Showing posts with label Fellowship of Drunken Glory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fellowship of Drunken Glory. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Much Leaping

Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. (2 Samuel 6:16)
David was rejoicing before the Lord for the wonderful thing He had done in restoring the Ark of the Covenant to Israel. Now, joy is not quiet or still but demonstrable. You can tell when someone is rejoicing — it looks like something. In this case, it looked like leaping and whirling.

One of the Greek words for “rejoice” in the New Testament is agalliao. It comes from two words: agan, much, and hallio, to leap, to jump, to spring up or gush like water. Literally, agalliao means to “jump for joy.” It is an expression of joy with much leaping.

In Mary, pregnant with Jesus, this joy revealed itself as a marvelous song, known as the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced [agalliao] in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). It was her spirit that was leaping for joy, just as John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice (Luke 1:44), but it emerged in exuberant song.

When the Seventy disciples returned from the mission of healing diseases, casting out demons and announcing the kingdom, Jesus “rejoiced [agalliao] in the Spirit” (Luke 10:21). It was supernatural, Holy Spirit joy at work in His human spirit. He was jumping for joy on the inside, but it manifest somehow on the outside and looked like something — that is how Luke was able to tell us about it.

When the Philippian jailer believed the good news from Paul, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31), he was full of this leaping joy. “Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced [agalliao], having believed in God with all his household” (v. 34). His whole life had been changed and he now had a wonderful future, and so did the rest of his house, because they believed also. Imagine him in a wild state of excitement as he offered Paul and Silas, who brought him this wonderful message, the hospitality of his house. Joy was leaping inside of him and it showed up on the outside.

Like that jailer, all who receive Jesus the Messiah have much reason to leap for joy. The apostle Peter details some of it in his letter to scattered believers:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice [agalliao]. (1 Peter 1:3-6)
There is much power, wonder and grace packed into that paragraph, and when we understand it, it should leave us leaping for joy, in spirit if not in body. If it does not, then that is only an indication that we have not yet grasped what Peter is talking about.

There are a number of words, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and in the Greek of the New, which speak of joy and rejoicing in a variety of ways. There is jumping for joy, shouting for joy, singing for joy, spinning for joy, and even “creaking” and squealing with delight. But there are none which speak of joy in terms of silence or stillness. It is the nature of joy to manifest somehow.

There is great joy to be had in Jesus the Messiah. How will you let yours show?

(See also The Divine Woo-hooooo! and The Fellowship of Drunken Glory)

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Divine Woo-Hooooo!

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people;
He will beautify the humble with salvation.
(Psalm 149:4)
The Lord takes pleasure in His people. He is fully satisfied with us, takes delight in us, even enjoys us. See how great is His joy:
The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.
(Zephaniah 3:17)
The Hebrew word for the first “rejoice” in that verse is sus and speaks of ecstatic joy. The word for “gladness,” simcha, speaks of mirth and pleasure. The second “rejoice” is giyl and literally means to spin. The word for “singing” is rinnan, a high-pitched sound of jubilation — imagine God shouting Woo-hooooo! God takes such great pleasure and ecstasy in us that He sings and dances over us with whirling and twirling and jubilant shouts. That’s joy!

Who are His people, and how is it that we are pleasing to Him? They are the “humble.” The Hebrew word is anawim and refers to those who are lowly, poor and weak. They place no trust in themselves but look to God for their deliverance. They do not live proud and arrogant lives; they know they are fully dependent on Him. They are the ones Jesus speaks of in the Sermon of Heaven on Earth (a.k.a., Sermon on the Mount): “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

God delights greatly in those who believe His promise and trust in Him. These are the ones He beautifies, dignifies, with salvation — deliverance, healing and prosperity — with Jesus! (See The Fellowship of Drunken Glory)

If you are trusting in the Lord and believing His promises, He is ecstatic over you, rejoicing with singing and twirling for joy. Listen for His Woo-hooooo! and join in His revelry.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Fellowship of Drunken Glory

Let the saints be joyful in glory;
Let them sing aloud on their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand.
(Psalm 149-5-6)
What a picture this paints in my mind. It is one of unmitigated, boisterous joy. The English translation is a bit too tame for it, though.

