Betwixt and Between
As Christians, each of us will experience struggle. We will struggle when we know the right thing to say or do, but we just cannot do it. It may be due to our pride, or a principle, or we are angry, or we just can’t accept a different perspective. We know something is wrong, but we are caught betwixt and between and it is so tough.
It is just like when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he decided to go the other way to Tarshish. Jonah knew the right thing to do, but he went his own way.
Have you ever been caught in a place where you knew what God was asking you to do, but you did something else instead? In the midst of it, you know what you are doing isn’t right, but you can’t stop. There is a power struggle going on inside of you and you are caught in between.
Where’s My Money?
It is just like this gangster whose bookie owed him $100,000. The bookie was deaf, so the gangster took along his accountant who knew sign language. He burst into the bookie’s office and said, “Tell this guy to give me my money!”
The accountant signed, “He wants his money.”
The bookie signed, “I don’t know where his money is.”
The accountant said, “Boss, he doesn’t know where your money is.”
“Ask him to tell me where my money is or I’ll kill him!”
The accountant dutifully signed, “He said that he means business. Where is his money?”
“I don’t know where his money is!” the bookie signed back.
“Boss, he said he doesn’t know where your money is.”
The gangster pulled out a big gun and cocked the hammer. He threatened, “Tell him I’m going to blow his brains out if he doesn’t tell me right now!”
The accountant signed, “Whoa, this guy means business. You better tell him or he is going to blow your brains out.”
The bookie signed back, “OK, OK, don’t shoot me! It is downstairs in the bottom left drawer of my desk.”
The accountant interpreted for the gangster, “He says he thinks you are an idiot and you don’t have the guts to blow his brains out!”
You see, when we are caught in-between, what do we do? It is a tough one. We get hold of something and we can’t let it go. It may be due to anger or pride, but we cannot let it go. We know it is ruining our marriage, but it is the principle of the thing! We are caught in-between! It is so stupid! We have a hold of something and it has a hold of us. Since we will all go through such struggles, we have to learn how to win.
Letting Go
Ring-tailed monkeys in Africa are a delicacy to the Zulus, but they are extremely difficult to catch because they are so agile. The Zulus found a way to do it. They get a gourd or a coconut and drill a little hole in it, just big enough for the monkeys to get their hands in. They hollow it out and put cooked rice into it. Then they tie a rope in the bottom to the base of a tree.
The monkeys come out of the tree and climb down because they smell the rice. They stick their hand in the gourd or coconut and grab the rice. But when they make a fist, they cannot get their hand out. They run up the tree until they come to the end of the rope. Then boing! They fall down! They still do not let go of the rice. Again and again, they run up, then boing! They fall down but continue to hold on to the rice. When the Zulus come along, they hit the monkeys. Kaboom! They then have monkey stew . . . with rice!
Isn’t that just like us sometimes? We get a hold of something and we just won’t let it go, even though we know it is killing us. It is messing up our relationship with our spouse and we are burning bridges with others, but our pride will not allow us to let go and we are caught in-between. We love God and we want God’s best. Yet, we wonder, “What am I doing?”
Power to Overcome
We often mess up our Christian lives, not because we are malicious or evil, but because we are frail and needy. We need a power beyond ourselves to win that fight. We need something that is bigger than we are. We need a power that is stronger than what we can conjure up on our own.
The Apostle Paul knew exactly what we are going through. He wrote:
“I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. But I can’t help myself … It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave …” (Rom 7:14-23 selected).
This struggle is not something new. We all wrestle with sin. God, the Author of freedom, can help us. He has a power bigger than our own which will free us from repeatedly losing that wrestling match. We need to pray, “This is not the life I want to live. I want God’s best, but somehow I keep losing the battle. Lord, please give me strength greater than my own.”
God’s Gift to Us
God does not deprecate, demean, or devalue us for our frailty. He loves us so much. Because He is our Creator and the Author of freedom, He gives us a gift to help us in the midst of our frailty.
