Walk With Me
Christian discussion of biblical topics, and a dose of daily application. Yes the Bible is still relevant, and we find out more and more each day how relevant it has always been.
Walk With Me
The Holy Ghost: A Vital Ingredient to Avoid Denominationalism
Imagine embarking on a spiritual journey where the Holy Ghost becomes your guide, protector, and transformative force. That's exactly what we're exploring in today's episode as we celebrate nearing our podcast's three-year milestone. Join me, JJ, as I share heartfelt gratitude for the support that has fueled our discussions on the profound importance of the Holy Ghost in our lives. Discover how reading Bible verses in their full context can dissolve denominational boundaries and understand the true necessity and blessings of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Through the lens of Romans 8 and 9, we uncover its vital role in fostering a personal connection with God and igniting profound change in our spiritual journey.
Using a vivid Star Trek analogy, we liken the Holy Ghost to the iconic shields that protect from external threats, guiding us towards spiritual safety and growth. Dive into the teachings of Jesus and the story of Nicodemus to see why a sincere commitment to spiritual rebirth is essential for entering the kingdom of God. Finally, I share an earnest expression of love and gratitude, urging you to spread God's love and positivity. A simple gesture can resonate deeply, and your engagement helps amplify this message of hope and transformation. Thank you for being part of this incredible journey, and I eagerly anticipate our next conversation.
Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, jj. It's so good to have each and every one of you here with us for today's episode. I am very excited. I'm excited for all the new listens and the downloads and the shares. I thank you all. I thank you all for subscribing to the podcast and listening and telling other people about it. Subscribing to the podcast and listening and telling other people about it.
Speaker 1:We are coming up on three years and just um, just over two months now, we'll be hitting our three-year anniversary. That's, that's amazing, that I. It humbles me just to think about it. But, um, if it weren't for god and you, this whole podcast wouldn't be here, and I absolutely thank each and every one of you. I love each and every one of you. Thank you all for your questions. Thank you all for your words of encouragement. If you have a question or anything you want to send to me, you can send it to walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you I'm getting some of the best questions. I have a question that I'm working on now that just about stumped me. God had to take me aside and said you know this one because we've talked about it. So I'm getting that ready. But I just want to continue in our journey right now of denominationalism you know that is the word. So we're going to talk about that and before I do, we've got to talk about our sponsors. Dubar's Lyricist, who gave us our intro and outro, music Exquisite Creations, who has opened up a whole new world with the tumblers I can't wait for her to sign my new tumbler. I absolutely can't wait. And yes, forgive me, I'm not able to mention that about this new sponsor yet I totally forgot to make contact with her this week to get the go-ahead. But pretty soon we will be getting a new sponsor and I am excited.
Speaker 1:I am excited, I am excited. I'm excited about people learning the Word of God and getting on their journey to salvation, because, at the end of the day, that's what this is all about. All about got nothing to do with me, uh, being just a guy behind the microphone. It's about us wanting to spend eternity in heaven. Now, you know, um, just an aside, you know there are a couple reasons why you want. You want to be saved. Um, you can either be want to be saved because you just love god, if you love living for god, or you can just want to be saved because you just love god. If you love living for god, or you can just want to be saved because you don't want to go to the other destination. And I get that I I completely understand and that was one of my uh initial motivations about you know, whether I should decide to live for god born again or to ignore the feelings that God was giving me. I just didn't want to go to hell. And, yes, hell exists, heaven exists and we're going to talk about that in a couple weeks. But you want to get through this because it's actually going to lead into some of these other things. We just want to cover it and if you have any questions or anything like that, send them to walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom Also.
Speaker 1:Also, there is a rule on this podcast. I don't have many rules. I'd ask for you to subscribe to send money, but there is a rule. The rule is, when we talk about a Bible scripture, read a verse or two above it, a verse or two below it, but preferably the whole chapter. Why? Because context is key. One of the biggest things and one of the biggest things that created denominationalism say that five times fast is the fact that people took a verse from here and a verse from there and tied them together and made something that contradicts the word of God. So remember verse two above, verse 2 below, but preferably the whole chapter.
