RECOVERING ORIGINAL CONDITION

We find Jesus as we explore each gift that the Holy Spirit brings and gives to explain and define Him. All other definitions are pale beside the core definitions such as love, creator, joy, peace, power, beauty and kindness. From these foundations of definitive character we soon attach the human element of understanding and participation. Words like friend, shepherd, brother, teacher, guardian, priest, and such, frame the Holy gifts into terms we can humanly relate to (i.e., the shepherd of love, the man of peace, the Son over the house, etc.).

In our life of order and discipline with its various ideas and practices, whether alone or with others, what must come out as the result of time in the disciplines are Holy Spirit gifts asked for and received. All else is futile muttering and self-satisfying postures, if not self-seeking. When the gifts are given and received then a ‘work of God’ is being formed in the recipient. A work of God is anything that brings back, or starts to bring back, anything and anyone to the original condition. Only Holy Spirit gifts have such potential. Giving a cup of cold water or restoring a pristine river, offering redemption from sin or from child abuse and or any such process of turning evil and ugly into good and beauty, Holy Spirit gifts do this work.

“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Jesus