Monday: A Gift Producing Spontaneity
WEEK 24
MONDAY
A GIFT PRODUCING SPONTANEITY
1 Timothy 1:3-5
We saw yesterday that adequacy is a gift from above and not a discovery or development from within. If that sounds too imposed, making people the tool of the Divine and therefore mechanical, let us be reminded that the gift produces spontaneity: “but whoever drinks from the water that I give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring” (John 4:14). The gift from above produces spontaneity from within. It is not easy to give to people without weakening them, making them dependent. Here the gift makes human beings; instead of weakening them, it awakens them.
That is psychologically sound. For if the attempt is to awaken your own powers, it leaves you self-conscious and hence self-centered; you are the center of your powers. Anything that leaves you self-conscious and self-centered weakens you—“All who want to save their lives will lose them” (Matt 16:25). But the method of Jesus is different; Jesus gives the gift, and you rise from the gift to the Giver in awe and gratitude and love, and that takes you out of self-preoccupation and centers you on Another. You lose your life, and you find it again. So all this modern attempt to discover your own powers keeps you mulling around on yourself, and that is off-center.
The climate of the Acts is gratitude for grace from God and not grubbing for greatness in oneself. That is the emphasis of Jesus: “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay . . . until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49 RSV).
Note: “upon you”—not discover it within you; “power from on high”—not from within. That makes your universe God-centered, not you-centered. Again: “. . . but to wait for what the Father had promised . . . you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5). You are to wait, not awaken. And you are to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, baptized from without. And again: “Rather, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (v. 8). Note “receive power”—not awaken your own powers; and the “Holy Spirit has come upon you”—upon you, not discovered within you.
The climate of the Acts is receiving power, not releasing power.
O Lord, we thank you that this takes our eyes off ourselves and puts them on you. For we know if we look within, we’ll be discouraged; but if we look at you, there is adequacy. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am a human pipeline attached to Infinite Resources, so I’m inexhaustible.