Let the saints be joyful in glory. The Hebrew word for “joyful” is alatz. It speaks of great merriment. Picture someone jumping for joy. Why? He has been covered in glory, the goodness of God poured out on him, and he has an intense awareness of it.

Let them sing aloud on their beds. The Hebrew for “sing aloud” is ranan. It is jubilant joy, lively singing, loud, shouting joy that cannot be silenced. Imagine someone singing and shouting as he lies on his bed. He is inebriated with joy, drunk on the glory of God manifesting in his life.

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth. The Hebrew for “high” is romam. It speaks of something rising up. It comes up from a place deep in the heart and flows forth from the lips. It is not quiet, somber or sober. It is not a dirge and it is not very “dignified” (see 2 Samuel 6:22, where David, in his ecstatic joy, said, “I will be even more undignified than this”). It is ecstasy and exaltation, overflowing joy, carried away with the object of its praise.

And a two-edged sword in their hand. The Message has, “Brandish their swords in the wild sword-dance.” It is part of the warfare of praise, to fulfill the Word of God upon His enemies (see verse 9). In the New Testament, we have the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). It is like a double-edged sword. “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).

What is the cause for all this wild rejoicing and crazy sword-dancing? Look back to Psalm 149:4, “For the Lord takes pleasure in His people. He will beautify the humble with salvation.” God takes pleasure in His people and shows them His favor.

He beautifies the humble with salvation. The Hebrew for “beautify” means to adorn, to embellish, to make sparkle and shine. The humble are those who make no assumptions about themselves but are wholly dependent upon God, trusting in Him alone. God adorns them with “salvation.” The Hebrew word speaks of deliverance, health, help and includes victory and prosperity. As a noun, is it yeshuah. As a name, it is Yeshua, Hebrew for “Jesus.” All those who trust in God through Jesus Christ are made beautiful with the multifaceted splendor of divine salvation. It is the source of crazy joy.

Faithpoint: The pleasure God has in His people overflows with abundance to them. It is deep, intense, loud, vibrant — and even undignified. It is the drunken glory of all who know Him, who are intoxicated with His love and inebriated with His joy. This honor belongs to all His saints, so come to God by faith in Jesus Christ and drink deeply of Him. Yield yourself to His Spirit and join in the Fellowship of Drunken Glory.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Kite-Boarding in the Spirit


Suzanne and I are on vacation at the beach this week. Enjoying the surf. Bobbling in the ocean. Late in the afternoons, we see the kite-boarders heading up the shoreline. We never saw it before, but it looks like loads of fun. It is a large sort of kite tethered to a board rider (the board is, we expect, strapped to his feet). The kite catches the wind and pulls the board rider along the surf. It takes a bit of skill, we understand, but the boarders glide along the water, skip across the waves and somersault almost at will. They are propelled at the pleasure of the wind.

What a wonderful thought that is, especially when we consider that both the Hebrew and Greeks words usually translated as “spirit” can also be translated as “wind.”

The Bible talks about being filled with the Spirit — that is, the Holy Spirit — and how that brings forth manifestations of the presence and power of God in our lives.

Though He is fully divine, the Lord Jesus Christ did the things He did because He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. That is because He is also fully human, and He operated on earth as a man fully obedient to the will of God and anointed by the Spirit.
The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD .
(Luke 4:18-19)

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)
Everything Jesus did, He did in the Spirit. Even when He walked on water, He did it in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. Even Peter, for that brief moment that he walked on the water, did it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think of it as kite-boarding in the Spirit.

Can you imagine Jesus yelling “Whooo-eee!” as He skipped along the waves, carried along by the wind of the Holy Spirit?

Friday, January 14, 2005

Let’s Have a Symposium

Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18)
On the day of Pentecost, 120 disciples were all with one accord in one place, when suddenly “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). Jews from every nation were staying in Jerusalem for the festival, and were startled at what was happening:
“Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born? …We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”

Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raises his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, … These men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and you daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see vision,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.
(Acts 2:7-18)
Here was a wonderful thing happening to the people of God, and extending to all flesh — and it looked just like drunkenness! But what a powerful kind of “drunkenness” it was. Not at all like being drunk with wine, which leads to everything falling apart.

