Praying, Confessing, and Not Quenching the Spirit
Verses:
1 Thes. 5:19 Do not quench the Spirit. Rom. 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep
Ministry Portion:
We were regenerated years ago, but now we need to be transformed and renewed. We need to get out of the old habit, thought, concept, and logic. We need to get out of the old Christianity. The only way to do this is to pray. We should not pray superficially but from our spirit. When we pray, we should also make a thorough confession of all our failures, defects, shortcomings, wrongdoings, mistakes, and transgressions. We should confess our criticizing of others, our backbiting, our gossiping, and our vain, idle words. Our confessing should not be once for all. We need to confess every day, several times a day. In this way we will pray ourselves into our spirit. We will be happy, rejoicing, and joyful the whole day. We will be persons filled with the Spirit and possessed by the Spirit. We will become different persons. We should not speak negatively but always speak positively. We should no longer gossip, criticize, or speak idly. We should simply speak Christ, speak grace, speak mercy, speak God, and speak the holy Word. This will change the very essence of our being. We need such a change. I hope we would all live in this way.
Living in this way will cause us to be Christians who meet all the time. Even when we are not in a meeting, we will be joyful and rejoicing persons. Then when we come together with others, we will still be this way. We will be very willing to open ourselves and fellowship. We will be able to present to the saints what we have, what we are, and what we know. When we come together with others, we will take the lead to be such a person. Then the others, especially the new ones, will follow us.
We should come together with six to eight brothers or sisters to practice this kind of group meeting. If we are not able to have this kind of meeting with one another, then we will not be able to do it with the new ones. Instead of taking the lead to be living, we may take the lead to be dumb. After five minutes of dumbness we may say, “Let us open up to fellowship,” but no one would fellowship. This kind of meeting is dumb, calm, and cold. There is no warmth, no spirit, and no life. In such a meeting the Spirit is quenched. First Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” We quench the Holy Spirit by quenching our human spirit. Sometimes when everyone is singing “Hallelujah!” in the meeting, we do not join in, or we sing in a cold way. This quenches our spirit. We need to join in and open up. Then our spirit will be stirred up. When our human spirit is stirred up, the Holy Spirit within us rises up, and we receive the benefit. We must learn to not quench our spirit.
Our spirit is our most tender part and our most excitable part. No other part of our being can be excited in a proper way as our spirit. Every spiritual person must be able to be beside himself in his spirit. If we are too composed, we cannot be spiritual. The apostle Paul knew how to weep (Rom. 12:15; Phil. 3:18) and, at the proper time, how to be joyful (4:4). A person who is too sober-minded never laughs and never weeps. It is difficult for the brothers to be spiritual, because they control themselves too much. The sisters, however, do not control themselves as much. In this sense it is easier for them to be spiritual. In the four Gospels women such as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna (Luke 8:2-3) were all spiritual. Judas, on the other hand, had a very clear, sober mind, a mind that considered how much money he could gain by betraying the Lord. We must learn to not quench our spirit, and we must learn to release our spirit. We should all learn to be “females.” Then we will have the capacity to have proper group meetings. (The Practice of the Group Meetings, ch. 2, sec. 2)
The church in Zamboanga 