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One in Spirit and Unity with our God

One Spirit with our God and our Lord Jesus

²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:
²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:20-23, NIV).

Born Again

In 1975, at the age of 32, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Over the next few months, as I read the Bible and learned about God, life began to make sense. The Holy Spirit gave witness to me. I knew that God was real: I knew that I would live with him forever. It is a comfort to know that when I die, I shall go to Heaven to be with my Lord.

I joined a Lutheran Church and studied the Bible: this helped me learn more about God. Over the years, I have found that the Faithful Witness always kept his promises. God fulfilled my life and gave me peace. He helped us through difficult times of problems and troubles.

The Lord gave Linda and me happiness through the seventies, but I still felt something was missing. Through a series of events in my life, God called me into a deeper walk with him. Seven years after I was born again, God filled me with the Holy Spirit in 1982.

Baptized with the Holy Spirit

After God released his Spirit in me, Jesus drew me into a close personal friendship. I sensed the deep love that Jesus has for his children. Over the years, my love and understanding of the Lord increased. As I developed my relationship with the Savior, my interests changed. God gave me new desires to do his will rather than what I wanted to do.

The Bible came alive: the Holy Spirit helped me understand its fullness and richness. My understanding of the sacraments in the church increased. The Lord’s Supper and Holy Baptism have a special meaning.

Ongoing Worship Experience

The Baptism of the Spirit was the most profound experience of my life. When I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior, that was important for my eternal destiny. It also helped to change my life. However, when God filled me with his Holy Spirit, that ongoing experience changed my outlook on the values of this world.

The Holy Spirit, through the years, came into my mind and rewired some of the circuits. He put up signs on some well-used paths that said, “Not important, do not use.” On other dusty paths, he put signs that said, “Priority, go this way.” Through this process, the Lord changed my thoughts on what is important and what is not important in this world. This didn’t happen all at once: it took years and will go on until Jesus takes me to his house.

From my perspective, the filling of the Spirit helped me to release myself to the Lord. From that time on, God could accelerate the changes he wanted in me.

God Desires a Close Walk

God starts drawing a person to himself by giving them a desire for a deeper relationship with his or her Lord. The individual then spends more time praying, reading the Bible, and asking for a closer walk with Jesus. The important ingredient here is asking

God responds, when someone asks, by giving the person more desire for the Lord. This exchange goes on until the Lord leads the person to that place where he wants him. Along this path, the Lord releases the Spirit in the person. Sometimes the release happens dramatically. In other people, the release of the Holy Spirit comes slowly over several months or years.

The Baptism of the Spirit helped me to focus on Jesus for a closer walk with him. When we give as much of ourselves as we can to God, he responds by giving us more of himself. This in turn helps us give more of ourselves to God.

One Spirit in God’s Circle

This ongoing experience with the King of Glory resembles a circle. The exchange will go on and on until someone breaks the circle. The Lord never breaks it—only people break the circle. When the circle separates, our God of Love tries to put the ends back together again. Our God will go to extreme measures to join the ends of our broken ties with him.

God not only works with individual people in this way; he works with individual churches to draw them to himself. The process works in similar ways. Today in the late nineties and on into the next century, we live in special time. Our Rose of Sharon seeks to draw all of his children closer. The doors to the Kingdom of God stand wide open.

The Lord desires to give the Baptism of the Spirit to each of his children. Not every child of God wants an intimate relationship with the Lord. Many Christians enjoy church and fellowship with other Christians, but they stand away from God. They may not want any changes in their lives, or perhaps they fear God.

One Spirit gives oneness with God

One Spirit with the Rock of Ages

Text of, One Spirit, from 66-68 of "Walking Through Revelation With a Common Man"

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