Drink Him???

Why do the preachers tell us to ‘drink of the spirit’? What on earth do they mean? Can you tell me how to drink something that doesn’t ‘physically’ exist? Can you show me what it is like to ‘drink’ of something that is not of this world? I can think on this all day, and argue with it all day long too. We’re good at that aren’t we? Arguing that is, with ourselves, with God, with those around us about what is and what should be. I’ve been arguing for years; mostly with myself and God. I don’t do much of the arguing with other people type thing, although, admittedly I can be quite hard headed, so if I’ve ever argued with you, please forgive me if I have offended you.

Ok, so back to ‘why drink?’, “Got Spirit?” (I can come up with cheesy Christian slogans all day long, don’t tempt me...). But really, when I started to think all about the Spirit of God, and what His purpose is, what it is to ‘be in God’ and what it means to ‘be saturated’ yet also to ‘drink’, it started to dawn on me about what it is that this all means. I guess it’s probably a little deeper than I’m going to hopefully explain it here and now, but I might be able to scratch the surface of some things for myself. I’ve also noticed that I’m writing a lot right now, and yet I’m leaving those things that I’ve written on paper only, and not walking them out. So, I am not openly calling myself a hypocrite, because I never say I’m perfect, Lord knows I’m furthest from it. I think it was Paul who said “I am the greatest of all sinners…” I can agree with him (as in “I am…” not “yes Paul, you are…”) Anyways, here’s a quick challenge to myself and you (if there is a you in the world reading this) that we need to seriously start taking what God has revealed to us and put it into practice. We need not to just simply realize what is happening in this world, or in ourselves or in the Kingdom of Heaven and share it, tell everyone, but to actually live it out. That is one of the reasons I admire my pastor’s John & Carol so much, because they live out what they preach. They aren’t perfect, none of us are, and if anyone says they are, I’ll slap ya, and if anyone gives John or Carol heat for someone saying they aren’t perfect, I’ll slap ya too, they are the closest and greatest model for intimacy with God that I have ever seen in any persons, they inspire me more than you could know, and I love them dearly. Well well well, where did that sentimental moment come from J…I’ll have you know I’m sitting in this big part of a cruise boat practically in tears thinking about the Spirit of God, how he shows us things, and yet we sit and write about it, talk about it, and so few of us put this stuff into practice. Knowledge alone will kill a man…wisdom is using what you know to live how you ought to live. Remember that. People who carry knowledge are given just another reason to argue. The Pharisees were great at arguing, cause they had their faces in books all day, they were brilliant, studying the stuff from day one of their small fragile lives, yet they never put it to practice, they thought that knowledge was everything. Faith without works…. (need I say more?)

And once again… Rob off topic, say it ain’t so.

The Spirit of God, I will now compare Him to water. It’s been done before, so shouldn’t be a major stretch of the imagination for you. I need you to think about water for a while then I will later relate it back to the Spirit. We can all agree that we, as humans need water to live, right? Water seems to be one of those things that we must have, within a few days we die without it. So, we can also agree that not only do we need it to live, but without it we are dead and it will be a very quick decline into death if we do not get water into our system. (for the time being, let’s leave fasting out of this, I agree with you all that ‘all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me’ so we will, for now, leave fasting out of this simply because my point will make much less sense if you come back at it with “yah, but what if God tells me to fast water for a week, I can do it”. First of all, I don’t know if he will say that to you, second, make sure you ask someone that you are in counsel with about that one, and thirdly I’m comparing water to the Holy Spirit, and I know that God will not ask you to fast the Holy Spirit, so we are safe for now.)
Water not only keeps us alive from the inside, but we need it on the outside. If we drink water, our body is lubricated from the inside and we are somewhat ok, but if we have water on the outside, our skin stays clean and alive. Water on the inside doesn’t mean that the outside will fully live, and water on the outside definitely doesn’t mean that you are ok on the inside either. What I’m trying to say is that without water you are dead.