[GreekSpeak Alert] Actually, the Greek word for “dissipation” in Ephesians 5:18 is asotia is a form of the Greek word for “save” but with the “alpha privative” (the “a” which deprives the word of its usual meaning in order to create an opposite). So the word asotia means the opposite of salvation. That is, there is no redeeming quality to it. It does not bring about deliverance or healing. It does not lead to wholeness, but only brings about disintegration.

The reason getting drunk with wine is so useless and destructive is because the senses are impaired and self-control quickly fades. The wine is now in charge, and it was never meant for that role.

But it is not drinking that is really the problem, nor even being drunk. The real problem is the substance to which one is yielding himself.

“But be filled with the Spirit.” Paul’s readers were using wine for a role which really calls for the Holy Spirit. So he told them to be filled with the Spirit. There are three things to note about this:
  1. We are to be filled, not just a little, but all the way to overflowing. So full, in fact, that there is no room for anything else. In other words, yield to the control of the Holy Spirit and let Him have His way with you completely.
  2. We are to be filled, not just on occasion, but all the time. The tense of this verb in the Greek signifies a continual action. That is, keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.
  3. We cannot do anything at all to fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit. Paul did not say, “Fill yourselves with the Spirit.” It is the work of the Father. As in all good things, He initiates, we respond. And it is the role of the Spirit to do the filling, and not just be the substance with which we are filled. Our role is simply to yield to His work in us.
Well, what does all this have to do with a symposium? Quite a bit, as it turns out. You see, [GreekSpeak Alert] the word “symposium” ultimately derives from the Greek word sumpotes, which literally means “drinking companion.” That leads to the Greek sumposion, people coming together to partake of inebriating potables — that is, to drink.

So, let’s have a symposium. Come and be my drinking companion, and let us partake of the Holy Spirit, yielding ourselves completely to Him.

Get drunk on the Spirit, the promise of the Father to all those who receive the Son. Soak in His love and marinate in His goodness. Let Him inebriate you and fill you with His utterances, prophesies, dreams, visions, and all the outworkings of the great salvation you have received in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Friday, December 10, 2004

The Inebriating Rivers of the Holy Spirit

Doing research for a new book (Miracles and Manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the History of the Church), I came across this item, a commentary by Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (AD 315-367) on Psalm 64 concerning the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 65:9,10 “Inebriate its rivers, multiply its generations. He will rejoice in its misty rain, when it arises.” [Hilary is obviously working from a Latin translation.]

Hilary’s comments: “The Holy Spirit is called a river. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we are made drunk. Because out of us, as a source, various streams of grace flow, the prophet prays that the lord will inebriate us. The prophet wants the same persons to be made drunk, and filled to all fullness with the divine gifts, so that their generations may be multiplied…. We begin to have insight into the mysteries of faith, we are able to prophesy and to speak with wisdom. We become steadfast in hope and receive gifts (plural) of healing. Demons are made subject to our authority.”

[Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical 1994, Second, Revised Edition, pp. 183-4. Citing Hilary, Tract on the Psalms, 64:14; CSEL (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum) 22.246.]
However well Hilary may have captured the essence of this psalm passage, he gives us an interesting insight into the mind of the fourth-century Church: There is a fullness, an inebriation of the Spirit that brings forth words of wisdom, words of prophecy, a boldness of faith, gifts of healing and authority over the demonic. Hilary speaks of them as being fully present in his day.

Jesus promised the disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). On the day that happened, the Spirit-filled disciples were mistaken for drunken wine-bibbers, so much so that when Peter rose up to speak, he began, “These are not drunk, as you suppose… but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:15-16).

Paul also knew of this Holy Spirit inebriation: “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Being filled with the Spirit is very different from being filled with wine. The filling of wine leads to wasteful strife. But the filling of the Spirit leads to fellowship and unity — singing to each other with Spirit-led psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord, giving thanks always to Him, and submitting to one another (Ephesians 5:19-21).

These are the Rivers of Living Waters. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). John notes for us that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit (v. 39).

Step into the flow of the river of God and let the inebriation of the Holy Spirit come upon you. Become drunk in Him, letting Him direct you in all you say and do. Care not for you own will and ways, your own strength and gifts, your own understanding. Yield yourself, and control of yourself, to the Holy Spirit of God. Let His River flow through you.