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ACTS 29 TODAY

coming to the knowledge of the TRUTH

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THE EARNEST OF OUR INHERITANCE

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Notice what else Paul says in Second Corinthians 5:5, as

he encompasses the entire ministry of the Holy Spirit in

our lives in this one simple statement: God gave us the

earnest of the Spirit.

To find out more detail about the Holy Spirit’s ministry

as the earnest of our inheritance,we have to go back to

Romans 8. Paul says in essence, “It doesn’t matter if

you’re imprisoned in a body that is capable of sin. Sure,

you’re still trapped here in hope of a glorified body. But

you don’t have to wait alone — you have the earnest of

the Spirit. And this is how the Holy Spirit carries out

that ministry.”

If you’re at all familiar with the real-estate business,

you know that “earnest money” is a token of your

sincerity to make the purchase. It is money against the

promised possession.

Well, when you were born again, God said, “I’m going to

give you a little bit of Heaven to go to Heaven with,

because when this purchase is finished, I want you, the

promised possession, to come home to be with Me.” So

God put His “earnest money” — the Holy Ghost — down

on you against the promised possession. In other words,

God sent the Holy Ghost as the earnest of our

inheritance to guarantee us three things:

1.The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee of the power to

fulfill your ministry hereon earth.He offers Himself in

edification through the supernatural language of

tongues to pray the plan of God into your life. He is

your only true promise of power and of divine direction

and leadership to fulfill your ministry. His is the only

earnest that will see you through. No other path holds

that guarantee.

2.He is your guarantee of a glorified body.

3.He is the power to finally deliver the purchased

possession — you — to God as He brings you on home to

Heaven.

So the earnest of the Spirit guarantees to help you

fulfill your ministry, to deliver you to your glorified

body, and to bring you home to Heaven. That is God’s

guarantee to you: If you follow Him, He will never lose

His earnest money against the promised possession.

Never.

As you use that basic diversity of tongues called

tongues for personal edification, you begin to instigate

the earnest of the Spirit. At that level, the Holy Spirit

starts to deal with all of your problems, no matter how

bad they are. If you keep yielding to His work in you, He

will deliver you out of all of them.

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The ‘Ministry of the Earnest

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Paul describes how the Holy Spirit carries out His

“ministry of the earnest” in Romans8:26:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we

know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the

Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings

which cannot be uttered.

We know from our earlier discussion that the word

“infirmities” refers to our inability to produce results

because of the limitations imposed on us by the flesh.

That’s why we who have the first fruits of the Spirit

groan out of our righteous spirits — we desire that

these limitations be removed. And the Holy Spirit in

like manner helps our infirmities.

I appreciate the Holy Spirit’s help, because I found out

long ago that I’m not too smart when it comes to

producing results in spiritual matters. For example,

when I look at a crip-pled, deformed child in a

wheelchair and come face to face with my inability

through unbelief to produce results, my righteous spirit

groans inside of me.

If I knew how to pray as I ought, that child in the

wheelchair would rise up whole and normal and walk.

So the Holy Spirit has to help my inability to produce

that result.

You see, we all have a call and a place in God’s plan,

even that severely handicapped child in the wheelchair.

What glad tidings should we be preaching to that child?

“Little believer, you don’t have to be that way anymore,

because that wasn’t in God’s plan. You have a divine call

just like I do. And unless the Church can help set you

free of that condition, you will never fulfill that call as

God intended.”

If that isn’t our message, then what good is the Gospel?

Is it only for good-looking people who have money in

their pockets and drive a Lexus? Do we think that a

little deformed child is any less called by God than

ourselves?

The preacher’s message should be “Captive, you don’t

have to be captive anymore. Blind,you don’t have to be

blind anymore. Poor, you don’t have to be poor

anymore. Prisoner, you don’t have to be locked up in

your own body anymore.”

If that isn’t the preacher’s message, did he stop where it

was comfortable enough to live the good life, forgetting

the desperate needs lying just outside his comfort zone?

Doesn’t he care about prayer? Is he so caught up in the

cares of this world that he thinks he can excuse him-

self? No excuse will hold water on that day when he

stands before Jesus expecting a big, fat reward, and

Jesus asks him, “Why didn’t you endure in prayer?”

This is a realm of which few of us have any

understanding at all. When faced with some-thing like a

wheelchair case, we may say, “Well, I’m just going to

pray and believe God.” But if we really believed God

when we prayed for that person, why didn’t the person

get healed?No one knows — not even the person in the

wheelchair. But I’ll tell you who does know Holy Spirit.

And as the earnest of our inheritance, He is sent to help

us in our inability to produce results!

What does this have to do with intercession? Well, it

wasn’t until I had been praying hour after hour in

tongues for about two years that I began to experience

the deep intercessional groanings of the Spirit coming

from deep within my spirit as He willed.

I wondered why I hurt inside, so God spoke to my spirit:

“Do you like the plan the devil has for the world?”

I answered, “No, I don’t! In fact, I hurt inside.”

He said, “Yes, you are groaning out of your righteous

spirit for the culmination of all things and for the

redemption of your body. You are groaning to see this

whole horrible mess come to an end.”

I said, “Yes, Sir, you’re right!”

I began to experience hurt that came from deep inside

of me every time I walked away from someone in a

wheelchair who didn’t get healed. I would know beyond

a shadow of a doubt that Jesus had borne that person’s

sicknesses and pains, yet I’d feel the limitations

imposed on me by the flesh. Or I would hurt inside

when I saw entire civilizations starving to death in

plain view of the world.

I would want to do something about that person’s

crippled condition or the sad plight of those

desperately poor nations — but I couldn’t in my own

strength! However, the Holy Spirit could as He moved

on my spirit with tongues of deep, intercessional

groanings, activated severally as He willed.

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until next time

LARRY