Water in of itself is great to look at, it holds such beauty. One could go to the beach of the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Antigua (I say there because it happens to be where this cruise boat I am on is parked…so don’t’ get mad at me for that J…oh, by the way, my tan is awesome). Anyways, close your eyes, now you can’t read what I’ve typed. Shoot…ok, read this part, and don’t close your eyes, and let your imagination draw the picture for you, if you have a hard time visualizing with your eyes open let me know and we’ll pause for a moment so you can picture this after you read it. I know you love it that I just wrote that like you are all here with me and I was speaking to you….now let’s get moving, class is almost over.
Picture yourself standing on a beach, palm trees around you, beautiful sand for as far as your eyes can see, and then you look out over the waters. It catches your eye because the sun just shone off of the water from where it is off in the distance, and the brightness of it all almost blinded you, but the beauty of it just captured you. You look around, and no one is around, so you sit down on the beach (not that no one being there determines whether you will sit down or not, it just makes the story a little nicer to visualize, go with me would ya). As you sit down and stare out into the distance of the waters, you are absolutely captured by it’s beauty, and you wonder why. It’s simply just water isn’t it? Yet something about these waters just envelopes you and you continue to gaze into the distance. You find yourself letting go of all your thoughts, of all your inhibitions, of all your fears and worries, because for some reason you have just found peace, and it’s penetrated your very soul. Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, yet you never notice the time slip away as the sun slowly sets and the moon rises, the colour of the water changes a million times over as you stair out over it, letting it saturate your eyes. The night is no less beautiful, as you don’t miss a moment of this. Long into the night you stay there, sitting on this beach staring into the distance of this beauty you couldn’t describe if you needed, because it’s not only something you see with your eyes, but it is something that you have started to feel in your soul. There is something beyond visual that this water does to you, it calms you, it brings you peace, and it seems to restore your soul.

You could go home, but you’ve only experienced one facet of this water, the visual, the outer part of its beauty. You have been there and seen how good it is, tasted of its visual beauty so to speak, and you could easily go home and feel quite content with your day and night. You think about the sunrise, and you could stay for that, will it be as spectacular as the sun set? Will it look the same, or will the winds move the water and make the reflections all that different this coming day, will the water ever be truly the same if you were to stay here forever? One day the waters could be violent and rough, taking on a life of it’s own, moving to and froe, making all things that get it it’s way moved and broken before it’s power. It’s not just nice to look at but it is powerful and awesome, fearful yet peaceful, beautiful and lovely. This water takes on more than you ever imagined, it seems to move like it’s got thought of its own. But like I said, you could leave, walk away, and be quite satisfied by your day.

But would you really be satisfied?

Let’s journey down ‘leaving’ for a moment.
You get up and walk away from the water, you have enjoyed your time there, but you don’t want to get wet, you don’t want to step in, it looks frightful to be honest, and really, you don’t have time, you must carry on in your day, in your life. Life can’t be all this beautiful all the time can it? You must walk on, you must get back to your busy. You leave, and all the day long you sit there and wonder what it would’ve been like had you gotten in the water, and you can see nothing other than the waves crashing on the shore, you’ve seen it’s beauty, you are contaminated by it’s awesomeness. You are alive in ways you never thought possible. The next day is the same, oh if you could only get back to that beauty, but no, you must work on, you must take care of the ‘things of this world’. You can’t take a place like that with you, it’s a once in a life time thing, or maybe a ‘vacation’ at best. A few days go by of the same thing, and you don’t even realize that in those days you are thinking about what you saw and what you experienced less and less and eventually you are not thinking about it at all. You sit in your cubicle, or at your desk, or stuck in traffic and you have let it all slip away. You work, you sleep, you argue with the wife, because you’ve let the peace and the comfort that the beauty of that moment gave you, you’ve let it all slip away, and you didn’t want to, you didn’t mean to, oh Lord you didn’t mean to, you would have held onto that all the days of your life if only you knew how. But now it’s just a faint memory.

