10-8 In Service for God! Are you Really Ready to Serve?

Let's face it! All of us at one time or the other, have had our moments of difficulty and struggles in life, whether it is professional or personal. There are days when we don't want to get out of bed and go to work, and there are days where we just want to retreat to our peace and quite away from the family and the world.

Can you reflect on days as a police officer where you didn't have your "A" game on? Maybe you have referred to it as an, "off day" where we don't want to get into anything and hope that our twelve hour shift goes by really fast? I know that I have had those days. But as any cop will tell you we are not in control of the calls for service that we are dispatched to. We must be ready at all times for that "hot" call that may become a robbery, burglary, fight, or gunman in progress call. We have to always be tactically "turned on" and "charged to go" even though we may never feel like it. We know that if we are not tactically sound or mentally ready in our mind, then we could get ourselves or our partners seriously hurt, or even killed. In short, we just can't play cop, we have to be a cop! We must have our "A Game" on all the time while at work.

With that said, are we really ready to serve God in the same way? Are you being "10-8, in service" for God? Honestly, we should always feel the need to be turned on and ready to serve God at a moments notice, but really are we? Are we serving as a Christian or, are we simply playing the part of a Christian? So, the question becomes.....How do I know?

Let's ask ourselves a few personal questions. As a "Christian" do you feel that even though you may have been baptized, accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, and attend church regularly you still feel as if something is missing in your life? You study your bible regularly, you worship at church, yet you are still missing something. You have conflict on the job and in your family, and you are becoming a master in the use of the four-lettered language.

Just as a good Investigator with all your law enforcement training has provided, you began to search all the wrong places looking for this "missing something" in your life. You check the computer and yet all you find is pornography. You go out drinking after work with your co-workers but the more you drink all you find is the bottom of the bottle. You find yourself fighting with your spouse and your children. Your female partner, an old girlfriend, or the waitress at Denny's at 2am begins to look better to you than your own spouse and a "new" family seems better than your old one.

Still in your zealous search, you take on more responsibility at work. You work more overtime details trying to drown yourself in money and time lost, yet you still can't find what you're looking for. Actually, you see yourself becoming ugly and mean. So, you cry out;"My God! Something’s missing, Something’s wrong with me! Lord help me!" But you still find that the peace you are searching for is not coming easily.

If this sounds familiar to you, then please realize that you are not alone. So many Christians are dissatisfied with their current spiritual condition, that they long for more evidence of God in their lives.

But did you know, that the Bible in Acts 18 and 19 show us a series of stories of individuals and groups that were also ‘missing something’ in their spirituality. In Acts 18:24-28 a man called Apollos was accurately teaching the scriptures and preaching about Jesus, but somehow he knew only the ‘baptism of John.’ Something was missing. The twelve disciples in Ephesus also knew only the baptism of John and had not received the Spirit. Something was missing. In Acts 19:13-16 there were some who tried to exercise demons in the name of the Lord Jesus, but they failed. Something was missing. And these are only a few examples.

So, you ask. What was it that both you and these great biblical men of their generation were missing? The answer is actually one that is very easy. It was simply a personal, life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit.

What does the Holy Spirit have to do with it you may ask? After all, I don't need to be rolling on the floor of any church, falling down, speaking in tongues, raising my hands above my head. That's just too weird and besides that ain't my style you say.

First of all, having the Holy Spirit in you does not necessarily mean that any of those things listed above will ever happen to you. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:7 (New King James Version) states it like this; "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us."

I like to use this example. Having the Holy Spirit in you is like saying that you have a brand new 2010 Patrol Vehicle, you have read the owners manual, you have sat behind the wheel, you have played with the horn, siren, and lights, but when it is time to go out on patrol with your shiny brand new 2010 patrol vehicle it has no gas in the tank. Well guess what? You aren't going very far. In fact, without gas in the tank, your new car is not going to even start up.

