I continue my thoughts from Monday and yesterday from this past Sunday's message at CrossRoads Baptist Church on Romans 12:2.
Ms. Bertha Smith was a single lady who served our Lord and Southern Baptists as a missionary in China for forty-one years. Our church is being blessed by one of her books as we read "How the Spirit Filled my Life."
In this book she shares about people repenting of their sins and being filled with the Holy Spirit. She listed four evidences she experienced:
1. Holiness - a separation from the world. She further stated, "When the Holy Spirit began to magnify Christ, all worldly pleasures lost its flavor."
2. The Bible became a new book
3. I wanted everybody to be saved.
4. Prayer became communion with God.
Her point was the Holy Spirit didn't just fill you and nothing would happen externally. Just the opposite - the inner filling always resulted in a noticeable change (both to you and others).
Don't jump ahead and judge me that all I am wanting is an outward change. I will deal tomorrow and Friday with just the opposite. If the outward change is our goal, then persons who are only moral, law-abiding citizens could be confused as believers. The outward change is not our goal or motive; rather, it is a by-product but one that is not a choice, but a given.
More tomorrow....
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