Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Here's today's blessing. You aren't getting older. You're getting newer because God loves to do new things. Like a blossom that suddenly bursts forth, Isaiah extolled: God delights in every blooming thing, every sight of new life and beauty, a new year, a new way.
I know you. God loves new things. One day, he'll make all things new. Until then, may you have spiritual eyes to see God's fresh grace every day, all day. All year long.
Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Jesus did not lead people to repentance by any form of judgment. He led people to repentance. By his unquenchable love and kindness, it is the kindness of God that leads people to repentance. That's Pastor Alan Wright.
Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Filved as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource today. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. They know they're likely to fail the first time they try something. They don't wait until they're positive they can get it right before they start trying something.
Wouldn't it be a glorious freedom that could come in the body of Christ and in your life if you realize there's no condemnation for you if you fall down? He's going to pick you back up. And you're going to learn. And you're going to Grow. Freedom also comes in this lavish Sense of Generosity Of heart and mind and soul and body and resources.
Because the more the Spirit fills you, the more that you Are you aware of the unsearchable riches you have in Christ? The more the Holy Spirit fills you, the more you are convinced. Of who he is as a deposit, guaranteeing your inheritance in the saints. And when you know yourselves to be spiritually rich, when you know yourself to be an heir, you don't have to be so reserved about giving your life away. Because you're not going to run out.
It's bondage when you can't even give.
Some people can't even give somebody a compliment. They ever been around somebody that they can't even compliment somebody. What are you going to lose by complimenting somebody else? I mean, what are we so afraid of?
Well, there's no condemnation though. Where the power of the Holy Spirit flows, encouragement just flows and flows because we have generous souls. Freedom of the Spirit gives us freedom to celebrate. That's one of the biggest marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, I get under the unction of the Holy Spirit.
That's when I start acting like a drunk person. I'm just like, because you know what happens? You're made to celebrate God. You're made to praise God. It doesn't mean you need to run around the church.
It doesn't mean you have to, but it's a thing of the heart. And man, people that get filled with the Spirit, they're afraid to celebrate. Celebrate God, celebrate life, celebrate goodness. Laughter does good like a medicine. Why wouldn't everybody Want to have the freedom of the Holy Spirit.
Why would anybody want to choose a life of crimped up, locked down? held back Heavy chained bondage. And yet we do. And yet we do. What's Paul?
doing with this image. It's a kind of a complicated metaphor. And in some ways he turns the metaphor a little bit, but It seems that two things were happening with Moses in this veil. We're not exactly sure. On the one hand, his face was so radiant with the glory of God that people were afraid to get near Moses.
And it seemed like initially that was part of the reason for the veil, but then. What we see is that He would go into the presence of God, remove the veil, but then. When you come back out, he would proclaim the word of God, and then, before the glory would fade off his face, then he'd put the veil back down.
So, both images are at work here. But in both images, the same thing is being demonstrated. The veil. Marked and and and symbolized The separation of the people from the glory of God. The veil obscured or hindered people from seeing the glory of God.
And the glory of God, as we read in Exodus, Chapter 34 is revealed in God when he passes by Moses and proclaims himself as the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate. The merciful. The goodness of God is the glory of God, and the veil, therefore, is not just hindering people from seeing the awesome splendor of God, it is hindering people from seeing the goodness of God. In other words, it is to say the veil obscures the glory of the gospel. And what Paul is saying is in the same way that the veil symbolizes the obscuring or hindering or clouding over of the glory of the gospel, of the good news, of who God really is.
So it is that when the law is read, when Moses is read, when you put yourself back up under a system of the law, what happens is that a veil immediately covers the heart. And all of life works like this. that as soon as you mix in a little bit of the law, As soon as you mix a little bit in, a veil comes right back over the heart. And you can't see the glory of the gospel. The Holy Spirit Is so committed to revealing the gospel to us in ever-increasing measure.
So that we will, with unveiled faces, encounter God up close, intimately, the glorious God. and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. See, isn't it true? That As soon as you introduce law, into a relationship. You have not just contaminated what could have been perfect love.
But you have introduced unlimited possibility for fear. The smallest amount of law. injected into a relationship opens the door to unlimited amounts of fear. Because as soon as you're in a love relationship, But it gets established, even in a small way, I love you more if you will be this. And I'll love you less if you'll be this.
Even if it is implied, even if the smallest bit of the letter of the law gets introduced into that relationship, there is an unlimited potential for fear to develop in that relationship. That's the way relationship works. That's why people that have wonderful marriages. Are marriages in which they have such a sense of covenant that though they're They they make mistakes and say things they shouldn't say. that there is a sense of, I'm not going to ever leave you or forsake you though.
And in the context of faithful love, of unconditional love, intimacy grows.
