Between a Rock and a Hard Place
If you had never heard of “the Strait of Hormuz” before, you have no doubt heard about it now. Because of hostilities, one nation is impeding the flow of ocean vessels through this strait, with ships “trapped” both inside and outside the Persian Gulf. One of the key categories of products being held hostage is energy.
This newsletter is not about geopolitics, so the description above is illustrative of another energy problem. When we think about the members of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit, it is the Spirit who brings energy to the church’s and the believer’s life in order to enable us to do the will of God. It is not oil, though that emblem is used in the Bible. It is a spiritual energy, a spiritual enablement that allows us to serve in ways that would be impossible without such energy.
As oil and fertilizer are being held up by the hostilities around the Strait of Hormuz, so spiritual enablements are similarly obstructed by spiritual hostilities. We sometimes summarize these hostilities by referring to an unholy trinity: the world, the flesh, and the devil. All three of these work against the free flow of the Spirit’s energy into the life of the church and the life of the Christian.
Think with me for a minute about that listing of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: 22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.” Is the flow of such things ever impeded in your life? Of course it is. Why? Well, it could be different reasons, but they would find their root in sins of the flesh, or the influence of the world, or the opposition of the devil. And as sure as there are hostilities between tribes and nations in the world, there are spiritual hostilities opposing the work of the Spirit in our lives. Some of these are very, very close to home.
And it is that battle close to home, inside our own souls, that we should address first. Yes, it is convenient for us to blame the ungodliness of the world or the schemes of the devil, but in the end, without the flesh, those may not be so effective. What is flesh? It is you and I adopting a self-sufficient attitude toward the governance of our lives. We want to do what we want to do. We choose to set our own agenda. We make our own decisions without time and attention to what God wants. And it creates an energy blockade.
The problem is the problem of one’s own self, and it is through our own self-centeredness that we obstruct the Spirit with the “Strait of Me.” We are our own worst enemy, and we ourselves are the obstacle over which we stumble, obstructing the free flow of the Spirit’s energetic graces, such as the fruit of the Spirit.
The Reformers who broke from the Roman sacramental system had to study their Bibles and reformulate how it is that God’s grace flows to us. In my understanding of the sacramental system, one is given “chunks of grace” per sacrament performed or to which one submits. Go to confession, get a chunk of grace; last rites, get your final chunk. But the Bible describes other “means (conduits) of grace,” and they see these means as ways of adjusting our posture before God to seek the continual flow of His grace into our lives. Prayer is one of these means of grace, not a meritorious act, but a posture of supplication for God’s mercy and grace in our lives. Attention to God’s Word is a means also, as is the gathering of the people of God under the ministry of the Word, including participation in the ordinances of Baptism and Lord’s Table. All of these put the self in its proper place, with bowed head and bended knee to the One whom we worship. We do not worship ourselves or the church. We worship the Head of the Church, the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.
When we leave off from such personal and congregational practices, done honestly and humbly, we are in a position to enjoy the free flow of the Spirit’s energy that produces good things from above. May such straits be opened. May our hearts be open to what God wants to do in us and through us.