Speaker 1:Right, let's get into today's lesson. So one of the biggest departures from the original gospel, the original saving power of the word of God, was that we started talking about, we start talking and thinking differently about the baptism of the Holy Ghost and, yes, we all know where we started from, but I just don't feel like bashing on them today. But the Bible tells us that we have to get back to the original salvation. So what is the original salvation? Well, one of the things you really need for that, and what we're going to talk about today, is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Now, some people have all these. There's all these different churchology definitions of baptism of the Holy Ghost. We're going to talk about what is the baptism of the Holy Ghost, how it manifests, how it happens and is it necessary.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's start with the last one first. Is it necessary? Well, not only is it necessary, not only is the holy ghost necessary, but it's a blessing, it is, um, it's like um, you being able to be, to be close to someone you really love. And if you're married out there and you love your wife and you have kids, and it's like asking do I have to be close to my kids? Do I have to be close to my wife? No, you don't have to, but why wouldn't you want to right? So the way this works with the holy ghost is is it necessary for you to have the holy ghost? Yes, but not only is it necessary for you to have the Holy Ghost. Yes, but not only is it necessary, it is absolutely a blessing to have just a little portion, a little piece of God inside of you, living inside of you.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about, let's start talking about, scripture that supports how necessary it is Romans 8 and 9. Now, keep in mind, this is for the Roman church, which means everybody that's receiving this letter had already gone through the book of Acts. So Romans 8, 9 through 17. For you are not controlled by your sinful nature. Now, this is out of the New Living Translation. We talked last week about how I prefer the King James Version, but why there were some references that were a little bit better in LT Right.
Speaker 1:So the New Living Translation reads it as such. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all. Now that is a very, very serious ending of that scripture.
Speaker 1:If you don't have the Spirit of God living in you, you don't belong to Him. You don't have the spirit of God living in you. You don't belong to him. No matter how many times you sit in church, how many times you, how many different religious ceremonies you go through or officiate, or how many times you sing, you lead in the choir. None of that matters. If you don't have the spirit of God, you lead in the choir. None of that matters.
Speaker 1:If you don't have the Spirit of God, you don't belong to God. So, and Christ lives within you just reading on. Even so, your body will die because of sin. The Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. Keep going. The Spirit of God, which raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. Just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. Now, that right, there is the key to why you need the Holy Ghost living in you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's important to belong to God, it's important to be close to God, but if there is, there is absolutely no way to completely avoid a sinful life If you do not have the spirit of God dwelling in you. Because now, why is that? And Paul is very specific and he goes on to explain this, for you live by the sin. If you live by his dictates, which he's talking about your sinful nature. If you live by the sinful nature of your, or the dictates of your sinful nature, you will die, because the wages of sin is death, the payoff of sin is death. Someone, somewhere, somehow, will die because of a sin that you and I created. Now, I know that sounds a little far-fetched, but I want you to think about it for a second. We have sex outside of marriage, right? Not only does a little piece of you die because you know you're doing the wrong thing, but if there's a pregnancy involved, that's an unwanted pregnancy. What happens to that pregnancy? What do people generally tend to do with unwanted pregnancies? Things? They abort them. There's a death. The wages of sin is death, right when, and that's a physical death.
Speaker 1:Now we want to talk about a spiritual death, where a little piece of you dies, and it's really hard to try to explain it to someone who doesn't have. But just imagine, look at it. If you've ever grown a plant or tree in your life, think of it. If you look at a leaf, you know a leafy plant, it's all nice and full and green and suddenly, for some odd reason, one of the leaves turns brown. And well, they sort of turn, like they get a little bit lighter green and then, um, it starts to kind of fade its color a little bit and then, uh, suddenly, it's suddenly now yellow and you, just, you don't touch it, you're not touching, you don't, you don't ruin it, you don't do anything, you just walk by it and you ignore it. It's just there, yellow. Then the edges start turning brown and then entire leaf turns brown and then, if the plant is like the ivy plant that my folks used to grow all the time, a lot of the plant will sacrifice that leaf so that it may live, but that leaf dies.
Speaker 1:This is the same sort of spiritual death that happens to you and I. We let sin into our lives and we allow it to dictate our actions, but the Holy Ghost being within us is to prevent this from happening. Not saying you're going to be perfect, not saying you're going to be perfect 100% of the time, but having that spiritual check in you to say, hey, you got a problem with that leaf, let's fix this. Let's fix this now, let's repent of it, let's stop doing it. And now, all of a sudden, the leaf comes back. You start watering it, you take care of it, you're changing your pH, balancing your soil, you do all these little things and all of a sudden, the leaves are back and they're perfect. This is just an analogy of what the Holy Ghost does to you, why it's necessary to be in you.
