about it. We don't call it disobedience. We've found other ways of denying that it's that. We're "talking to Him" about things, or we're "wrestling" with Him over something. When we do this, we give ourselves permission to continue on in our disobedience. We say it's just a matter of our not being ready to walk in that light, but if the Father has spoken it, we can be sure, He says we are ready, and His demand that we respond in obedience is immediate. And in our yielded response is the willingness to allow Him to fully reorient our lives in order to be obedient, regardless of the perceived cost to us. Jonah was a man to who could surely say, "The Lord's been speakin' to me about that," and he ended up in the belly of a fish. That's the kind of place disobedience will always take us to. Has it taken any of us there now?

When God sent the people of Israel into their promised land, they were to defeat the nations of that land as they claimed it. One nation and one battle at a time. They were to invade the land until every nation currently in it was defeated and removed. This is a wonderful illustration of what it is to grow in grace. Christ, through His Holy Spirit does indeed invade our hearts and lives and His will is to possess every part of us for Himself. He does so by defeating and removing every obstacle within us to His Lordship. He does so as we "let go" of each obstacle as He reveals them, and surrender them to Him. Israel's great downfall was that they never did fully remove the pagan nations of the land He had given them. As a result, the "invaders" were themselves invaded by the wickedness of the people and nations the Lord commanded them to eliminate. We can be sure that whatever "issue" we refuse to deal with, to let go of, will live to tempt us, to bring us down again and again and.....As I heard it said, what we don't deal with today will surely deal with us tomorrow.

Watchman Nee asked the question as to whether we are living in "rebellion, presumption, or submission?" Do we presume that our avoidance of obedience can be justified? If so, no matter how we seek to label it, it's rebellion. Our only option is submission, obedience. Jesus does indeed stand at our heart door, not as a Guest, but as an Invader. As Lord. Have we received Him as such? Or do we just let Him go on knocking, speakin' to us, at the door?

Blessings,
Pastor O