It’s true, I tell you it’s true, having been on vacation for 2 weeks now there is nothing that can remind you what vacation is like except for vacation. The beach can not be just a memory, but you must go back to the beach to truly understand what the beach is. You are not in the moment of your revelation until you are back at the point of the revelation. Memory alone does not suffice. You must live out what you have experienced, and the only way to do that is to be in the place where the revelation can come. I’m sure you have noticed that I’m not just speaking about water here, God help me if you only think I’m talking about vacation and a beach, and there is more to write, but I must stop here for a moment and explain what I am saying, because I do not want you to get confused. I know how a reader thinks, I’ve been in sessions of teaching where someone has said something and there is the smallest room for doubt and that is the thing that will take my attention and I will sit there and argue God and myself about how what the person just said made no sense at all because there is room for error and misunderstanding. Thanks for the analytical mind. But I do thank God for it, because he who doesn’t think on his own is led blindly by those he trusts, and our trust is, unfortunately, sometimes misplaced and taken away.
So, I have been talking to you about this beach, and how you don’t fully remember the beach until you are on the beach again. You are also thinking about the world revelation I threw in there, or at least I am, and thinking (but, we don’t have to stay in the same thing we received 3 years ago do we?)…You are correct, what we walked in yesterday, the revelations we have received, we must carry, and move on, we must continue to grow, having new revelations. True freedom comes from compounded truths. What I am able to believe today, makes room for what truth will come tomorrow. (oh I like that)

Bill Johnson says that the inconveniences of today, become tomorrows normality. As in, making time for God today, when I don’t necessarily want to, makes room for tomorrow to have the same time, I’ve done it now, so I might as well do it again, and maybe I’ll push on and add 5 minutes, taking it to a new level so that the next time I’m a little more daring, because I’ve done it before. Maybe I prayed for a headache and someone was healed, tomorrow I don’t need to ask “can God heal a headache” I know. Today’s attempts and challenges become tomorrow’s everyday deeds. But, we can not live in yesterday, we must remember what happened yesterday, walk in it today, and press on for what should be our normal life tomorrow. Does that make sense? I am not saying “stay on the first beach and learn only what God showed you there”. By no means am I saying that, the revelation that I am speaking about, the experience that I am speaking about, as you remember I am relating the Holy Spirit to water, is that we must always go back to the beauty of God, the beauty, and awesomeness of staring at the face of our God, being captured by his awesomeness.

I’m going to take it a step further.

You wake up one morning realizing that you have been letting the beauty of what you saw slip, you are almost infuriated with the whole thing because you wonder how that could have slipped, you start to remember how beautiful that time was, and all the revelation you got, all the beauty that you beheld in your eyes, all the peace and comfort that you felt. It was amazing wasn’t it? Something clicks in you and you turn to your life and say, “this will wait”, and you get up and pack your things and head to the beach again. You get there and it takes some time, because at first you are worried about what ‘life’ is going to think of you, about what your boss will say, about how the world that you live in will be affected by your oh so reckless trip to the beach. Finally after a day or two of worry and troublesome thoughts your mind clears and you are able to sit there in the silence and the noise of it all, where it seems that violence and peace meet, where it seems that the most brilliant and awesome sounds and noise meet with the perfect, most still, calm peace you’ve ever felt. You are finally at peace again, you are finally absorbing in this beauty and wonderfulness that you see before you.

This time, because of loosing it the last time, you are a little more daring, and you think that maybe, just maybe, if you get into the water you might be able to hold onto that precious beauty that you see. You stand up and walk down to the water, let the calm waves just slowly roll over your toes, and it is cold, but refreshing, you’ve never quite felt something like this, standing on the edge of reality and infinity as you look out and see nothing but water, as you look out and see nothing but what could easily sweep you away if you let it, and quite possibly even if you try to ‘not let it’. You walk into the point where your wet up to your knees, and you are amazed that not only is this water beautiful but it is refreshing, it seems to bring life with it, beyond it’s beauty. You’re curiosity overtakes you and you dive headfirst into a wave that comes crashing down on you. Oh you have never felt such life, you have never felt such pleasure and joy in so quickly a moment. You revel in it, you take it all in, you stand in the power and the greatness of this water as you continue to stare out at its awesome expanse and beauty.

