How do we breathe?
21:26 Men fainting from fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 And when these things begin to happen, stand erect and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
The word “fainting” in verse 26–“Men fainting from fear”— literally means to stop breathing. We all need to breathe. Spiritually speaking, everyday we live by the Spirit. But how do we live by the Spirit? How do we breathe?
Calling on the Lord’s name is actually very physical. When we call on the Lord’s name, we don’t call with our minds. We call with our being. In terms of our lungs, calling on the Lord’s name really means that we breathe the “pneumatic” Christ. God Himself is pneumatic. Jehovah breathed Himself into Adam. Before that moment happened, Adam was just clay. Clay means nothing. Clay has no life until clay meets this divine breath, and then suddenly it becomes a living soul.
When we say “living soul,” what do we mean? A soul has an expression. That expression is through our body. We can never have a living soul without a living body. Then we come to the core of our Christian salvation. Our body has been cursed. We will get sick; we will get tired; we are aging; we feel the limitation of our strength; we want to sleep, drink and eat. All of these things are physical. No living soul can be expressed without a body. No living soul can be expressed with this breath!
Today, our body has been attacked. We might think, “Sickness and death will not come to me. I can enjoy the world now.” When we do that, we forget to breathe—both physically and spiritually. But we probably need to breathe more while we still have our lungs. We have to exercise our lungs. Some people breathe very shallowly. Yet as living souls we need to exercise deep breaths.
Lord, we breathe You in. This is our only cure. Lord, outside of You, there is no salvation. Lord, thank You for the signs of times. Lord, may those significant signs awaken us. Lord, we give our lives to You. We give our church life to You. We give our every breath to You.
Awaken us! Oh Lord, You are pleading a case for us. We confess we are powerless. Lord, without You we are nobody. Without You we have nothing. We confess we have tried everything but still have come to the end of our rope. Lord, death is crouching at the door. Lord, save us! Don’t save us on that day… save us today!
Lord, if we have a day, we live for You. Lord, if we have a life, that life has to be manifested in You. Grant us this privilege. We treasure the time. Redeem our time.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 2/21/20, not reviewed by the speaker.)
