Word and Spirit [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. And I'm so naive. I said, criticism? Who could criticize? All I did was lay hands on people and bless them. What?

I mean, they're not going to be, I said, I literally said, there don't be any criticism. He said, well, okay, but I just wanted you to know. 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, Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Balance, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, 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 right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this resource, today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. There is no separation between Word and Spirit, although Word and Spirit are distinct. And God is a triune God. This is one of the mysteries of the faith. It's very hard to wrap your mind around it, but it is that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but He's one God. He's one God in three persons, but He's one God. And this can be confusing to other religions.

How could you have one in three? It's a mystery that transcends our mind, but God is one God, but He's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Son of God is called the Word in John chapter 1, who became flesh. And the Spirit of God, Jesus says, I send forth. So the most important thing to understand about this is that the Spirit Himself is God Himself. So God is with us by the presence of His Holy Spirit. So there's no difference in saying God is with us, so saying the Holy Spirit is with us. No difference in saying you have Jesus in your heart or you have the Holy Spirit in your heart. The way in which you commune with God your Father is by the very real presence of the Holy Spirit. And so what we need is not only our meditation in the Word that is the truth, but we need the illumination and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Word is full of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit illumines the Word. And so what happens is that this Word, the Scripture, which is timeless and true, lies there like words on a page unless the Holy Spirit makes them alive to you.

And this is why it's so important to just open up yourself to let God reveal Himself to you in the Scriptures. Because a truth, even if it's an absolute truth, if you don't know it and you don't believe it, it's not a truth to you or for you. When you believe something that's false, you believe it's true. And so when you have a paradigm shift and something changes in your way of thinking, we say the light turns on or I see it differently now.

Well, what we mean is there was something that I was blind to before. I saw incorrectly it was false and I believed it, but now I see what the truth is. And this is so much of what Jesus means when He says, it's better for you that I go away because I'll send the Spirit of truth. And He's going to show you the truth. He's going to show you the truth about who I am.

He's going to show you the truth about who you are. He's going to lead you and guide you into all truth. We need the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

And we need the Holy Spirit who is filled to this Word to make this Word alive to us so that our faith explodes. I think I've mentioned to you before that Anne's uncle Stanley once had a neighbor who had a little five-year-old boy who was afraid of dogs. Particularly, he was afraid of a dog in the neighborhood named Lucky. And the boy's mother decided that in order to help him overcome this fear, she would have him memorize the Scripture that says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and power and a sound mind. And so the little boy memorized it and he had to say it over and over until he had it just down pat. And one day the boy's outside and here comes Lucky and the boy's just as scared as he's ever been. And his mother says, now what did I teach you? Now you just go ahead and say it. Say it out loud. And he said, God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love and power and a sound mind.

But I'm still afraid of Lucky. What was he saying to us? I know what this Word says, but this Word hasn't become my Word yet. It hasn't become real to me yet.

And so often this happens. If we think that the Word is just this dormant kind of religious text and it never has life to us and it never really means anything to us. And so what God does is He is in a miraculous way, He who has filled this Spirit, filled this Word with His Spirit also makes this Word unique to you by His Spirit.

You see, people are concerned that, people rightly are concerned. We don't want to have revelation that's extra biblical that in some way adds to the Bible, but what I'm saying is that the Bible, God's Word is being attended to by God's Spirit. And He is utterly for you getting this and seeing this. I think I may have shared one time before, but it's sort of a tender and beautiful story in my life. I say it with care, so as not to cause any offense to anyone who would hear this from a previous chapter in ministry in my life. But we were in Durham Pastoring Church for about eight years, and it was a wonderful, wonderful church with so many, many dear friends. And the church had a warm evangelical message of the love of God and how you can have a personal relationship with Christ, and we grew a lot. And in the midst of this time, I also was growing in my faith and growing in my experience of the power of God.