You get out and the sun warms you, the water feels so great as it slowly drips off your body. You dry off and think “now that’s a day I will never forget.” You go home, thinking that you are good for a very long time, thinking that this particular moment has just brought more peace to you than any world or problem could quench. (I know we don’t ever really totally feel that, but there seems to be a moment where we feel ready to challenge and take on the world again, right?) So we head back home, and the same thing happens as last time, we feel amazing, we have had such a wonderful time and the memories are fresh in our mind as we begin to tackle the things of life. Then we get into a fight with the family, we get to work and not only have things been waiting for us, but it seems that they have stacked up another pile of things for you to take care of in your absence. It is wonderful isn’t it? This world is a tad draining on us all. Oh sure it lasts for a few days, in fact, I think it lasted a little longer this time, the memories have compounded, the beach is amazing, the water, oh my goodness, when you dove into that wave head on, by far one of the most exhilarating things you have ever experienced. Those memories are vivid, colourful, they bring thoughts of peace and pleasure, joy and comfort, yet, there almost seems like there could be more. You know you had an amazing time, but there was still something missing, and now you can barely hold onto what you had while you were there.

*note* - I know at the beginning I was talking about the ‘Atlantic ocean’ I use that purely because that’s where I am right now, and there is nothing quite like the power and awesomeness of a 20 foot wave crashing into a wall of rock (I’ve got pictures, you’ll see them soon). But for this next part, please think of this ‘ocean’ as pure, untampered with, and not salty, as in, pure filtered water, just like coke does and calls it nestle “pure life”

The next time you work up the nerve to get back to the beach, and this time it isn’t so long because you learned from your last time that you must have this beach more often than you thought, you must have the experience of this water in all of it’s goodness more and more, you waste no time in getting into the water. The look of it was amazing, the beauty of it transformed your mind, changed your way of thinking, brought such peace and restoration to your very soul, but being in it made you come alive, gave you reason to move and to frolic about, reason to dive head first into this water, to give yourself to its waves and greatness. This time you are in the water, and feeling it move you about, and a wave hits you and you get a mouthful of this water, and the purity of this liquid slides down your throat. You are suddenly given energy you didn’t have before, you are feeling like you could conquer the world, this thing, in front of you, behind you, all around you, saturating your very being, overtaking you and now filling you up. You are swept out in its power, taking water inside, yet you are not frightened, there is a calmness about this water, and it’s freshness brings you life. Remember, you are reading a story I am writing, so don’t try to argue about salt water, and under currents just yet.

You walk out of the water onto the beach, you are full of water, you are soaked in it, you are still looking back at it…

We can not live without water. We’ve learned that, we are good on that point. I’ve written this hoping that it demonstrates the importance of the Holy Spirit, that it shows the need of Him. That we are in need, not just want, but absolute need, we can not live without Him and we must remember that always. We will make it, and by that I mean we will be dried out, parched, crusted, dying old men by the time we are 30 if we do not let ourselves be taken by His power.

So, I’m walking away from this story with 3 points…
We must gaze at the beauty of God.
We must rest in the awesomeness of His presence.
We must drink deep of His life giving water.

It’s like being in relationship with a beautiful woman. Forgive me if I go off track here and you wonder why I’m such a crazy person. But there are 3 things involved in a relationship (many more, I know, but three for my point). (1) Seeing the beauty of this woman (I’m going to add talking and the non-touch related relational things). (2) Coming in contact with this person, a hug, a kiss, holding her hand as you walk on a beach…lying next to her, holding her. (3) Knowing her (in the biblical sense, yes). Now, before you all shout and get up in arms calling me a sex minded freak, let me back this up with what I believe to be scripture.
One of God’s first commands to us, if not the very first was to rule the earth and ‘be fruitful and multiply’. Well, I know of only one way to make that one happen (I’m talking the fruitful part, not the ruling part). So, please do not think that I’m just a crazy young sex minded lad that thinks talking about sex is kewl… (it is…but that’s besides the point).

