When I was around 20 years old, I had an encounter with God, and I’ve never been the same since. I was a believer in Jesus Christ, had been since about the age of 11, but I was struggling with how to live the life I knew I should be living as a Christian. I’d been in church all my life and had been taught and absorbed many biblical truths that shaped the way I viewed the world and life, and the way we are to live it. But truthfully, I was nearly biblically ignorant. Though I knew some verses and Bible stories and could recite the books of the Bible, it wasn’t a cohesive whole to me. I didn’t know my way around it.
I was troubled and unhappy. I could tell how I shouldn’t live, but I didn’t know how to live the life that I knew I should be living. I cried out to God for months in my spiritual confusion and powerlessness. Then one evening God turned the light on inside me in a church meeting. There was a special speaker but I don’t even remember exactly what he preached on; something about the Spirit of God. As he spoke, God pulled the string on that spiritual “light bulb” inside me … and I knew. Or to be more precise, I came alive to the One who knows.
I had been taught God’s Spirit lived in me because I was a believer in Jesus, but I didn’t know how to access the power he had to help me do what was right. But when he opened my spiritual eyes, every other sense that could be in tune with God was awakened.
The Journey of a Lifetime Begins
I left that meeting knowing what people meant when they said they were walking on “cloud nine.” That is how I felt for weeks, singing the song that we sang in that meeting, feeling unaccountably happy (the proper term is joyful), and very much wanting only to live my life for Jesus and serve him. And though the euphoria waned, that sense of wanting only to live for and serve the Lord has never left me.
It was at this same time I developed a hunger for the Word of God, and I loved studying it. There was so much I didn’t know! And so much I began to learn from reading the Bible. I’ve been on that journey now for many years. I’m still learning, and I feel more and more like a child who has so much more yet to learn. My journey to grow in knowledge of the Lord and his will, gained through the Word (my own study and learning from godly teachers), began. My walk by the Spirit began … with baby steps.
In these blog posts we’ve been considering what it means to walk by the Spirit. There truly is a spiritual dimension in our lives that is very real; God is at work, but it is up to us to respond. What Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, he says to us, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Revelation 3:20). Jesus is knocking at the heart’s door of each one of us who is a believer. I opened that door as I cried out to him in my need … and Jesus came in to dine with me. And more; he set up house. It is by his Spirit he lives in and is with me each day.
Yes, I believe he was there before, ever since I asked Jesus to be my Savior when I was a child. But he graciously did whatever it is he does to bring us closer to himself and guide, teach, and commune with us. He became Lord of my life as never before.
Each of us has a story and a journey of faith in Jesus Christ. Our experiences may differ and undoubtedly do differ. But it is the same God who works in us all to desire and to do his will, to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:12-13).
When we seek the Lord with all our heart, as I did as a young adult Christian, we will find him. Then one day you may realize, as I did, (or perhaps you already have) that all along he had been seeking you, and you opened that spiritual door in your life, and he came in to be with you and give you meaning and purpose and power to live the life he calls us to.
Keep Pressing On
Wherever you are in your journey with Jesus, keep your eyes fixed on him, keep growing in knowledge of God and make your highest goal to know him and please him. As Paul the Apostle said, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Philippians 3:12-16, emphasis added).
Keep pressing on, walking by the Spirit, not by your old nature (the flesh) and by not the ways of the world.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. …19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16-25, emphasis added).
Words of life and light. Let’s live fully, pressing on to live in the light of the words of life, walking by the Spirit, keeping in step with God’s Spirit.
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Photo by Jeremy Lapak on Unsplash.