Pointers from One Monitor to Another
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The more conscious and aware you are that you are cooperating with the Holy Spirit, believing Him to be in control of the process, the more efficient the process becomes. The nature of the bootstrap process is that its similar to learning a language: tough at the beginning when you've got next to nothing to work with, but gets easier as you progress and acquire new knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Stuff that took months to grasp will eventually take days, if not hours. Keep at it. The results are worth it.
The heart will not want to be controlled. Expect an initial fight that seems to make things get worse before they get better.
The Holy Spirit is not the flake in this process: YOU are. If it takes time to become effective, its the Holy Spirit wanting you to be sure, within yourself, that you are committed to the process. He's the one stuck in you, literally, and has suffered quite a bit from your cluelessness.
Never expect to never get a mental menu option to sin: That's the Holy Spirit being brutally honest with you, letting you know what IS in your heart. There is an option available that you can punch that cooperates with the Holy Spirit. You'll know its working when the intensity and footprint of the temptation gets smaller and smaller.
You're not any better off if you're a legalist with a disciplined heart: those guys tend to think they can control the process, and the Holy Spirit is more than happy to disabuse them of that delusion, and easily implements the lesson by doing precisely nothing.
Zero tolerance is the key. We don't believe it because we've failed too many times before. We failed because we had no clue as to how the process really works. We do now, so try again.
Read your Bible. Know the Law. Its your job to know what's in and out of tolerance, be aware of variances, identify them, and mark them for liquidation. Yes, I picked that word deliberately. If you treat sin like Stalin treated dissidents, who never saw a human relations problem that couldn't be solved by shooting people, you'll do just fine. At the same time, Stalin never shot most of those people personally, knowing the value of delegation. Leave the controlling to the Holy Spirit. He's Your Man In The Situation, and definitely knows what he's doing.
Keep your eyes and ears open for pointers from everywhere. I just thought up the Stalin analogy. Whatever it takes to get to zero tolerance for sin.
Truth speaks in many voices. The Holy Spirit can use those voices to lead us to all truth by using the body sense to tell us which voices to initially heed amid the cacaphony of the irrelevant and the false. Pay Attention! "Oh, that song blessed me!" "I was reading in my bible today and came across a verse that blessed me!" "I received a word of encouragement from a friend, and it blessed me!" "Wow! That sermon really moved me!" True enough, so dig deeper: what was it about that song, that verse, that word, that sermon, that moved you? Toss the dross and find the gold, even if its a single phrase, verse, sentence, or word. The choice you make to search deeper will be the feedback signal to the Holy Spirit that you're paying attention. That will result in Him tossing breadcrumb thoughts into the bitstream that you have to follow to get to the truth. You can take that to the bank, because that's His job.
Sometimes, the best menu option to punch happens to be tied to your feet.
Zero tolerance is for your own sin, not sinners or the sins of others. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Extend the privilege of tolerance to others as well as yourself. Symmetry is built deep into the core of the universe. Physicists go insane/crazy if they suspect that symmetry is violated. Personally, I cease processing. Embrace symmetry.
Stop thinking like a Greek. The Later Greeks feared the thought of Spirits from the Gods within them. They thought they were unworthy. Pentecost fizzled because people thought they were unworthy of the Spirit that is the fire at the core of the universe occupying them. That's the core of Gnostic thinking, and the Apostle John fought the gnostics like a tigress protecting her cubs. Stop thinking that the Holy Spirit can't possibly truly, really be within you. Believe that He is in you, and that the pursuit of intentional communication with Him will be rewarded. Conscious Cooperation is the key.
Start thinking like a Jew. Embrace the Spirit. Believe that things will change when He arrives on the scene in you. Cooperate and expect big things while practicing your part by working through the small things with him. Together. Recall the illustration of how good little hebrew boys and girls react while hearing the story of Samson when the Holy Spirit entered him. Be as those little children. Go and do likewise.
The best environment for the Spirit to work is brutal honesty. Eschew deliberate lies and self-deception. The Spirit blew away Ananias and Sapphira because they lied. Don't live a lie. Trust me on this one.
If you're part of a 12 step program and find that Symbiosis is working to defeat your weakness, then for all that is holy, DON'T QUIT! Stay in it! You need the honesty and self inspection it brings, the zero tolerance for the weakness you have, and the re-enforcement of zero tolerance for self-deception. The opportunities to pass this message on will be countless. Pass it on. It'll feel great. Trust me on this one too.
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