There is a deceitful counterfeit invading the church of America that imitates the working of the Spirit in the church. Imitation is only just that: a look-a-like with no real substance to it. It is filers and additives that make you feel like you are getting the real thing. It might be the right color, the right taste, and even the right texture, but it isn’t the real thing. Recently, we have experienced the Holy Spirit in a real and life-changing way! And it has opened our eyes to how real the world of Imitation God really is! If we do not follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and yield completely to His power, we cannot please God with anything that we do. Nothing good in and of itself is pleasing to the Lord. It must be through dependence on the Spirit, bearing fruit in Him.
Let me show you what I mean, our home church just had their mission conference this month and the Lord was working. The Monday after the conference the Lord truly started working in a man’s life. God started speaking to him through an article that he read in the Focus on the Field magazine that was pleading for more workers to answer the call to help in the MWBM Print Shop. The Holy Spirit worked on him throughout the morning until he broke and in tears surrendered to the call of God. This man is my Dad, and he is now starting deputation to become a missionary at the MWBM Print Shop. It is all the working of the Spirit, he is just depending on God and obeying.
God is teaching me so much in this area of yielding to the Spirit. Everything has a counterpart that imitates what the Lord desires to accomplish through the Spirit. The preaching of His Word can be done without Spirit dependence, but there will be no lasting work. Preaching outside of the power of the Spirit produces guilt that leads people to make promises that they hope they can keep, only to fail miserably in their own strength. Preaching through the guidance and power of the Spirit leads to conviction that the Spirit uses to produce God-dependence and real, lasting change. Everything that we know of in a church can be done without the Spirit. We fake it real good! In fact, Imitation God is so popular that many people do not know how to identify it; but once you have experienced the real working of the Spirit it is easy to pick it out. Without the power of the Spirit, there will be no work done in Mexico City. We can’t do anything to please the Lord: our attempts at standards, holiness, fruit of the Spirit, soul-winning, discipleship, ministry, etc. are all failures without the power of the Spirit.
You see, without faith (complete God-dependence) it is impossible to please Him. In our flesh dwelleth no good thing. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. There is none righteous, no not one! We must only cast ourselves completely on God, depending on Him to fulfill His promise and work His righteousness in us. Abide in me and I in you. It is only through abiding that we produce fruit. It isn’t our fruit, but the Spirit’s. We must stop trying to imitate God’s work, and simply depend on Him to work.
God is teaching us how to obey the Spirit in every area of our lives. It is easier just to do what we already know should be done and go on in the strength of the flesh, but there will be no real power behind it without the Spirit. The ministries of man are powerless. The moving and ministry of the Spirit is what changes lives. We go in dependence on God and His Spirit to do the work. We can do nothing alone.
May I urge you to obey the Spirit in everything. Do not grieve or quench Him. As Christians, He is the Life of Christ in us. Do not settle with the imitation of what God wants to accomplish in your life. Depend fully and only on the Spirit of God to live the life of Christ in you, and see what He will do.