Speaker 1:However, paul goes on. He says for all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. We talked earlier. What was the purpose of living for God? To go to heaven, to be with him. So we definitely need this Right.
Speaker 1:And then, because Paul was a great orator and he liked to drive a point home. He continued For you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful. Having the spirit of God in you is not about being afraid. It's about being powerful, being an overcomer. You it's not about being afraid, it's about being powerful, being an overcomer. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children, so now we call him our Father, right. So having the Holy Ghost, it grabs you. It basically grabs you into a family, to where you know where your inheritance is and you inherit heaven, you inherit a better life, you inherit less stress.
Speaker 1:Just having the Holy Ghost in you and I'm going to keep reading or his spirit joins us, I'm sorry for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. When everything is coming against you and the devil is telling you you suck, your life is garbage, everything you do turns to ash. The devil's going to tell you that and if you don't have the Holy Ghost in you, you will believe that. Maybe not at first, but eventually you will. Why do you think we have so many people self-harming themselves? Because they have subscribed to that ideology that they aren't worth anything and they don't have the Spirit of God in them. So the Spirit of God helps you deflect all that.
Speaker 1:If you don't know me, I'm a big. I used to be a big Trekkie fan until they did certain things, but I was a big Trekkie fan, right. And they had, you know, throw up your shields and the enemy ship would come in and they would shoot missiles and, you know, torpedoes and phasers at you and hit you with all kinds of stuff and then your shields would be at 90%, 80%, 60%, 20% and, oh my God, captain, we can't take another hit. All it goes to is your shield. All it goes to tell you believe it or not. Walk tell you Believe it or not. Walkers believe it or not.
Speaker 1:This is one of the biggest benefits of having the Holy Ghost. It's not speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is the same thing. One of the biggest benefits of having the Holy Ghost Is having the Holy Ghost in you. It tells you when you need to get out of there. I'm going to tell you again you having the Holy Ghost in you. It tells you when you need to get out of there. I'm going to tell you again you have the Holy Ghost in you. One of the biggest benefits is to tell you you need to get out of there.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to go over here to so-and-so's house and we're going to talk about what I want to talk about in Bible study. But I want to kind of ease them into it. So I'm going to go over there. I'm going to sit over there for a while and all of a sudden they pull out the weed bag. Now, without the Holy Ghost, you're going to sit there looking real kind of kind of goofy, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:The Holy Ghost is telling you get out of there, get out of there, get out of there. Well, jj, let's go to the strip club. The Holy Ghost is telling you get out of there. You don't belong here Because all of that, all of that that's going on just steadily hitting you Both times torpedoes hitting you, phasers hitting you, phases hitting, wearing you down spiritually. Get out of there, get out of there. That's one of the biggest benefits to having the holy right. I hope this, that analogy, helped. But that's one of the biggest things that you need the Holy Ghost right.
Speaker 1:So, since having the Holy Ghost makes us His children and together with Christ and again, like I mentioned earlier, there is the glory, then we also have to understand this discomfort with some thoughts, because we're also going to share in His suffering, in Jesus' suffering. Verse 9 couldn't be any clearer. So if we don't have the Spirit of God, there's none of it. We can't be saved by the Spirit without the Spirit. Sorry, we cannot be saved without the Spirit. We must be led of the Spirit, and verse 10 shows us exactly how the Spirit is Christ. Verse 15, it explains by receiving the Spirit he's been adopted, but it also tells us what that is for right. John 3 and 1. Now, I love 3 and 1. I'm also going to read this New Living Translation, even though I absolutely prefer the King James Version, in this case. John 3, 1 through 10.
Speaker 1:There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader who was a Pharisee. One dark evening he came to speak with Jesus, their rabbi. We all know that God has sent you to teach us your miraculous signs and evidence that God is with you. Now, what I love, what I really love about Jesus here and I absolutely, I absolutely love that he does this, and I want to do this more, because you kind of notice when people who have nefarious intentions sometimes they come in and butter you up, and if you watch politics, you see it all the time. They come in and they butter you up and then they kind of stab you. But if you just brush all that butter aside, you kind of let the person know that you're all about business. And jesus here is all about business. He says I tell you the truth, unless you're born again, he cannot see the kingdom of god. Like he just brushed all that butter and toast the side and just got right to business.