“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NASB).
Power is from the Greek word dunamis, which is where we get the word dynamite. It is a power, an explosion, ability, capacity, and capability far greater than our own. God says He is going to give us a dunamis; a power far greater than our own ability. He is going to give us power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us.
He gives us this power so we will be His witnesses. The word witness comes from the Greek word martus, from which we get the word martyr.
A Living Sacrifice
Jesus is saying that He gives us the power to be a martyr. Does He mean for us to lay down our life? Sort of, but not as a dead martyr.
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice… (Rom 12:1 NASB).
Yes, we are to offer ourselves as a sacrifice, but not a dead one. Instead, He speaks of a living sacrifice. So, the Holy Spirit gives to us the power to lay down our lives.
Free Will
One of the greatest gifts we will receive can be at the same time, our greatest curse. That gift is free will. Free will is our ability to even reject our Creator.
God has given that gift, the right of free choice, free will, only to the part of His creation which is made in His image. All the rest of His creation – whether animate or inanimate – really does not have the free will that man has. Animals are hard-wired with instinct. Their migration patterns, eating habits, and their reproductive patterns are all basically the same from day one. They do the same thing over and over again. That is why people say, “Well, these birds have migrated this way for thousands of years.”
Mankind is given free will to better himself or to destroy himself. God has given you and me free will to advance or to retreat, to bring peace or to bring war. Free will could be our greatest gift or our greatest curse.
The most negative part of the free will that God has given to us allows man to even reject his own Maker. We see that all over the world today. Rejecting God is one of outcomes of the gift of free will. Rejecting God will destroy us spiritually, but not necessarily physically. We can live as an atheist who rejects God, but it will ultimately destroy us for eternity.
Sometimes we freely choose the impermanence of life, this life here on this earth, over the permanence of eternity. We think it is fine. Sometimes that even happens in our own hearts as Christians when we know the right thing to do, but our free will is stubborn within us. By our actions or attitudes, we actually reject what our Maker is saying to us. We know it is not right. We know it violates God will, but we just can’t stop ourselves. We need a power greater than ourselves so that we can do what we know is right.
In the story of Pinocchio, Gepetto, was carving this little boy out of wood. Lo and behold, when he carved an arm, whoops, the arm started to move around. Quickly he carved his head and his eyes and, whoops, the eyes opened. Gepetto thought, “This is amazing!” He carved one of the legs and the leg started moving around. Then when he turned around to pick up another tool, Pinocchio’s freed leg kicked him in the behind. He turned around and he said something really profound: “I am not even done creating you and you are already a rebellious child.”
That is us. We are Pinocchio! We use that free will to go against God’s will. As soon as we think we have a right to do whatever we want to do, we can reject even the One who created us.
The War Inside
When that happens there is a war inside of us as Christians until the day we go home to eternity. It causes such an inconsistency of life and burnt bridges in our relationships, because we make dumb decisions. Later on we think, “Why did I do that? It is not what I want. Who will free me from this power that seems to keep me in its grasp?”
God understands and says, “I am going to give you the greatest power of all. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you so that you can be a living martyr.”
The Holy Spirit comes upon us to give us the power; the power to lay down our right to override God. We have that right; we have free will. We need a power greater than ourselves so the Holy Spirit comes and says, “I’m going to give you the power to die to the right to override God.”
True Freedom Comes
I pray, “Oh, please help me to do that so that I don’t have to wrestle and debate with God and fight and get pulled by the enemy. I want to be freed from that.”
The Holy Spirit is given for that very purpose and if we will accept His assignment, He will give us the power to lay down our right to override God. Do you understand the freedom that comes when we do not have to worry about going against God’s will? We get rid of all the internal fighting; all the debating with ourselves; all of it. Do you know why? Do you know the most important thing that is not for sale?
