Ken: You can have salvation, you can be baptized with the Holy Spirit. But in so many places, people have done that and stopped. They felt they had it all right, and so there was no longer a drive to really seek the Lord. They just moved in the gift, but the gift without the hunger leaves something lacking. It has to be a present revelation and something that really moves you in the spirit.
Ron: We can't leave the other element outta that is the fire. Without the fire of God that purges the old nature, you may move in the Holy Spirit, you may have gifts, but you still have—you could still be very, very carnal. You don't have the hunger for God, you don't drive anymore. And like you said, you may have an attitude of, "I've got it all. I'm moving in the gifts, I'm moving in the Holy Spirit," not realizing that God wants to purify you, purify the vessel, and go much, much deeper with you in a relationship with Him.
Ken: We're not exempt from being tested and tried, that God allows in our lives. And when that fire of testing comes, we have an option. We can either submit our hearts to the Lord and become really seekers and searching for what God is speaking to our hearts about. Or we can become bitter and rely on past relationships.
If He did that kind of thing with the early church and brought them into a level of oneness, they didn’t plan that. The fire of the Holy Spirit fell on 120, and out of that these people came together and were a church. They were persecuted. They were troubled by outside events. It didn’t do anything but draw them in closer. It made them more one, and the only thing that would ever stop that from happening was lying to the Holy Spirit, like Ananias and Sapphira did, and they dropped dead before Peter.
Ron: It's evident because of the thousands and thousands, and probably millions, of people that have received the Holy Spirit, spoken tongues, and moved in gifts, that that did not produce the oneness or the Kingdom. There's obviously another step that God's wanting His people to take, a much deeper step. And I think we're hitting it. I think it's the fire. I want to enter into a deeper level with the Lord. I want to enter in and see the fulfillment of what He's looking for, which is His Kingdom and the oneness of the Body of Christ. There's no other way.
Ken: But there's another part of this too. We think that we've received all in our salvation, and we have words to back that up, and we believe those words. But there is an expansion of every experience that we've ever received from God. There is an ultimate salvation. This is not the end-all, be-all, and I think this is why a lot of people stop in their relationship or experience with God and say, "I got it all. Now I can just sit back in my easy chair, relax, forget about everything else because I've got it all. I'm ready to go."
That's not entirely true. Because there is more, and it's an exciting journey, and it's an eventful journey, because you have experiences with God beyond anything you thought you could receive. Because God draws us in closer, and we get closer into Him and begin to relate to something brand new that we never thought of before.
Ron: We're talking about the fire, so you can begin to get into that—slip into this thing of trying to produce your own righteousness. He's the one doing all this, and you are the vessel that He's doing it to, but you cannot put the hand to the ark. You're basically marking time when you do something like that, until He gets you back on the right track and you realize He's the Lord and you're the servant. He is the one. He's the Alpha, He is the Omega. He's the one that's doing the potter, and you're the clay.
Debbie: He's doing it in us. We choose to submit to—because we want to be a son. And to become a son, you have to be purified. You have to go through the fire. We know it's gonna be completed in us because He has promised that what He has begun in us, He will complete it.
Ken: There is a choice. You can do what you just said, Debbie. Or you could say, "Why me, Lord? Why are you doing this to me? You said by Your stripes we were healed. I'm not healed. I'm going through difficulties now and I can barely handle it."
God is never going to force you to submit your heart to what He's allowing in your life. He gives you the choice. You can say "why," or you can say "what." And if you say, "What, Lord, are You looking for in my life?" and you humble your heart before Him, submit to the dealings, and say, "Lord, not according to the way I want it to happen, but according to Your will"—isn't that what Jesus did the last day before He went to the cross? "Not my will, but Yours be done." God's looking for you to give Him your will.
Lois: Sometimes we hear the word "chaff." We know something—something was hanging on, but what is it that’s really being burned out? Selfishness. So it's all of those attitudes.
Ken: Have you ever heard the statement "I'm just made this way. This is just who I am"? You're the one God wants to change and create in His image, not yours. And the individuality that we've had all of the years of our lives are definite things that are strongholds—these things that are hanging onto us. And we think, "Oh, I could never change. I could never be different than who I am." That’s not the truth. God can change you into His likeness, and He will do that if you submit to the fire that He's bringing.
Mike: It's in Corinthians, chapter six, verse 19 and 20. It says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body."
How do you glorify God in your body? There's only one way. You have to submit to Him and allow Him to come through this vessel and do whatever He plans on doing. He gets the glory because He's the one that's coming through and doing the thing, not you. You're the vessel. You don't get the glory; He gets the glory coming through that humble vessel that allows Him to do just that.
How simple can it get? We just humble ourselves and keep a right spirit, and then He comes through and does His thing.
Ron: I think part of the key of that, Mike, in that verse, says we are not our own. You were bought with a price, and that really cuts the legs right outta selfishness and individuality. Because if you're not your own, you don't get to make the decisions about your life anymore.
Debbie: To be a Kingdom disciple means that I am no more my own man, but Christ’s man. It means the giving of myself away to Him so I have no more right or title to myself, so that I have no more claim upon myself, and I'm no longer my own—at my own disposal. To be a disciple means to belong body, soul, and spirit to Christ now and forevermore, for Him to do with me as He wills. I make Him responsible for my life. I'm responsible for following. He is responsible for leading and keeping.
It can be no more my business what happens to me or what I gain or lose. When I follow Him. It is Christ's business alone. It is His to command and mine to obey. I am sure He will not waste a fragment of my life if I let Him possess and direct it. I am also sure it will be mainly waste, friction, vain striving, and misdirected effort—sickening failure and defeated ambition—if I try to direct my own life.
My part as the Kingdom of His Kingdom is not to find out opinions of men, but to keep my eyes fixed on Christ, to let my mind dwell on Him, having a constant mental vision of His character, to make His life the food on which I stand.
