Hosanna Restoration Church

It is important to understand what it means to belong to God. You can often hear people speak of not feeling like they belong somewhere or expressing the thought that no one understands them. As long as we are focused on ourselves and how we feel and what we think, we will never understand how the Kingdom of God works nor will we experience all that God has planned for us.

When we do come to the understanding of what it means to belong to God we discover just how easy it is to kill those things that fight against the kingdom of God. Why is it easy? It is easy because we finally discover that it is our own refusal to trust God that keeps us from the desires of our hearts. What a liberating moment it is, when we realize that our own selfishness has been our problem all along.

For instance, when we talk about the Spirit of God making us loving, happy, and peaceful, and then we decide that we have a right to be unlike the Holy Spirit for a time; we are being selfish for our own way. It is as though we walk hand in hand with Him as long as things are the way we like them, but when something comes up that we do not like, we pull our hand away and turn our back on Him. Remember, He never pulls His hand away.

It is true that in many instances, we cannot really understand what someone is going through unless we have experienced ourselves. However, the Holy Spirit can give us wisdom and understanding to help. If we will listen to the Holy Spirit we will be able either to help or to be helped. It should be important to us to receive and to give. There is a purpose in our being part of the family, therefore, we should desire to be all that we can be to the family as well as being willing to receive from the family.

Yes, it is possible by the Spirit of God to know things we have never personally experienced and once we have experienced anything of God it is important to pass it on. The Holy Spirit in us causes us to desire what God desires. When we have confidence in God, we no longer have a need to think only of ourselves. This allows us to trust Him to take care of us and opens our eyes to the needs of others.

We recently celebrated the 25th birthday of our son. This would not seem like a big deal to some but it was really fun for us. You see for the last couple years, he really has not participated much in his birthday or anything else. This year he opened every present and smiled and enjoyed it. He actually says it is his 23rd birthday. It is as though in his mind he did not have the last two birthdays. Anyone who has not experienced such a thing has no understanding of what I just wrote about and yet some of you are smiling and happy rejoicing at out joy. The Holy Spirit can do that!

This all boils down to what Jesus said about coming so we could have life and that we should choose life. True life comes when we choose His thoughts over our thoughts.