Fan into Flame the Gift of God - The Holy Spirit

2 Timothy 1:6-7 AMPC

[6] That is why I would remind you to stir up (rekindle the embers of, fan the flame of, and keep burning) the [gracious] gift of God, [the inner fire] that is in you by means of the laying on of my hands[ c with those of the elders at your ordination]. [7] For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. …

Concerning Gifts.. (inspired by sermon from GRC)

Did Satan or God give Paul his zeal?

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Answer: God

The devil perverted Paul’s zeal to work it against God and His Church. Note that Paul was zealous (driven) even after his conversion experience even more than the other apostles (1 Corinthians 15:10). 

Difference? His gift was now being directed and being lead by God.

What we can take away from this..

God has gifted (added features) us simply by design; His fingerprints truly are all over us. Yet one of the main things Satan does is to pick out or gifts and use it against us. He will try to use our gifts to destroy us and bring us under control of his logic and wisdom. Like someone controlling a video game.

What are your gifts? Look at the very things you’ve felt insecure about, shameful of, or less-than for.. under neath these conclusions and feelings you will find something pure, a reflection of God and the ways he has imparted a piece of himself to us, aka his gifts.

The devil wants you to be apologetic for the very way God imparted a part of himself to you and wants you feeling like you are incomplete, that God messed up, that you lack, and that you are somehow “defective” - especially when we take on Adam’s mind and come to conclusions of what is good and acceptable in the world and what is not. Paul received revelation which caused him to not judge himself after the wisdom of man (1 Corinthians 4:3)- he did this by submitting himself to God’s judgement (opinion) about himself. That’s why it is so important to know and believe what God thinks of us, and remind oneself when tempted. It’ll happen effortlessly just how we came to the wrong conclusions about ourselves happens effortlessly. Allowing our minds renewed can be done simply by asking God to see yourself as He does, to see yourself in your purest form.. without the labels the world has made, (based on the mind of Adam), but through the lens of the one who created you!

Summary:

Truly, your greatest weakness is often your greatest strength just working against you. 

But God, desires our gifts to be faned into flame into its true design, to be empowered and encouraged by his grace and under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The purpose or end goal of all this is to help you and others experience God’s love.

Marriage and Intimacy

How the lie enters our hearts.. we take our eyes off of what we already have and seek to find the fulfillment of our desire in some where other than God

The woman was deceived into thinking she lacked. In reality, she had everything she already desired.

The man fell into sin not out of deception, but out of attempting to provide life. Life was already provided for.. He “already” had life in God, if only he had just gone to God (an opportunity for God to provide the life) about what transpired with his woman instead of trying to “fix it”. His earnest desire was for life to be made manifest in this situation.. 

 it shows for woman: you can have everything you can ever dream of: perfect house (a huge garden that’s all yours with perfect temperature and beauty, perfect husband (Adam), perfect Father (God), total acceptance from God and man, perfect body image (came directly from Adam himself, if Adam were to reject her body he’d only be rejecting HIS body).. but there’s a lie out there that can cause you to forget about it all and make you feel like there’s just one more thing to make yourself feel as you ought to be

For men: we can have the most beautiful kingdom or living place ( Garden of eden), most loving, beautiful submissive wife, perfect Father, but the minute we think we can maintain this ourselves, that can work to fix everything ourselves we don’t need God to save anything, that it was somehow through our power that all this is here, we can submerge both our selves and family in the darkest death imaginable. 

Darkest death = a works based relationship. There is no intimacy in that.

And it happens to all of man that sometimes these truths are not apparent or clear to us; it’s not the end of the world that sometimes we “forget”... it happens.. there doesn’t have to be guilt and shame if we find ourselves not aligned with these truths at times. We as body of Christ remind one another and point to Jesus.. it’s the spirit’s responsibility to teach us and persuade our thinking; our submissiveness to Him then allows him to penetrate the most intimate parts of our being and our hearts. This effortless and voluntary submissiveness happens in our vulnerability, the place where we could be tempted to be afraid or insecure about something we see in ourselves. We see His heart for us lovingly reaching out to us, always persuading us of the value He sees in us, telling us everything is going to be okay, he will handle our heart and our lives well. This grows our love for him; this love allows us to trust Him. In our nakedness before God, we experience true intimacy over and over again throughout our lives, the intimacy of union and oneness in Him. It grows, it becomes more habitual over time. We shed the carnal mind more and more. God helps us to establish new neural pathways that literally rewire our thinking.. our judgements, the basis of our decisions, everything is being reconstructed. We have the choice to stay in our old ways (that always produces the same pains and hurts in the end) or learning from the spirit new ways to see and experience life. It’s our choice  and he won’t cross that line (manipulation or external pressure) because He created us as beings that are like him, to have the motivation of what we do be born from what’s in our hearts.