Drink deep of the relationship of God. Let his life go deep into you. He is an intimate, loving, all encompassing lover who wants to absolutely cover and lavish his presence, love and beauty all over you. And he wants to bring you life, from the outside to the inside to all around and all through everything you do.

I’m going to tackle something I do not have an answer for yet, so this could be very interesting. How do we ‘drink’ of the Holy Spirit?

I get looking at Him. You can see the beauty of God all around, go to a beach, you will be staring at the very nature of God, and even deeper still, when he opens the eyes of your heart, into the spiritual realm, into the real of vision and dream you will see the face of God, you will see His beauty and the images of that are worth holding onto for dear life.
I even understand Staying in His presence. I have been there, I have felt him this very day, more than once, there is definitely a availability to be in the presence of God that brings life. We need it. We crave it. Our skin dries out if we don’t get it.
Now, the trickier part is when we hear statements like “breath of life”, “you’re the living water”, “Drink deep of His presence”… my pastors have said that more times than I can count, all of them, and I’ve got sayings like, “Don’t think, Just drink”, we’ve been in a whole movement on the ‘new wine’, God pouring out His Spirit on us in an absolutely intoxicating way. But what does it mean to ‘drink’ of the Spirit?

I’m going to jump back a bit. We’re in Genesis and God has just formed Adam out of the very dirt he just created. He’s a nice looking man, a little dirty, but that’s ok, there’s a stream he can wash in, although he might just turn to mud, we better give him life. Now, I’m quite sure that by this point God has created the atmosphere and there is oxygen, air and such floating around (which you can not see…more on that later). But it is there, that’s another thing we can’t live without that can be likened to the Holy spirit, invisible, all around us, we can feel it in the wind, and we need it to live. Someone should write a book all about the metaphors we see in life that represent the many facets of God. I heard a song once “every time you move your eyes, a new song, a new sound, every time you move your eyes, no songs of worship from your throne”, I loved it because it is so true, every time God moves we have the opportunity to see something we didn’t see before, experience something we didn’t experience before, feel and taste and touch something we haven’t before. There is more to God than meets the eye my friends, and we’ve just only started to taste of all that He is.
So, Adam is lying there, a lifeless form, and at the moment that God breathes into him, he wakes up, he becomes alive and takes his first breath of the air that God created. If God, being spirit, created Adam (flesh) and it was God’s breath that brought Adam to life, and the air of this world that keeps him alive, I wonder what is in the air that we have not tapped into recently. Do you think the very being of God could be found in a molecule? Don’t think me new age, because for the next 2 minutes I am only asking questions that maybe might just make you think about how much of God we have not seen yet. The bible says that if the people will not worship the very rocks will cry out. Yet I’ve heard people, a lot of people say that it is God in us that compels us to worship, does that mean that if we will not worship, God in the rocks will compel the rocks to worship? Is that why when I stand on a beach, and look out over the ocean, at the beauty of creation, I feel God more than if I’m staring at a cement building that some guy built? The pyramids are great, built for a king, but the mountains hold truer the presence of the King of Kings. Pools and fountains are lovely, built to show beauty and creativity using what God has given us, but the ocean, likes, streams, waterfalls, springs of water declare the goodness and greatness of the Lord of Lords. Think on it for a moment, when we breath in what keeps us alive? Is it more than just water, and food? I think it might be.

But we are talking about drinking and breathing in the spirit of God. So, for now, I will leave those questions on the table and if God tells you that I’m a lunatic, throw it out the window and don’t read it again, but if it makes you think about how great God is, embrace it and go on this journey with me to find out how vast, how great and how wide the love and the presence and the reality of God and His Kingdom actually is.