You must understand this, let me just say this parenthetically, the reason that I am attracted and want more of the power of God is not for the sake of having the power of God, but I want people to be helped. I want people to be helped. I see what people walk through. I see the sicknesses that people face. I see the difficulties in relationship. I see the confusion.

I see the pain. I see young people today. I talk to the girls that are cutting themselves and feel suicidal. I talk to the boys who are lost in confusion, without a sense of purpose.

I talk to the people who are in depression. I see what is going on, and I want people to receive help from God. So this is really the thing that fuels me being open to the power of God. Well, in this time of ministry, sometime around about our sixth year in Durham, I began to discover a principle and the power of blessing, as seen in the scriptures, as the Hebrew patriarchs would bless their children. And I began to see the call in our lives to speak blessing, which is essentially a powerful faith-filled vision that is in accord with scripture, uniquely spoken over someone's life. And what happens in our lives is, just as God interacts with us, as we interact with others, and we announce that sense of positive destiny, people's hearts become filled with faith, and they rise up to meet that. There is a real virtue that is released when you bless somebody, and it has a prophetic significance to it.

And I was teaching about this in my church, and it was a very powerful thing to be discovering. And at the end of the service, the first service that day, I just felt led to say, and we never did this. We didn't have healing ministry teams. We didn't have prayer ministry, life ministry.

We didn't have that kind of thing. But on this day, I said, if you would like for me to come and just lay hands on you, speak a blessing over your life, at the end of the service, after the benediction, just stay. Stay in your pew, and I'll be so happy to come and just speak this blessing over you.

And after that first service, maybe a dozen people stayed. And I went, and as I began to lay hands on people and speak blessing over them, something happened that had never happened in my public ministry ever before. I could only say it was a prophetic type thing, it began to happen. I was completely just under an unction of the Holy Spirit. And I just began to speak whatever words I felt like the Lord was giving me as I was speaking these words of positive vision over these lives. And one after the other, as I began to just bless like this, you could just see there was something that was being imparted in people's lives. And there were some miraculous things that were happening. I remember in particular, after that first service, there was one young couple.

And as far as I knew, they had a wonderful marriage. And I just began to bless their marriage. And the words that I was speaking as I was blessing their marriage, it began to, it began to have the sense of maybe there was struggle in their marriage. And I remember even feeling like, why are these words coming out?

Because I don't know. And later as they wept and they later came and said, how did you know we were having so much difficulty in those areas in our marriage that you bless? I said, I didn't know, but God knew that. And this kind of thing began happening around the room. And after the second service, I gave the same invitation, even more people stayed. And I went and I laid hands on people. And I was absolutely enthralled and full of worship to the Lord to be an instrument of His grace like that. Lives were being touched.

The word was being made real to people. And it was beautiful. And afterwards, my associate came up to me and he said, I just want, you know, I thought it was one of the most anointed, most wonderful mornings I've ever had in church said it was just, I just want you to know it was spot on. You were totally in tune with the spirit today. And it was just fantastic. And he said, I just wanted you to know that before the criticism comes.

That's Alan Ryan. We'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind, you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's word and God's spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and spirit always belong together. The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible.

The secret isn't being filled with the spirit. The answer is both word and spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying scripture, and some traditions emphasize the spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both word and spirit. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's word and His spirit and grow like never before. With word and spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day.

Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.

You were totally in tune with the spirit today and it was just fantastic. And he said, I just wanted you to know that before the criticism comes. And I'm so naive. I said, criticism? Who could criticize? All I did was lay hands on people and bless them. What?

I mean, they're not going to be, I said, I literally said, there don't be any criticism. He said, well, okay, I just want you to know. And then it started. And it didn't start from the people who had experienced it. It started from the people who hadn't experienced it and had heard that something had happened. I still to this day absolutely mystified as how somebody who goes to church and even as a leader in church could be mad if God himself moves in that church.

But it does happen a lot. And I say this with all real respect to even some of those dear ones that later we worked it through with, but it was a kind of form of persecution that really hurt me a lot because there were some who began to make fun of it. And that's a painful thing.