So what happens, Paul says, when you're a Christian and you've been filled with the Holy Spirit and you have the Holy Spirit because every Christian receives the Holy Spirit, but you continue to go back up under the law, every time that you put yourself back up under the law, what you're doing is by your own choice, you're introducing into your relationship with God an imperfection to what He has meant to be perfect. You are taking the perfect love of God and you are choosing yourself to put it back up under the letter of the law and therefore you introduce to your relationship with God, you introduced an unlimited potential for fear and avoidance of God. Why would anybody do that? It is Perhaps the same reason that the people of God, when Moses was away on Mount Sinai, threw their earrings into a pot, and Aaron said, and out came this calf. It was not because they no longer believed in Jehovah God.
In fact, the scripture says they were having a festival to the Lord when they made the golden calf. It is not that we Disbelieve in God when we put ourselves under the law. Instead, it is when we put ourselves under the law, we create a more distant and safe God. That's Alan Wright. and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.
Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's Daily Blessing. It's free and just a click away at pastoralen.org. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is a special teaching called Five Ways to Pray in the Spirit.
In this practical and uplifting guide, Pastor Alan shows how praying in the Spirit is not limited to the gift of tongues. Instead, he reveals five simple and biblical ways anyone can pray in the Spirit. you will discover how praying scripture aligns your heart with God. How to follow the Spirit's gentle promptings, why God delights to shape your desires, how to make Jesus your daily prayer partner, and how to pray from God's affection instead of pressure or fear. These insights will fill your prayer life with fresh joy, confidence, and the help of the Holy Spirit.
The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-455.
4860. That's 877. Five four four four four four four four four four four four four four. The same thing. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org.
Today's teaching now continues. Here once again. is Alan Wright. People often put God in the distance by the veil of the law because they are concerned that this glorious God would be too dangerous, too passionate, too consuming. And we are more comfortable with a veil.
Put the veil on, Moses. We don't want to meet with God. You meet with God and veil the glory and then just tell us what to do. And Paul is saying, you got to understand if that's going to be your attitude about this, the letter is going to kill you, and the veil is going to cloud you, and you are not going to be able to even see the glory of the gospel. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
It's the story of humanity. Adam and Eve, they're in paradise. It's glory. They have. an uninterrupted fellowship.
in the glory of God. And the serpent So clever. Says, what about the tree in the middle, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Just plant the thought that maybe this whole Thing is not about you just being in relationship with God. Maybe you need to do something that you're not doing now in order to become more like God.
And so the serpent is introducing the possibility of the letter. of the law. Of here's what you've not done. You've not eaten of the tree in the middle. That's your problem.
You didn't do something that you could do. And they eat. of the do to be tree. And A veil covers their hearts. And their boys, Cain and Abel, make an offering to the Lord.
God doesn't reject Cain, he just says, I like Abel's offering. It's the surest sign that You're not full of the Holy Spirit and you don't have the mind of Christ. Is it just because someone else gets approval and you don't, that suddenly your heart is all wrecked with jealous thoughts? Because an air doesn't wouldn't think like that. It was a demonstration, wasn't it, of Cain's, of the very fact that he saw himself in a system of the law.
Well, what did he do that I didn't do? Maybe I should do it a different. Why do you like his better? I thought I did something good, too. Why are you?
Why do you. As soon as he put himself up under the letter, He killed his brother. Abraham and Sarah, the people of the promise, God gave them a promise of a son. When the promise tarried, just momentarily they think, well, maybe we need to do something. Put ourselves up under the system of the law.
Put ourselves up under, what do we need to do? Call in Hagar. Call in something other than promise. Call in something that we could do. How can we help this thing along and you wind up with Ishmael?
Jacob, I love Jacob. Jacob, who is a conniver and a deceiver, and he finally meets with God. He gets this vision of a staircase and angels ascending and descending on it, and he sees God, and he says, Surely God was in this place, and I didn't know it. And he's so excited about his vision of God that he doesn't know what to do with himself.
So he just starts a religion and grabs a couple of stones, piles them up, and takes himself, just been in the glory of God, and steps right over here and says, Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. He puts himself under the law. He says, I'm going to make a vow. And if God will take care of me and my family, then I'll come back to this spot and this will be an altar to God. And I'll call it Bethel, the house of God, and I'll give a tenth of everything that I make to God.
Why would you want to encounter the glory of God and then Make up your own law and put yourself under it. Generation After generation after generation. And even Jesus comes and he's spending all his three years with these 12 men. And He's been relating to them. If anybody should know about a relationship, it should be Peter.
Making up his own laws. I'll never leave you. I'll never desert you. I'll never betray you. I'll never speak against you.
I'll never. He said, Peter, he said, you're not going to make it through the night. Dude. You can't keep your own law for one night. You deny me three times before the cock crows.
Problem Paul's saying is that if you make up your own law, put yourself under the law, the law has no power to enable you to keep that law.