OUR WILL IS NOT FOR SALE
For many years, before I accepted Christ, my will ruled supreme in my life. I would do whatever I wanted to do. Nobody could tell me what to do! I thought I was a free person. I thought that was freedom, but I had the wrong definition of freedom.
If we believe a false definition, that perception can be dangerous. We think freedom means we can do whatever we want. Our flesh, lust, pornography, marketing ideas of the world, keeping up with the Joneses, some babe or hunk could all lobby for our will. So our will is being pulled by all kinds of forces and we could easily succumb to things of the flesh.
Basically I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. My will reigned supreme. I couldn’t override the lobbying of my flesh. I was ruled by it.
What happens when the Captain of my soul comes into my heart and I receive Christ as my Lord and Savior? Now, no longer does my will reign supreme, but His Lordship reigns supreme.
If I am not able to lay down my right to override Him, there will be internal battling all the time.
In that situation, the Bible says that our will wins because God does not fight with us. We must trust and submit to Him, or we choose to follow our own will. We can win, but it will be the saddest victory we will ever gain.
Know the Truth
We need a power beyond ourselves to help us lay down our will or our right to override God. When the Holy Spirit comes and gives us that ability, the Lord reigns supreme. There is a true freedom because freedom is not defined as all those things we can do, whenever we want to. On the contrary, freedom is defined as all those struggles we do not have to struggle with anymore. We are free from those internal battles. We are free when we get that freedom which is not based on the devil’s deception, but on the Word of God which says “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
We are free from all of that wrestling and debating with God or with the enemy. The Lord says that the only way is to receive the power of the Holy Spirit who gives us the strength to lay down our lives once and for all; to lay down our will and be moved by God. We do not want to override God. We need power to let go because otherwise, like Paul, we will hate the things we often do. As we yield our will to the Holy Spirit, God says, “I will give you power.”
We may think that if we lay down our will, we will be like a prisoner; all bound up. Do you think Jesus is bound up? On the contrary, He is the Author of freedom. Listen to what is said about the Lord:
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38 NASB).
Jesus said, “I have no will of My own except that which the Father has given to Me. My will is the Father’s will.”
Do you know why there is such a freedom, a power, an assurance, a confidence, and support from heaven?
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30 NASB).
Captain of Our Soul
When a captain in the Navy is not on his ship, the executive officer calls all the shots. He rules the roost. However, when the captain comes on board, the executive officer’s responsibilities change. He does not call the shots any more. His role is now to carry out the wishes and the commands of the captain. He carries them out without debate, without wrestling, without struggle, and without question. His role is to take the commands of the captain and make sure they are obeyed by the crew.
The same thing is true with our will. Before the Captain of our souls entered, our will ran our ship. But when the Captain of our souls (Christ Himself) comes in and we receive Him as Lord and Savior, something has to happen with our will. The executive officer is now to carry out the will of our Father. That is it. There is no other responsibility.
Do we have the ability to do that? Not in our own strength. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to lay down our right to override God. When that happens, a grand freedom comes into our life. The older I get, the more I realize that the less of a vote I have on the matter, the more freedom I have.
God says that people who understand this power of the Holy Spirit in their lives will be called His own:
“For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother” (Matt 12:50 NASB).
The power of the Holy Spirit has been given to us so that we have the strength to lay down our right to override God. That is free will. We can override God, but we do not want that. We want His will in our life. It is going to require something much greater than we can conjure up ourselves, so the Holy Spirit has been given to us. That is His sole assignment.
Sometimes we look at the phrase: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” and we think this only refers to the power of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and the giving of gifts. The gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 like miracles, faith, tongues, prophecy, and others are part of what the Holy Spirit has come to give us. But His primary mission is to give us the power to lay down our right to override God’s commands.
If we do not understand that, then we can be Pentecostal but still follow our own will. We know of even Pentecostals who have fallen into immorality and all kinds of avarice. How could that happen? It is because somewhere, their will overrode God’s commands. We can be filled with gifts, but if we misunderstand why the power of the Holy Spirit has been given to us, we will wrestle with God whenever our will conflicts with God’s. We will never be free.