If you're used by God, and then someone mocks your gift, right? And so it was painful. At the same time, I had been doing a training course on the ministry of healing. And I had been teaching people, about 50 people for a semester and was going to start a healing ministry in the church just to pray for people after the service. That's all I wanted to do. And there were several who came up in real opposition.

They were very afraid that it would be too charismatic looking or something or whatever. And so it was kind of being attacked. And all of this is going on and my soul is hurting with this. And I'll just be honest with you as a young man, it doesn't feel good to be experiencing that. And I'm trying to figure out, Lord, what do I do with this? Do I just sort of tone all this down?

Do I how do I handle this? And there's that little part of you that just wants to quit acknowledging the Holy Spirit. And this is exactly what happened. I tell you the story for this reason. This is exactly what happened. I was going into my house one day into the front door and across the street, my neighbors were saying goodbye to some friends who had obviously been visiting. And as they were seeing them get into the house, they were saying goodbye. And as they were seeing them get into the car, they were, you know how sometimes you'll say, see you later, and the person who's saying goodbye will kind of help close the door to the car. So they were seeing them into their car. And I'm just telling you, this is exactly exactly what happened.

I could hear them talking, but it's fairly, it's caddy cornered across the street, but I couldn't hear it real loud. But when the final words were spoken by my neighbors to their visitors, this is exactly what it was like. They yelled the words and I heard this as they were closing the door behind them, Luke 12, verse 8.

It went through my mind. I was like, I didn't even know they were Christian. My, you know, I didn't even, I mean, Luke 12, verse 8. But then almost in the same instant, I really knew God had just hollered out a scripture to me. It's the only time this has ever happened in my whole life that God just had put a scripture out there. And so I raced into the house to look up Luke 12, verse 8. And when I read the words, I began to weep for the words of Luke 12, verse 8.

Say, I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God. And I just wept for a long time because though I know that scripture was there and I have read that scripture before, the Holy Spirit made that scripture go into my heart in a way that it was like God Himself was in the room and speaking to me. That's what I want the Word of God to be to me every day.

And that's what I want for you. So the scripture, the truth of God, illumined by the Spirit of truth. If we have the Word and we don't have the Spirit, then we dry up.

We have no life in that Word to us. Now let me just start by saying this. I, as you hopefully have detected, love the Bible. I don't worship the Bible, I worship Jesus, but I love, I love, love the scripture. The Bible is God-breathed. The Bible is so marvelous.

I just cannot say enough about how much I love the Word of God. It's the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It's the primary source for the greatest art in the history of the world.

It is the inspiration of the finest music ever composed. Its verses are literally etched into the columns and corridors of our nation's capital. This book has been deemed so powerful that it is used in secular courtrooms as the proof of honesty when a witness gives his oath. It has been reckoned so influential that both Hitler and the devil misused it. It has been viewed so threatening that religious aristocracies have kept it from ordinary readers and governmental agencies have kept it from entering country borders.

It has been banned and burned, and its translators have been killed. And through it all, the Word of God stands. It's life-giving, it is imperishable and incorruptible, it is utterly timeless, and yet always timely. It is incomprehensible to the proud but readable to the simplest child. The Bible may be criticized, it may be misapplied, it may be debated, hated, or even rejected, but one thing is for sure, you cannot ignore this book, for it is the best-selling book of all time.

I love this book. So understand that for me to say that if you only have the word, you dry up. I don't mean this in the sense that you don't understand the vitality and how alive this word really is. I grew up in a highly liturgical church, and this now as I have grown and matured is in no way a criticism of the highly liturgical church.

And here's the case in point. The church I grew up in as a youth, I'm just giving you my perspective, no offense to all of my brethren and sistren who have been in these churches, but it was a whole lot of stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up, sit down, kneel, and the minister would sort of chant most of the service. So my experience of church was this was my main experience of scripture, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. I mean it's like even you get to those scriptures that would be like, you know, a song that's like, praise the Lord of all ye people.