Speaker 1:I know why you came. You were seeking an answer. You didn't. You were seeking an answer to a question you didn't know how to ask. And what was that question? How to be born again, how to see the kingdom of God. So Nicodemus said well, what do you mean? He screamed to Nicodemus how can an old man go back to his mother's womb and be born again? He said brush that sarcasm aside, because he's right there standing on business. And I'm telling you this is what I want to do. He says I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of the water and of the spirit.
Speaker 1:This goes back to is it necessary? Yes, it cannot. I cannot. Bishop, so-and-so cannot Apostle necessary? Yes, it cannot. I cannot. Bishop, so-and-so cannot. Apostle, so-and-so cannot. Deacon, so-and-so cannot. Friar, so-and-so cannot. Father, so-and-so cannot. Pastor, so-and-so cannot. No one. Grandma, so-and-so no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of the water and of the Spirit. So, yes, having the Holy Ghost is absolutely necessary. Now we can keep going on. Humans can reproduce in human life. The Holy Ghost is what gives you a birth into spiritual. So it can't be, you know, determined.
Speaker 1:It can't be said any other way, that you can't get in. You can't just in, you can't just be, you know, awarded a membership in heaven. It's not like you go over here and you put out an application and all of a sudden you're a child of God. That's not how it works. You don't receive the right hand of fellowship.
Speaker 1:And, trust me, I've been through all this. The only thing I did not ever do is finish the catechism because that whole little get out of there sign was going off. But I've done the confession of faith and the praying, the sinner's prayer, receiving the right hand of fellowship, and all of that. I've done all that. Please understand walkers. I've done all that and I walked out of there the same way.
Speaker 1:I walked in, I walked into that, I walked out the next day. I woke up the next morning the same way. I walked in, I walked into that, I walked out the next day. I woke up the next morning, the same day that I was when I went into that church the night before, and none of these men, none of these um situations changed me. None of these had a rebirth, none of them had a transformation, none of them had any sort of redeeming power, until that one night in July of 1994, when I actually got the Holy Ghost, and getting it was hard.
Speaker 1:We're out of time for today. But for me to fully explain the time for today, but getting it was hard, getting it, and I made it hard. Don't don't get me wrong, it ain't something, it is. It's easy If you're ready for it. I'll just put it this way If you're ready for it, it's easy, except the fact that you need to repent of your sins, be baptized in Jesus' name, and then that's all. And I overcomplicated it and made it hard. But then, after that, you're eligible for the Holy Ghost. You just have to pray for it. But then, after that, you're eligible for the holy ghost. You just have to pray for it and and then you get it. And, yes, it's hard when you're really reaching out for god and you start fighting your flesh and and, oh man, it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1:So we gotta stop right here, but we're gonna talk more about nicodemus and then we are going to talk about the sin on the cross next, next time, okay, because I know everyone always says what about the center of the cross? And hey, listen, I, um, I get that question quite a bit y'all. So don't feel I don't care if. Don't ever feel shy to send me a question. I'll say it like that. Don't ever assume that, well, somebody else is going to ask the question and JJ's going to get mad because he gets the same question a bunch of times. No, no, no, no, no. Listen, y'all, I love the question.
Speaker 1:All right, I thank you for your questions. I thank God for you to ask the questions, to take the time out of your day to not only listen to this podcast but to send them. Open up the email, type in walkwithmebiblestudy at the email and actually type the email and send me the question. I absolutely enjoy that. That's the best part of my day just getting an email alert over there. Okay, so do not be shy. And if, even if you, even if if you're shy, you can have somebody else do it, it's fine it?
Speaker 1:Oh, and and let me also say before I, before we close, if you want to be anonymous right now, I just right now it's default anonymous, okay. So if you send me an email, I'm gonna default it to. You want to be why, I don know, but maybe people don't like to ask questions in church, but I would default to not make it an author. If you want it to be. You want your name to be used, just put your name in the subject. That's it. Put your name in the subject line and I know you want me to address you.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, I love each and every one of you. Thank you all for walking with us this week. Thank you all so much. I love each and every one of you. Tell someone else out there that God loves to that person, that you say that to. That may be the only love they get that day or that week. So you never know. You never know who you're saving, okay, so just tell somebody, god loves them. Thank you for liking and sharing this. God bless you all. See you all next time.