So the first reason the Holy Spirit has been given is to help us to remember that our will is not for sale.
Already Sold
Some time ago I was going on an extended trip and I wanted to clear out some things. I had a one man canoe, so I decided to put the canoe up for sale. It was worth about $2,700 but I advertised it for $2,500, just to get rid of it.
One lady came to look at it, pulled out of her pocket a wad of $100 bills (20 of them) and offered, “I’ll give you $2,000 cash right now!”
My eyes got big and I replied, “All right, you’ve got a deal!”
She loaded up the boat and off she went. I had the wad of green.
Not even an hour later a man pulled up in a pick-up. “I’m here to see the boat that you have for sale for $2,500 because that is exactly what I want.”
“Sorry,” I informed him. “I sold it less than an hour ago.”
He said, “No way! I was going to give you not only full price; I was going to give you a check for $2,700 because that is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
“Oh no, no, don’t say that! I would love to sell it to you but I can’t because it is already sold. I would love to sell it to you, but someone already bought it. Sorry.”
Our will cannot be for sale if it is already sold; if somebody already bought it. Jesus came to purchase us by the blood that He shed on the Cross. When we understand that we are not our own and that we have been bought with a price, we cannot sell out to something else.
If we understand that the power of the Holy Spirit will remind us of this, we realize a freedom that we never realized before. When temptation comes and someone gives us an offer: “Well, I’ll give you x-amount of happiness;” we can say, “Sorry. Already sold!”
Children of God
You see, there is a freedom that comes when we understand that our will is not for sale. If we think it is for sale, we will wrestle the rest of our life. The power of the Holy Spirit has come so that we can say, “No, I am His witness or His martyr in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria …” In other words, wherever we are, that is who we are. It is not a put-on. It is not a program. It is not a character that we kind of use. It is just who we are. It is our DNA. We are bought with a price and that’s it.
There is a freedom and a confidence that comes into our life when we realize who we are. That is our DNA. If we wrestle with that identity, we will be wrestling for the rest of our life. We are the children of God. We have been bought with a price. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to give us the strength to lay down our right to override God.
Some people may think that when we lay down that free will and receive a new freedom from moral struggles, then we must be pretty weak-willed now. They think we are spineless people because we have laid down our free will. God does not want us to get weak-willed. On the contrary, He actually wants us to strengthen our will.
He wants us to strengthen our will to do the right thing, not to override Him. Our will is like an executive officer. It is to carry out the orders of the Commander or the Captain. It is to make sure that whenever the crew tries to lobby for something else, our will overrides them.
God does not give us the power of the Holy Spirit to be weak-willed. We have the power to override our flesh.
STRENGTHEN YOUR WILL TO OVERRIDE THE FLESH, NOT THE LORD
In the past, we would use our will to override God’s will and submit to the flesh. Now we are to submit to the Lord and override the flesh. That is what brings freedom.
How do we make that switch?
Before Christ, it was the other way around. We would override God and submit to the flesh. To make that switch, we need the power of the Holy Spirit that is greater than we are. It is not re-doing part of our life; it is a full transformation.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor 5:17 NASB).
How do we get this full transformation? It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise we will wrestle with our flesh and we will lose and feel terrible about it. So God says, “I will give you the power of the Holy Spirit and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be a martyr.” We are to lay down our right to override God and to pick up and strengthen our will to override the flesh.
We know, as God’s people, if we are too impetuous as the Scripture says, “An inheritance gained hurriedly at the beginning will not be blessed in the end” (Prov 20:21 NASB).
So we say, “Alright God, will You help me to trust You. You wouldn’t demean or deprecate us because of our frailty. Instead You will give us a gift and if we trust You and yield our will to You then You will make us the people You want us to be, and there will be a freedom in life.”
