Sermon Tone Analysis

In a world that is aggressive with its marketing of pleasure of self, indulging in sin and wickedness, we have to know what God has done to equip us to be victors over this worlds enticements, and to be a burning, blazing light as times get darker.

It starts when we turn away from sin and our own self-willed ways of living (repentance), and go through the process of being Reborn into God’s Family (baptism in Jesus’ Name and being filled with God’s Supernatural Presence).

When we have gone through this initial process, Jesus takes us through the process of transformation and maturation (helping up to grow and mature in our spirit).

Under the Old Covenant, The Israelites could only grow so much, but that’s because they were limited by how much their sinful human nature could grow and mature.

Under The New Covenant however, God Provides us with the means to more like Him, beginning to learn how to live by the influence and empowering of His Spirit over our sinful human nature, and living in two dimensions at once, the natural, and the supernatural.

God’s Spirit within us helps us to overpower the desire and influence of our sinful human nature, but how do we live by that power?

While encouraging his disciple in The Lord, The Apostle Paul says this:

Paul tells Timothy keep God’s Gift ABLAZE!

He the phrase is talking about keep the fire burning, stoking and adding what is needed, such as more wood, to keep it bright.

But how do we “stoke The Fire?”

Staying close to The Lord in prayer is primary.

We must make spending time with Jesus a daily priority.

Jesus Himself set the example for us by getting up early to pray or staying up late in order to spend time with The Father, The Spirit, through prayer.

Spending time with Jesus through prayer is our practical expression of openness and vulnerability to Him, or at least it should be.

In this way we begin to interact with the supernatural.

Taking it a step further, we need to implement personal expressive praise and worship into our devotional/prayer time.

During this time, we are literally “feeling after” God’s Presence to connect with us, to surround us, to prompt us.

It’s like not being able to see in a dark room with your hands stretched out, trying to find something to stabilize yourself with.

The more often we put this into practice, the more proficient we will be in connecting experientially with God more on a day to day basis.

It is God’s Spirit that refreshes our spirit and soul like water when we’re thirsty.

It is God’s Word that feeds our soul like bread when we are hungry.

As we learn to develop a climate or environment of praise and worship to God, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to Him, letting our guards down and allowing Him to work on our spirit, which always stokes our emotions, we will become more and more sensitive to the supernatural, to His Presence.

This is how we begin to learn how to pray in the spirit (another lesson).