You'll know as well as I that if we have Jesus in our hearts we are not of this world. I found this in one of my old books and want to share with you some thoughts as the Resurrection Sunday draws near.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

John 17:14

During His last night, our Lord took great effort to make clear to His disciples the impassable gulf between Him and the word, and between them and the world. He had said of the Spirit, "The world cannot receive [Him], because it neither sees Him nor knows Him" (John 14:17). "Because you are not of the world....therefore the world hates your" (John 15:19).

One great characteristic of the disciples was that they were to be as separated from the world as Christ had been. They and Christ had become united in the Cross and the Resurrection; they both belonged to another world, the kingdom of heaven. This separation from the world is to be the mark of all believers who long to be filled with the Spirit.

Why is faith in the Holy Spirit so seldom preached (not in AACC) and practiced in Christendom? The world rules too much in the lives of Christian. Christians rarely live the heavenly life to which they are called in Christ Jesus. The love of the world--"the lust of the flesh [pleasure in eating, drinking, ease, and comfort], the lust of the eye [delight in all that the world offers of beauty and possession], and the pride of life [the self-exaltation in what the wisdom and power of man has accomplished]" (1 John 2:16)--robs the heart of its desire for the true self-denial that enables a man to receive the Holy Spirit.

If you wish to pray the Pentecostal prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit, examine yourself. Is the spirit of the world the reason that you do not love to pray the prayer that is absolutely necessary to receive the promise of the Father? May the Lord write this thought deep in every heart:  the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit!

"[You, put your name here] are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."

Love to all,

Pastor Sonny & Gloria