Author: Hal Hollister Ministry

The Lord is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway! Psalm 119:105

We all wake up and have to deal with the subject of what is on God’s mind today. Some things like work, paying bills, and dealing with children are mandated by life.

But there is the big unknown about filling in the rest of life or getting out of troubles.

The Christ follower must understand the difference between the providential and permissive will of God. 

The providential will is ordained by God and is unchangeable. This might refer to a specific season of life chosen for you by God, or relate to where you live or work, or dealing with trials or troubles engineered by God. 

Don’t try to fight God or strive to get out of the providential will of God. Accept this is God’s plan and pray for a strong faith and the ability not to react out of emotions. This season or condition of life will be changed by God in His perfect timing.

The permissive will of God provides the believer with the freedom to make decisions under the authority and direction of the Holy Spirit.

Commit your works each day to Jesus and pray for wisdom to make good decisions. God speaks to believers so listen for His voice.

Making decisions start by faith. The Holy Spirit will speak clearly and show you the right pathway. If the Holy Spirit is silent this is usually a go ahead signal from God.

If you feel confusion do not make a decision. Pray and wait on God.

The Christ follower has to accept that he belongs to Jesus and He can do with a believer as He desires.

Most believers define the terms of a relationship with Jesus.

The terms of Jesus are extreme and seem almost impossible for a human being.

No human being has been able to meet the terms of the Ten Commandments created by God.

Jesus is not looking for perfection because He knows it is impossible for a human being.

Jesus has set the bar high to demonstrate He is perfect, righteous and holy.

The Bible teaches the righteousness of Jesus comes to those who walk by faith and are obedient to the voice of Jesus.

The only way a believer can do the works of Jesus is through the Holy Spirit.

The natural life at birth is tainted with sin and cannot please God. 

The Holy Spirit is the life of Jesus and lives in every believer. So a believer can be righteous and do the works of God by yielding to the Spirit. 

The believer who walks by faith anchored to the Holy Spirit does not need to worry about falling short of Jesus.

The Christ follower needs to concentrate on these disciplines:

Pray vigilantly and seek the will of Jesus.

Read the Bible daily.

Listen for the voice of Jesus.

Commit your works to Jesus each day and ask Him to guide your footsteps.

Pray for the blood of Jesus to cover you and ask Jesus to reveal anything you are doing that grieves the Holy Spirit.

Give the Holy Spirit authority over your life and be attentive to His thoughts and actions.

It is not by strength nor by power but by My Spirit!

Zechariah 4:6

Christianity is not relevant for most people because the heart of God is not present. The motives are doing works through public ministries. They neglect teaching a believer how to walk with Jesus.

The most important goal of a believer is to develop a private life with Jesus. He is alive, powerful and magnificent.

The private life happens by getting to know Jesus, hearing His voice and giving the Holy Spirit authority over your life. This has to be augmented with prayer, reading the Bible and seeking the will of God. 

Christianity pushes work not waiting on the Holy Spirit. 

The power of life in a believer comes from the inside. The believer must be anchored to Jesus through the Holy Spirit at all times. Concentrate on Jesus for every task in your life. The Holy Spirit teaches a believer the values of Jesus in doing the simple and routine things in life. 

Jesus wants to build a personal relationship with a believer built on faith not based on works or public acclaim.

Learn to wait on the Holy Spirit. Do not waste your time and energy on religious activities.

Be rooted and grounded in Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells believers the wind (Holy Spirit) blows where it desires and you can’t tell where it is coming from or where it is going. Build your life on this spiritual principle and you will do the works of Jesus.

This is the reality of a “born again” Christ follower!

Prayer is the most important task in the life of a Christ follower. Prayer builds a solid foundation with Jesus and creates a new lifestyle and priorities. 

Prayer is conversation with Jesus without a beginning or an end. 

The goal is to develop a personal and symbiotic relationship with Jesus. Prayer is communion with Jesus. Seek his desires for your life and not just asking for things. 

Pray in a private place without any motive to promote your prayer life to others.

Do not pray vain repetitions but pray according to the Word and the work of the Cross.

Pray each day for Jesus to cover you with His blood and reveal anything you are doing that is grieving the Holy Spirit.

