During the music portion of the beginning of our worship service on Sunday, I was confessing sins to my God. I was confessing wrong motives and impure thoughts, things that kept me from worshipping in spirit and in truth. As I was confessing, the Lord gave me the word “purge.” And I repeated that a few times as a prayer, “Purge…” “Purge…” The Lord gave me the picture of what purging means. As I welcomed the Holy Spirit into those areas of my heart that sin had been reigning, He was able to force out the sin.
The Spirit of the living God and my sinful flesh cannot occupy the same territory.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Galatians 5:16-17 ESV)
As we invite the Spirit of the living God into areas of our soul, we are relinquishing territory to His control. We are letting Him rule and reign in that region. But the thing we need to remember about the Holy Spirit is that God’s Word likens Him to a dove, not a bull. So if I try to take back that same territory I gave over to Him, He lets me take it.
When I surrender territory to the Holy Spirit of God, it’s as if I’m saying, “Your will be done in this area of my life, just as it is in heaven.” When I take back that surrendered territory, the Holy Spirit says, “Okay, your will be done. You can have it.” He doesn’t fight me, but He does gently try to win it back through His love and patient persistent grace.
And then we are “…purified…to serve the living God.” (Hebrews 9:14)
It’s all about continuous yielding.
It’s all about ongoing surrender.