Saturday: Intellectually Mature, Emotionally Immature
WEEK 4
SATURDAY
INTELLECTUALLY MATURE, EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE
1 Corinthians 2:10-12
The church today is, in large measure, halfway between Easter and Pentecost and is behind closed doors in fear. The grandest good news that ever broke upon human ears had broken freshly upon them: Jesus was alive, yet that didn’t free them; they were still locked behind closed doors.
One of the greatest fallacies of this age of intellectual progress is the fallacy that knowledge in itself is necessarily freeing. It may free you, it may not. Many intellectually mature people are emotionally immature. That accounts for the fact that many psychologists and psychiatrists are not integrated. They know, but they don’t know freedom. Emotionally they are still bound by old fears and frustrations. That is the basic reason we need some powerful impulse within that will free us from our unreasoning fears and anxieties. That impulse within can be supplied only by the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit works within, down amid the driving urges.
A religion of rites, ceremonies, and outer observances may be good, but not good enough. For it does not touch within where fears and inhibitions hold the citadel. Only the Holy Spirit can touch those inner depths and free us there. All the knowledge about freedom and exhortation to freedom could not have got the disciples from behind those closed doors. They had to be emotionally freed. Only God within could unlock those doors and bid them walk out into freedom. And God within was the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God in action, where it counts, down amid the driving urges where fears lurk.
Jesus said, “But if I throw out demons by the power of God’s Spirit, then God’s kingdom has already overtaken you” (Matt 12:28). The parallel passage of Luke is: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons” (Luke 11:20 RSV).
The Spirit is the finger of God, God touching us vitally within. The Spirit is redemption permanently settling within. He unlocks the doors from within and bids us be free. The Spirit is the “finger of God” that not only casts out demons but also keeps them out. His finger is on the doorknob, and no one gets in without his consent. The Spirit provides deliverance and security. Jerusalem is now in our hands as possibility for fruitfulness and not in our hearts as fear.
O Holy Spirit, come in and unlock the closed doors and give me freedom and glorious security. I consent now. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am intellectually and emotionally freed, for God is within me.