Listen to the voice of God. He will guide your prayers and show you where change is needed. Prayer transforms your motives and attitudes to make you Christlike.

Ask Jesus to show you the people on His heart and then seek the Holy Spirit for how to pray according to the will of Jesus.

Jesus confronts sin to set people free. As you are praying for someone Jesus may lay the darkness upon you. This is a sign to ask the Holy Spirit how to pray to break the power of the bondage.

God may also choose to break the stronghold through intercession utilizing the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Intercession is intense and agonizing work for a believer.

Jesus is omniscient and knows every detail of your life from the past into the future. Prayer will provide you with the protection of Jesus against the troubles in the world and the darts of Satan.

Ask and you shall receive but ask for things in accord with God’s desires and prophesies. 

This narrative explains how Jesus prepares a believer for a New Testament ministry.

Jesus gives a believer a powerful revelation in the form of a vision or prophesy.  The believer gets excited and ready for the future. But nothing happens!

Then suddenly Jesus leads the believer into a season of suffering and adversity. Life is nothing like the vision from Jesus.

The believer gets battered every day by the people in his life and the tribulations of the world. The deprivation is overwhelming with no way of escape. 

God puts the believer into this nightmare to see if he can survive by unyielding faith in Jesus or give up hope and drift into an empty lackluster life.

Jesus needs to shape a believer into the life of a disciple so he (or she) can fulfill the purposes of the vision. Most Christ followers can understand the vision but unfortunately they lack the character of Jesus to be successful.

Jesus knows a human being better than he knows himself. The training may seem cruel and harsh at times but is designed to overcome the weaknesses or dispositions in his genetic makeup. The goal is to develop the spiritual attributes of a disciple and prepare him to launch a successful ministry.

The work of the Cross is designed to crucify a believers fleshly desires and ego and replace with the humility and unconditional love of Jesus.

When the time comes to begin the vision Jesus will place a powerful anointing on the disciple and equip him with the gifts of the Spirit.

“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” Isaiah 55:6

Isaiah composed a beautiful invitation to come to God and experience His abundance. He explains God’s nature and why humans cannot understand Him.

I have taken excerpts from Isaiah chapter 55 in writing this narrative. 

It is impossible to understand God with a human mind. 

God says My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. 

God is perfect and without sin. And, He has no ego. This contrasts with a human being who is born with an inner condition to please self and defy God.

God goes on to explain “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.”

God operates in a spiritual realm and a set of laws that are contrary to the world. As believers, we live in the world but we are not of the world.

Isaiah uses an analogy about the weather to explain how God provides food for His people.

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.”

The words of God come down from heaven and provide nourishment for believers. Isaiah says why spend your money for food or wine when you can have the bread of life.

Isaiah explains how God’s word is alive and powerful. “He says so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

The word of God will never return empty to heaven. God has engineered the Word to be sent through the Holy Spirit to touch all those people he has designated for the gift of salvation. 

The word shall prosper in causing many to accept Jesus and become new creatures filled with Living Water.

Some will accept the word fully, some will hear but disregard, and some will be blind to the truths of God. 

The question is how can a human being understand God’s thoughts and actions? It requires a lot of prayer, reading the Bible and listening for the voice of God. Most importantly, you must have a strong passion to walk by faith and obey God. 

The Christ follower lives for Jesus and vigilantly seeks the will of God. He submits to the authority of the Holy Spirit who is sealed inside all believers.

Come to Jesus and your life will never be the same!

The challenge is to ask yourself “Do you seek out Jesus for help with all your needs and troubles?” Is this a consistent lifestyle or a random practice? Or, is Jesus just there for calamities?

David’s lifestyle was to seek out God for every need. He believed God was his keeper and would preserve him from all evil. He believed God would preserve his every step going out and coming in each day.

This passion for God has to be deeply implanted in your heart and soul. The passion comes from knowing God, hearing His voice and witnessing His greatness and glory. 

David explains God never sleeps and is always your keeper. He shall preserve you from all evil. He states the Lord is your shade at your right hand and the sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

The powerful protection of God is expressed in the Bible by “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” 

These promises come true to those who seek the will of Jesus and walk by faith believing in His promises. 

Taking Jesus seriously will change your life and you will experience the presence of the Living Christ.  

Jesus can do for you what you can never do for yourself!

