Jon Davis's blog

I've come to realize a formula that I believe always works in overcoming sin. Many people hate "X Steps" and related formulas, because many sins are so complicated. And that's fair enough, complications do exist, but when those complications boil down to flesh wants its way now, I think this formula works.

A week and a half or so ago, while I was in bed but had been up late and was so tired and dealing with a headache, He woke me up with a revelation, and He kept waking me up expounding on it .. Jesus was led .. by the Spirit .. into the desert .. to be tempted .. by the devil. Read that again, really slowly. The Holy Spirit can lead a person to an uncomfortable place to be tested. His guidance doesn't always feel comfortable. In this case it wasn't just uncomfortable it was a place for Jesus to be tempted. "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or from the evil one]". Jesus, who was not just Son of God but also Son of Man and emphatically so, surely prayed this prayer in the desert, considering he's the one who taught it. How did the Father answer? The Holy Spirit is a reminder. He reminds us of what Jesus commanded. (John 14:26) So the Father in Jesus's case answered Jesus in this prayer by the Holy Spirit by reminding him of the instructions of God--Old Testament scripture--the appropriate scripture in response to misused scripture. This was clearly demonstrated in every temptation! You see, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Two edges ... The Holy Spirit is the rhema (edge #1) that instructs us in real-time how to discern the logos (edge #2). The written word is a rich language, a vocabulary, that the Holy Spirit uses to guide our every step. Asi en Español, cuando yo tengo solamente "Donde esta el baño?" (So in Spanish, when I have only "Where is the bathroom?") , I'm never going to be able to eat, I'm never going to know how much it costs, I'm never going to know how to get a ride, I'm only going to know how to find a restroom. It's not enough to know a few key scriptures.

The fellowship that Jesus had when he walked the Earth as Son of Man with the Holy Spirit was unique and exclusive. No one else ever experienced the kind of power that Jesus had with the Holy Spirit, the kind of guidance that he had, the intimacy that Jesus had with the father through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had exclusive and special partnership with Jesus **because Jesus was perfect**. He was the son of God. But what Jesus did on the cross enabled God to see us as perfect like Jesus. Because of the blood of Jesus, the spirit became poured out upon all flesh, when that veil was torn and the spirit showed up in full force on the day of Pentecost. Everything Jesus did was to demonstrate what life with the Holy Spirit should be like. Loving people. Healing people. Delivering people. Performing miracles. And most importantly and most beautifully and most astoundingly and most desirably, the intimacy with the father that we get to enjoy through the spirit!!