INCREASE AND DECREASE

Only Holy Spirit gifts can take and hold us in the inner legitimate and authentic place. It is at this very crossroad that good thinking, bright ideas, solid philosophy, careful education, systematic theology, clean living and every other humanly produced effort must yield and give way to the powerful and pure work of receiving the Holy Spirit’s gifts which no human can produce, but we can re-produce.

The receiving is a glimpse of grace and mercy. It is grace because we have become poor enough to receive and mercy because it is never too late for Jesus to change us. The great text from the Gospel of John says, “He must increase and I must decrease” is a simple formula based solely on our ability to go to the Giver as a continual practice and ask for more gifts. It is only lack of humility that would prevent this. These could be termed ‘increase gifts,’ or for that matter ‘decrease gifts’ depending on how one looks at it. There is simply no other way of praying for the displacement of increase, or decrease, without asking for more Holy Spirit gifts. It cannot happen otherwise or ‘decrease’ turns into self-debasement and self-analysis and the ‘increase’ turns into pride and arrogance because of its human generation. Holy Spirit change is perfect in that we do not know it has happened and only Jesus knows and is excited, exalted and increased.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus