Which Sense?

 "Didn't I tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God." John 11:40....."Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him?......"Faith is unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams He will not stand by us." Oswald Chambers

Oswald's quotes bring me to a question that confronts us all; in what do we really trust in? Our own common sense, which is natural to us, or in His Spirit sense, which comes not from ourselves, but from His Holy Spirit? The first is so natural to us that we move in it easily. We depend on rational reason, logic, and our understanding. Our flesh will always be in quick agreement with our common sense. The latter can only function in our lives through the fullness of His Holy Spirit. It is not natural to us and so it must be cultivated over time. His Spirit will lead us in this, but the process will involve confrontational trust. Confrontational because as Chambers says, our common sense will tell us that to trust Him is the height of foolishness. Common sense sees only the visible, and makes decisions based on what it sees and understands. Spirit sense tells us to trust in what He has promised, even though it completely conflicts with what we see and understand in ourselves. Spirit sense tells us that though everything shouts that nothing is there to hold onto, He is there, and His grip on us will not loosen. And He will get us to where He has willed us to go.

I fear that the professing church has lost the ability to have true spiritual sight. The proof in this is how easily deceived so many of God's people are. It comes out in our choices in every aspect of life. We have failed to heed the Scriptural warning, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death." Common sense, trust in our own faculties almost always chooses the way that seems right, and rarely seems to see the death and destruction lurking behind these choices.

We are living in times that require spiritual sight to a degree few of us have ever experienced before. All that we hear and see in the natural must be measured against what His Spirit is seeing and speaking that is beyond the surface. Then we must be willing to risk all in the belief that what the Holy Spirit says is real can be trusted. Fully trusted. We are willing to be called foolish by the world, and even by some in the church, because we "see" and "hear" a voice that doesn't speak to us through reason and logic, but through His discernement, wisdom, and understanding.

Many times in the New Testament, it was written of Paul that he "perceived" certain things about people and situations that were not perceived by anyone else. Perhaps the greatest example of this was the voyage to Rome detailed in the book of Acts. The weather was very favorable, and everyone on board, from captain on down, thought it pointed to a safe voyage. Everyone but Paul, who told them that to embark would result in disaster. He was ignored, and shipwreck was the result. But even in the shipwreck, he heard the voice of promise that God would save the lives of all on board. His witness was sealed by his words to the others which were, "And I believe it will happen just as He has told me." Such faith, sight, and hearing is in desperate need today in His church. Will you and I walk in that sense of things? Will we depend on His Holy Spirit sense, or our own sense....and suffer shipwreck as a result?

Blessings,

Pastor O