Drink deep of the presence of God. Father, what do you mean, when you tell us to drink deep of your spirit, what do you mean when you tell us to take all of you inside of us. I know that you are around me, I can feel you, I know that I’ve been talk that accepting Jesus as my saviour puts him inside of me, but what does it mean to carry you on the inside, to get more of you, to drink you in, to have you as my breath of life. I believe that it is so much more than just the first breath you put into Adam that first day of his life, and the rest of us just get ‘air’, a created thing, there is more to it than that, there is an ability and a need for your eternal, spirit, not of this world, to be breathed in, to connect with our spirit. How do we connect spirit to spirit, is it as simple as breathing in, is it as simple as taking a drink of water? What do you mean to drink deep of the presence of God.

I’m going to share something with you that makes sense to me, but possibly only because it happens to me. When I know the presence of God is in the room, and I want him to get inside of me, I can actually see, in the spirit (in my ‘minds eye’ if you will) a cloud around me. It is like standing in a dense fog. The bible says he is all around us, never leaves us, and we can breath him in. What does that look like? Vapour is a liquid that has been turned to ‘gas’ but is still water. Steam is still water, just as ice is still water. If you are resting in the mist, the fog of the presence of God, what is it that you are breathing in? And there the spirit just hit me, I can feel it all around me, there is something about breathing in that presence of God that brings life. If we can breath it in, I’m sure we can drink of it to. I know that this might be hard for you to think about, but close your eyes, (again with the closing of the eyes…leave them open, sorry) picture in your minds eye, in the eyes of your heart, with your spirit, that you are where are, but now ask God to allow you to see the Kingdom of God around you, and let me know what it looks like. I feel the warmth of a sun brighter than any I’ve seen, I feel a mist of water all around me, I feel rain dripping down my face…and I see endless pools of water for me to drink from. I see a whole lot more, but we just don’t have time for that now, do we? J

Obviously I do, I mean, I’ve been sitting here for hours writing this thing, stopping, reflecting, resting, and drinking coke (I started with a latte though, thank you Linda, Laura and Susan – group effort for sure on that one). I am going to have to go get lunch at some point to, but I’m enjoying this all to much.

I started out hoping I would find an answer to ‘drinking’ of the spirit. I get the concept, I get the need. We die without it, plain and simple. But I’m still on this quest, this journey to find the fountain of youth as it were, to find the presence of God that is thick enough to drink.

Like I’ve said in the past, the more I read and the more I write, the more I look around the world and think on the things of this life and the Kingdom, I realize the absolute importance for the presence of God, and the relationship we MUST have in him. I will not be able to answer the question “how do we drink of the spirit” until God shows me how to drink deeply of Him. I believe I have in the past, but I believe there is more, and then again, maybe we are not meant to understand these things. I’m not trying to build a theology around such things, the Spirit of God is way to complicated for that, and yet in a way all to simple because we ask him to come, and he does, he responds to invitations. Won’t you chase that with me, make time for the invitation; make time for the pursuit. He will answer the call; he’s faithful and always willing.

My only hope is that this makes you not only think, but pursue this. To be honest, making you think to much, as I said knowledge can do, might just kill you. You might just find yourself contemplating over a thing so much that it drives you to dryness, which is definitely not my hope in this matter. I am hoping that when you see this, when you see the reality of the situation, when you see that there is an absolute, biological need for the presence of God (He is spirit, and He breathed HIS breath into Adam that gave him life) that you will hold out for nothing less than the absolute presence of God, that you will join me on this journey of trying to get the cup that holds the water of life, and no I don’t think it’s like Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, just not that simple, although, possibly even simpler.

As I said earlier, near the beginning of this, be weary not to reflect and think, and talk to others without actually doing what you are thinking and writing and reading. It’s about taking that knowledge and putting it to use. Faith without works is dead as the Bible says. My friend Stuart preached an amazing message a few weeks ago about taking what you believe, and doing it, because believing something alone, does not mean you are doing it. We must have action behind our words. I don’t know what it all means when it comes to things like “drinking of the Spirit” but I’m quite sure God will show me. I might just have an answer to write some day soon.

May God bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you…