I have to remind myself everyday when I come to that choice. “Holy Spirit, give me again the power to lay down my right to override God’s will. I won’t override Your will and I will override the flesh.” The strength and power comes for us to do that. Then we begin to understand what it means to be a person led by the Spirit of God.
The Potter and the Clay
Jeremiah 18 paints a little picture of that. It talks about a potter’s house. God said to Jeremiah, “Go to the potter’s house and observe how the potter is able to do everything he wants to do if the clay will submit to the potter. On the other hand, if the clay rejects the potter because it has the right to do that, the clay is useless.”
We are to be like moldable clay towards the Lord. We are to be clay not too hard or too soft. That is the balance that only the Holy Spirit can give to us. When we understand that the power of the Holy Spirit has been given to help us to lay down our right to overrule God, we will have the power to overrule the flesh and overcome the struggles.
God understands that sometimes we are in that fight and we lose – not because we are evil but because we are frail. He gives us a power beyond ourselves. He gives us a gift. His love for us is so great that He waits for us to trust Him; to see what He has in store for us.
The Boy and His Boat
There was a boy who spent days carving a boat. He meticulously handcrafted it, painted it, put little sails on it and balanced it just right. In the bow, he carved his initials on it. After it was painted and beautifully done, he sailed it down the little streams and creeks by his house. Even when the waters would rise, that little boat could navigate itself and cut right through the currents. He would run downstream and pick it up and do it again and again, spending hour upon hour with his beloved boat.
One day the rains were harder than normal and the stream turned into a torrent. He thought, “My boat is still stronger than the currents.” He ran outside in the rain and sailed that boat. It would cut right through the currents and stayed upright as far as he could see. He ran down, picked it up and let it go again. He was so delighted with this boat.
Down the stream there was a covered culvert 10-15 yards long. He thought, “Oh, it will sail through then I’ll run to the other side of the culvert and retrieve it.” So he let that boat go and it cut right into that culvert. He ran to the other end and waited and waited, but his beloved boat never appeared.
Frustrated he thought, “What am I going to do?” He ran up to the entrance of the culvert then to the exit. He checked again and again, and then ran home. He got a flashlight and peered into the dark culvert, but to no avail. He had lost his boat. He walked home, sad and discouraged. That night, he couldn’t sleep.
A week or two later, he was walking in town and he saw his boat on display in a dusty pawn shop window. Quickly he ran in, “Sir, that’s my boat! You found it!”
“The boat in the window? It’s for sale.”
“For sale? That’s my boat. I made it.”
“For $18.00 it is your boat. That’s what the price is.”
“No, I built that boat. I painted it. I even have my initials on the bow.”
“It doesn’t matter. Finders are keepers; losers are weepers. Eighteen bucks!”
He protested, “It is my boat. I made it!”
“Eighteen dollars!” was the store owner’s final words.
The little boy walked out so discouraged, but he wouldn’t let discouragement win. He went from house-to-house and asked, “Can I sweep your porch? Can I rake your lawn? Can I wash your dog? You just tell me what to do.”
He garnered dollar bills and coins and after a day and a half, he had $18.00 in an old sock. He went back to the store, put the sock on the counter and said, “Sir, $18.00. I counted it twice.”
That owner counted the coins and bills, and said, “Yep, you’re right, $18.00. Alright, now you can take the boat.”
The little boy scooped up that beloved boat of his and ran as fast as he could away from that mean old man. He sat under a tree and hugged that boat. “I am going to take better care of you than ever before because now I own you twice. Not only did I make you, but I bought you back.”
That is the love that God has for us. Not only did He make us, He bought us back. When we understand that kind of love that God has for us, then we understand the importance of letting Him shape us. But we as humans do not have that power by ourselves. For some reason, we want to grab onto the reins and not let go. So God gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to help us lay down our right to override God, and to have the strength to override the flesh. When we catch that, we are beginning to understand what it means to walk in the power of the Spirit of God. We want to be that kind of people.