So it only, therefore, has power to condemn you under the law. And Peter and all the disciples gathered at Pentecost. They could have just never imagined what was going to happen. Jesus had told them: He said, It's better that I go away because I'll send the Holy Spirit. Jesus wasn't too worried about odds because he knew the Holy Spirit was going to come and make the things of Jesus known.
to these people. And when the Holy Spirit was poured out, and the glory of God was on every face. Peter realized what was happening. He realizing The Spirit of God now took hold of him. And you don't see Peter anymore standing up in his first sermon saying, I'll never betray the Lord, and I'll make sure that I leave my hair just this length and my beard.
He stood up. and he announced that Jesus Christ had risen from the grave. Because he knew the glory of The gospel. where the Spirit of the Lord is. There's freedom.
Because the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance in the saints. You did not receive a spirit of fear that leads you back into slavery. You have received the spirit of adoption as firstborn sons by which you cry out, Abba, Father. He is the spirit. of freedom.
Soon as the Spirit comes upon us The fulfillment of Psalm 34.5. Those who look to the Lord are radiant, and their faces are never covered with shame. When you really See Jesus. The shame lifts, the veil lifts. The law lifts And you are free.
to be what he's always made you to be. The Holy Spirit wants to liberate you. It's not about All of a sudden, you having no authority in your life and being able to just have a reckless life, it's entirely the opposite. He has come. Because you have a great destiny.
You cannot. You will not. You must not live it. with chains shackling you down. when there's so much to do.
Went to see Alice in Wonderland. The Strange Johnny Depp, Mad Hatter. That is a strange man. And it was a strange movie. Alice has returned as the grown-up Alice.
She had been in Wonderland as a little girl, and now. on the day of her surprise engagement party, where the man that she doesn't want to marry is proposing marriage to her in front of hundreds of family friends. Alice is distracted. by a bunny rabbit hopping by. And After she is asked to be wed to this man, she said, Just a minute.
follows the bunny. who leads her down into the hole in which she falls into this great underworld with all of these magical creatures. And the question is, amongst the creatures, is this the real Alice? Did the bunny rabbit bring the correct Alice? She doesn't seem like Alice.
that they remember. And everyone is asking her about this. Finally, They bring her to the wise caterpillar Absalom. Who knows things? And They said of the caterpillar, Is this Alice?
The right Alice and the caterpillar says, She is hardly Alice. Alice goes on her many adventures in Wonderland, or Underland, as it is called. And throughout her adventures, she slowly but surely begins to regain some of the childlike wonder. Imagination, faith. Candor, spunk, and outright courage that evidently she had as a little girl.
Until it comes up near the time where she is ready to fulfill her destiny and fight and destroy the great Japerwackie. And one final appearance to Absalom the caterpillar, whose Chrysalis is nearly complete. And He addresses her as Alice. She said I thought you said I wasn't Alice. He said, no, that's not what I said.
I said, you were hardly Alice. But now You're almost Alice. If I were to sum up the freedom of the Holy Spirit in my life, I would say essentially this. The more That I am in the Spirit. The more I am Alan.
And I'm almost Alan. I'm not there yet. But may he fill me with the Spirit again today and you. Because we're on our way. That's the gospel.
Alan Wright, and I can identify there. Maybe you do. It's today's teaching in the series filled: Why Wouldn't Everyone Want the Freedom of the Spirit? And Alan is back here in just a moment with additional insight on this teaching for your life and our final word: Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing.
If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's Daily Blessing. It's free, and just a click away at pastoralan.org. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is a special teaching called Five Ways to Pray in the Spirit. In this practical and uplifting guide, Pastor Alan shows how praying in the Spirit is not limited to the gift of tongues. Instead, he reveals five simple and biblical ways anyone can pray in the Spirit.
You will discover how praying Scripture aligns your heart with God. how to follow the Spirit's gentle promptings, why God delights to shape your desires, how to make Jesus your daily prayer partner, and how to pray from God's affection instead of pressure or fear. These insights will fill your prayer life with fresh joy, confidence, and the help of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-525-5525-252. The 19th century. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Alan, if someone's listening right now and they've identified with this teaching and this thought, maybe it's just comfortable behind these bars. Maybe it's easier because we're told what to do. We feel like it's safe here. Freedom seems a little bit scary to us.
It can, Daniel. It really can. At least when we're under rules and laws and we're confined. At least we know what to expect. At least we know that there are certain boundary lines.
And there is a sense in which some people would say: if I'm really abandoned to the Holy Spirit and I have the freedom of the Lord, that He's going to claim too much of my life. But I just want to say to every listener again. that God who made you, he loves you. He has only good in store for you. Yield your life completely to him.
Allow him to fill you ever increasingly because he is not only the answer for now and for all eternity, but he is life and life abundant. Um There is nothing to fear in God. He has only your good. in mind. And so you can yield to him and live a life of freedom.
Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
