Day: May 16, 2025

Friday, May 16, 2025

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11,12 KJV).

Let ministers depend on the Spirit of God as they deliver their sermons, and not rely on the (limited, weak) energy of the flesh!

Observe: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16). “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;…” (Ephesians 5:18,19).

The Word of Christ must dwell in us richly if we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit of God never operates apart from the Word of God. If the Word of Christ does not dwell in us richly, we are automatically not under the control of the Spirit of God—meaning we are under the control of our flesh. The flesh is man’s efforts, man’s resources in Adam, and the flesh of man and the Spirit of God always oppose one another. Carefully read Galatians 5:16-26 and Romans 8:1-14.

As he himself confessed in Philippians 3:6, Saul of Tarsus was a “zealous” man in Acts chapters 7–9. He ruthlessly persecuted the Messianic Church, Israel’s believing remnant. Like his apostate nation, he had a “zeal toward God” (Acts 22:3; Romans 10:2), but it was all done in the energy of the flesh—ignorance. No amount of Adamic struggles and strivings can ever even begin to replace God’s mighty power working in the inner man (as Paul himself came to understand in Romans chapter 7 and Philippians chapter 3).

Our faith should be resting in an intelligent understanding of God’s “rightly divided” Word (2 Timothy 2:15), especially a mastering of Paul’s epistles of Romans to Philemon, God’s words to and about us in this the Dispensation of Grace (Ephesians 3:1,2). Such clarity will carry far more weight in eternity than verbosity and fervency!