Partnership with the Spirit

 DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE SPIRIT

1 Cor 14:29-33

29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

NIV

God is a God of order rather than a God of disorder, or chaos. It is interesting that the church in Corinth was in need of these instructions. Young immature believers let loose in the Spirit and were out of control. It is a good thing today that we have gained such self-control. We do nothing spontaneously but rather regulate every aspect of our time of worship. We believe that we are meeting with the living God and that the Spirit is indwelling within us. Still, we would rather carefully plan out every minute of our worship service, keeping everything fully under our control. We do wonder whether or not the Spirit would show up if we allowed him to have full reign in our worship of God. Although, there is this sense of being in partnership with the Spirit as Paul is telling the Corinthians. Even if we allow the Spirit to have full access to our worship, we will still see an order. We do note that it is a partnership because of what Paul said about the spirits of the prophets being subject to the control of the prophets. We can clearly see that we have a part in worshipping in and with the Spirit’s inspiration. We are to worship God in spirit and in truth. Jesus made that very clear in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, as John recorded for us. Therefore, our worship needs to be in the spirit. It is interesting that John simply says that God is Spirit, although this translation does not capitalize on spirit. However, in Greek pneuma means breath, a breeze, a current of air, however, when referring to God it means the Holy Spirit and in regard to man, his spirit. Therefore, it would be right to say that we should worship God in the Spirit, that is we should be in the Spirit and not in the flesh as we worship and thus, we would be allowing the Spirit to have His way in our service. If we do that, we just might see some miracles, some true worship, and maybe even certain gifts would be present among us. We might have taken being in order to the extreme being under our control, and not the Spirits, or even partnering with the Spirit. We also might spend too much of our life looking intellectually into the scriptures, rather than allowing the Spirit to reveal the truth to us. Many years ago, we were aware of men who were considered revelation preachers. That is they had no formal biblical education, but merely preached from a revelation given to them by the Spirit. Yet, we are still left with this idea that we should be in partnership with the Spirit, having revelations, having a prophetic word, being under the influence of the Spirit, but also having control of ourselves, so that all is done in order, being in partnership with the Spirit.