You become frustrated with this car. You may even get so mad at the car that you get out and kick the tires, you scream at the car and dare I say, even yell a few choice four-lettered words at your car. But as hard as you cruse at it, kick it, scream and cry at it. Without putting gas in your car you are not going to move. Then suddenly you hear laughter coming from across the precinct parking lot. You see all your shift buddies rolling on the floor in laughter. You feel as if this is a scene from TV's 'Punked' or 'Candid Camera'.

But have you ever stopped to think that we may be treating our very own spiritual life in the same way? We get angry at God, we cry out to God, "oh why, oh why?", we try and run away from God, we try and bury ourselves in work, and in time away from our families all in the name of trying to "find ourselves". All the while God is in heaven looking down upon you, smiling and wondering when you are going to get the actual SIMPLICITY of the gospel.

The Apostle Paul says it this way: “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” (Galatians 3:3). What this great Apostle is asking is this; Are you trying to push the car? kick the car? Curse at the car? Cry out to the car, oh why aren't you starting up for me? Yet, all you need to do is fill up the tank with a little gas, and not even a full tank to get the car moving. Remember, the victorious Christian life is a gift attainable by allowing the Holy Spirit to live through us by faith!

God never intended the Christian life to be a life full of drudgery, Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). The Christian life was never meant to be a burden, although some of us have made it to be. Jesus said “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). The Christian life was meant to be a life of supernatural love, joy and peace.

The book of Titus; chapter 3 addresses this issue of the "Holy Spirit".
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, (NKJ)

The word "renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior..." (Titus 3:5b-6). Those first converts on Pentecost were told that if they repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus that they would receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). "Regeneration" and "renewing" are very similar concepts. One difference would be that the act of "regeneration" happens once when we are baptized while the "renewing" is an ongoing process which begins when we obey the gospel.

You know, that there are parts of every big city that are badly in need of "urban renewal." The last few years of living in Los Angeles taught me a little bit about "urban renewal". This means that things need to be cleaned up, repaired and painted. The "renewing by the Holy Spirit" is a similar process. It involves obeying the Holy Spirit's revelation, the Scriptures, to clean up and remove those things which are not becoming to the life and attitudes of a Christian and replacing them with those attributes which are (Galatians 5:18-25).

I once heard this saying; "God never wastes a hurt". Are you hurting? Do you need to "renew" and "clean up" your life? God is waiting on you! We don't have much time left. We need to act now. One of my most favorite Bible verses says this; "When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things".1 Corinthians 13:11

Get right today with God and with your family. None of us have a time machine that can erase the past, but did you know that God possesses the best time machine. He can and will erase all of your past, old life if you simply go to Him and call out to Him but you must repent. The word "repent" is actually an old word that means "to change one's mind". You can also say, to "change one's life". Repent and ask forgiveness from the Lord for your past sins. Ask, the Lord to fill you with His Holy Spirit.

No, the Holy Spirit does not automatically come to you, no more than a brand new car comes with a full tank of gasoline. But, it takes little effort to fill up the tank with gas, and little effort to live a life with the Holy Spirit in you. Once you do, you will never look back on your old life. Steve Reynolds writes in his blog; "Confessions of a Recovering Legalist"; "When I first discovered living the Christian life by grace through faith, it was like a door opened and I began to see the world through different eyes -- eyes full of child-like wonder and awe. Every song that I heard was God’s sonnet of love written to me. Every breeze that I felt on my face was him gently caressing the skin of his beloved child. Every moment of every day began to take on purpose and meaning, and God began to speak to me in ways that he never had before".

I would suggest to you, that we are ‘baptized’ in the Spirit at the point of our salvation, though many of us have hindered or resisted the freedom of the Spirit in our lives. There may come a subsequent ‘crisis experience’ where, through faith and submission, the Spirit is ‘actually released’ in our lives. Or maybe we could say that the Spirit is ‘actualized.’or 'realized' at that point in our lives.

May God grant you the peace to allow the Holy Spirit to work through you and change your life and fill your tank with an endless supply of gasoline that will enable you to serve our Lord and Savior! May your renewed spirit lead others to come to know our Lord and Savior in a personal way and not just as some "superhero" in a book full of old stories.

In Jesus Name, Amen!

Mike Dye
March 2010