As I was praying, I realized something I guess I knew but it came to me in a different way,
I saw it quite clearly and I want to share it with you. I will explain it to you as I saw it as in a picture in my mind. The Holy Spirit came to us after Jesus ascended up into heaven, just as Jesus told us He would. The Holy Spirit lives with us today. You see, when Jesus died on the cross, the veil for the curtain in the temple was ripped from the top to the bottom, not from the bottom to the top. This meant that no man could have done this - this veil was very tall and also very thick. (Nowadays we would think of a veil being something that would be on a woman’s dress, a very thin almost transparent type of material, but this is not the type of material we are talking about. This material was very thick and would not have been able to have been torn by human hands.) So when Jesus died on the cross and the veil was ripped from the top to the bottom, this was done as a sign to signifying that the Holy Spirit – God would no longer dwell inside the temple, but now, He would dwell inside of man and that our body — this vessel He created that now carries our soul — will also carry the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God. So now we can see “love surrounds me” It is sort of like being surrounded by the very presence of God.
You see if something is submerged in a glass of water, the water is all around it; if it’s porous the water is going to get inside, if it’s like a sponge the water will absorb up in the sponge and there’s no room for anything else. Now if I am rigid and resistant, yet porous, there will still be areas that the water would not be able to get in. However if I allow myself to be pliable, or dare I say humble, then the water which represents the river of life flowing from the throne of God can get into every nook and cranny.
Like the sponge we can absorb every bit of God’s love and we can be assured that we can get what Jesus knew we needed and it would be sufficient for us and then we would not be subject to the whims of the enemy because there would be no room for him to come in. If we remain hard and rigid always demanding our own way, that keeps us resistant to His Love. When we allow spots to develop that are not saturated by the love of God or filled by the River of life, then the devil and his helpers have just found their place of entry, believe me they will come in like a flood, harass you, bully you and throw up your past in your face because that is their job; To come and steal kill and destroy. But Jesus said in John 10:10 (King James Version), “The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
So let us learn and glean all we can from the sponge in the cup and be humble and flexible so that we can absorb all of the Holy Spirit – the River of life, the water in the cup – that we can so that there is no room for the enemy to come in. “And having done all then stand and stand therefore.” “Though thousands may fall by my side no harm will come near me.” I will not fear what the enemy may bring me because he has no access. I am filled by the Holy Spirit; I am totally saturated in the love of God. I’m standing in the River that flows from the throne of my Heavenly Father.
By Gary Miller
PART 2 COMING AUGUST 1