Praise Him with the loud cymbals, the clashing cymbals. I mean it just, you know, it didn't, it just didn't match up. So it was a lot, there's a lot, well I just like, that's what the word, it just seemed so lifeless to me. Years later, however, my wife and I are living in Atlanta, and we decided while I was in seminary for a period of time, we went and attended a highly liturgical church.

But man, that's what we did. We went and man, it was such an alive church. They had all this vibrant music, people just worshiping, and when they would kneel and confess, people would weep, and when they would sing out this, you know, and they'd be like reciting the scriptures, and they'd be shouting them, and it was just like, same thing, but it was just a lie.

So it's not the style at all that I'm talking about. I'm talking about, I'm talking about if you become one of those who is like, I'm just sowing the word, I'm just gonna be sowing the word, but you're never open to the Holy Spirit, it becomes pharisaical. This is what Jesus said. He said to the crowds and his disciples in Matthew 23, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do, for they preach but they do not practice. See, that's the thing, the Holy Spirit wants to take the word and put it into practice in your life, but what a Pharisee wants to do is just say, I know the word better than you know the word, and you ought to do, therefore, what I say, but you got to understand that not only did the Pharisees quote the scripture and Jesus rebuked them, but the devil himself quoted the scriptures to Jesus, and so you can take it, you can misuse it, you can misapply it. If you have all word and no spirit, you dry up, but if you have all spirit and no word, then you're gonna blow up.

Let me give you a couple examples of this. King Saul, I'm not gonna take time to go back and read the text, but go check it out sometime for yourself, and look back. The first king of Israel, the people of God begged God for a king. We want a king like the other nations, and they just begged God, so finally he said, okay, if you want a king like the other nations have, and he gave him Saul, and Saul looked kingly.

He was handsome, he was strong, he was a head taller than everyone else, and here was the thing that was amazing about Saul. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit. He prophesied, he won battles under the unction of the Holy Spirit, but he had no character. He had no, he had no commitment to the word of God in his life.

He had no, he had no substance, and he had no fruit in his life, right? So he was a, he was a man of the Spirit who had no word. Alan Wright and today's teaching Word and Spirit, the conclusions on the way on our next broadcast.

Alan's on the way in the studio here in just a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. If you've ever thought that being filled with the Holy Spirit meant shutting off your mind, you're in for a wonderful surprise. God's Word and God's Spirit were never meant to be separated. Word and Spirit always belong together. The key to abundant life in Christ isn't knowing your Bible.

The secret isn't being filled with the Spirit. The answer is both Word and Spirit. Though some traditions emphasize studying scripture and some traditions emphasize the Spirit, the path to real Christian growth is the fullness of both Word and Spirit. When you make a gift of support this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's newest audio album on CD or digital download titled Word and Spirit.

It's about the beauty of balance. Embrace the fullness of God's Word and his Spirit and grow like never before. With Word and Spirit, you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well. And remember, when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries, you'll be broadcasting the love of God to thousands every day. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, you'll have to give me those three lines again, all Word, no Spirit, all Spirit, no Word, because the conclusion's coming on the next broadcast.

But in the meantime, how can we use that to filter and to see, okay, where are we right now? Exactly. All Word, no Spirit, you dry up. All Spirit, no Word, you blow up.

But Word and Spirit, you grow up. I don't know what Whit came up with that, but there's a lot of truth in that because what we're learning about the beauty of balance is not that you can have too much of one or the other, but you can be completely out of balance if you don't have both Word and Spirit. Word and Spirit were never meant to be separated. When God created the world, he spoke and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. In the same way that our words, when we speak, are full of our breath, well, that's what God's Word is. All Scripture is God-breathed. That's what inspired means. So the Spirit is in the Word. The Word would never violate anything that is of the Spirit. And so we're learning about this, and I would just suggest to our listeners, this is so much the key to growing up as a Christian. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.