“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”

John 16:8

Jesus will be departing shortly to be reunited with His Father and no one asks Him where He is going. 

The disciples and those around Him are sad to lose Jesus and His greatness and glory. They are beginning to feel abandoned.

Jesus explains that it is to their advantage that He leaves the earth. If He does not leave the Helper (Holy Spirit) will not come to His followers but if He departs Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to all His followers.

The Holy Spirit is the life of Jesus so His followers will be able to live in the presence of Jesus because the Holy Spirit will be sealed in all believers. 

Jesus explains the purpose of the Holy Spirit. He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.

The sin is not seeking the will of God above all else and failing to walk by faith believing in the promises of Jesus. 

Jesus will be with His Father and they will see Him no longer. They don’t understand that the righteousness of God does not disappear because Jesus is gone. The Holy Spirit transforms a believer into the character of God.

The death of Jesus on the Cross created the judgment of God to fall on Satan, the ruler of the world. The judgment of God is over all those who seek the riches of the world or attempt to live by the values of the world.

The Holy Spirit is the perfect solution for a believer to live with Jesus who is in Heaven.

The Christ follower who submits to the authority of the Holy Spirit will hear the voice of Jesus and live in His presence. He will be able to draw upon all the powerful attributes of Jesus. He will be protected from evil by the omniscient wisdom and guidance of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit brings glory and honor to God!

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:12-14

The words of Jesus in this excerpt from the Book of John are very difficult for a human mind to understand. It is easy for a believer to accept “That he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also.” We have factual evidence in our own lives and the lives of others beginning with the apostles at Pentecost and through history with Christ followers.

The next statement by Jesus is almost impossible to grasp “And greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

The possible explanation might be the greater works have not happened yet but will take place in the future. 

The better explanation is the greater works will take place because Jesus is in heaven with His Father and a believer can pray to Jesus for a miracle and He will make it happen. Elijah prayed many hours for God to stop the rain and then after three years he prayed for rain. God honored both prayers. 

Always pray in the name of Jesus so the Son may be glorified in the Father and ask the Holy Spirit to frame the prayer in the will of Jesus. 

Make your prayers bold and ask for big things that conform to the prophesies of Jesus.

Prayer is a lifetime conversation with Jesus and has no limits. Praying is essential for a Christ follower.

Commit your works at the start of each day to Jesus and ask for His wisdom and protection.

Be sure to listen for the voice of Jesus. He speaks to believers through the mind of Christ. And, remember one day is like a thousand years with God so learn to be patient.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

It depends.

The change in your life is in direct relationship to your commitment to Jesus. 

If you are a Christian who defines the boundaries with Jesus and desires to live for self don’t expect a dynamic change.

The Christ follower who zealously seeks the will of God and makes Jesus the centerpiece of his life will become a new creature in Christ. He will be “born again” and transformed into the character of Jesus.

This has nothing to do with religion, keeping laws or doing works. It is about building a personal and endearing relationship with Jesus. The goal is to get to know Jesus, hear His voice and live in His presence.

The new creature in Christ will die to self and live for Jesus. All things become new and his old life fades away. He thinks differently and has a new perspective on life. He becomes a strong witness to those around him.

The new creature in Christ walks by faith and not by what he sees with his eyes. He understands God calls things that don’t exist as if they did. This is how God created the world and every living creature.

The Christ follower understands without faith it is impossible to please God. He accepts without any doubt that Jesus has power and dominion over the heavens and earth and nothing is impossible for Him. 

The Christ follower is willing to lay down his life for Jesus. He walks by faith believing in the promises of God. He is obedient to Jesus regardless of the personal cost or lack of logic. He believes Jesus is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him out. 

The new creature takes sin seriously and seeks repentance and the blood of Jesus to make him clean. He asks Jesus every day to show him anything he is doing that grieves the Holy Spirit.

The new creature recognizes he is just a pilgrim or foreigner passing through the world. He has severed the ties to the world and lives under the authority of the Holy Spirit.

The walk with Jesus is unpredictable and will be controversial about the attitudes of the world.

God can make radical changes in the life of a believer. He told Abraham to leave his homeland and travel to an unknown destination. He lived in tents with Sarai and Lot.

The new creature belongs to Jesus. He can do with him as He pleases!