No Other Life

Transcript S2E3

 No Other Life 

[00:10] 

Hi, I'm Tony Kostas and welcome to Led into Love.

I want to start by referring to something I said in my very first episode, and that is that all relationship with God is experiential. That means that you can't even begin to know God without experiencing Him.

You can't live a life in relationship with God unless you're experiencing Him. 

You can't talk to other people effectively about God – in fact, you can't effectively represent God to other people – unless you're experiencing Him. 

Because the very nature of God … when we say the Bible says “God is love” … And love is not a theory. Love is not a feeling. Love is something very comprehensive that people experience.

Everything about God is living experience. God is who He says He is. He's not something static. He's a living, vibrant being, the most amazing being in the whole Universe, who created the whole universe. And to know Him, to really know Him, is to experience Him constantly.

[01:27] 

And I want to talk about that today, in relation to the God that I experience personally – the God that I experienced when I first came to know Him at the age of 17, but the God that I’ve constantly experienced ever since then.

Jesus said to His disciples before He left them – after He was crucified, rose from the dead, and then when He was leaving them to go to His Father – He said, “I am with you always”. And He meant it.

It's easy to think of God as … even if you … if you … believe in Him and you … you have a concept of this God that I'm talking about – it's easier to think of Him as kind of like sitting in some kind of box seat somewhere with a great wonderful view of everything that goes on in the Universe. And particularly that He can zoom up to what's going on here on earth, and He can zoom up to people, and he can zoom up to your life … and see Him as, like, he's there, he's interested, maybe very engaged. And if you really need Him and you approach Him the right way, and you pray prayers, and you believe, then God will respond to you. 

It's another thing to understand … I don't even want to say ‘understand’ because when I say ‘understand’ I know we immediately tend to run through to the thinking part of us and we want to kind of mull something over. So, when I'm talking about understanding, let's say it's spiritual understanding. It's something that you know in your heart, OK? 

So, it's much easier to comprehend the God who is who He is, but sort of a little bit disengaged from everyday life – so we have to keep reminding Him that we're here and … and we need Him. 

But He is the God who is totally involved!

[03:24] 

Like, God didn't … didn't create this world and put it on autopilot.

God doesn't initiate things and go off and do something else while they tick along.

Whether it's in your life, my life, in history … or anything, God is intimately and intricately involved, because God is a constant. 

You know, I love the fact that Jesus, as an expression of God, is called ‘the living Word’. And I love ‘Word’ because words are expressions. And when you go right back to the, you know, the beginning of John's Gospel, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God … and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”.

Now, what's this ‘Word’? This ‘Word’ is the living expression of God.

[04:21] 

Jesus was God expressed in this world. So that when you met Jesus, when you encountered Jesus in the flesh, in his lifetime, in this world, you … God was being expressed to you. How? In the way that if you had eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to receive God, you just knew and you couldn't explain it. 

People who encountered Jesus – who heard Him preach, who saw Him do miracles – tried to figure Him out, tried to somehow pigeonhole Him or comprehend, who is this guy? But he was the expression of God.

Now our God is always expressing Himself.

[05:02] 

When Jesus left this world to return to His Father and sent his Holy Spirit upon those who were in this world still, but who already believed in him, they discovered that this expression of God had become theirs. God's spirit had come to dwell in them. That's what happened on the Day of Pentecost. And when that happened, God … the reality of God … flowed out of those people. 

One of them, Peter, stood up on that day – because there was a crowd … as you many know from my previous podcast … there was a crowd of 3,000 people. Sorry, a crowd of thousands of people that gathered to find out what was going on. And Peter spoke to them. 

What was the magic in what he said? No magic. What was the brilliance in what he said? No brilliance. What was it then about what he said? He was a man now filled with God because that's what being filled with God's spirit is.

And what he said, not so much the words themselves, but the expression that came from him was such that the people who heard him, 3,000 of them, were convicted and said, what must we do?

[06:17] 

Jesus said that the people who believe in Him, that out of their innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

Some Christians often like to think of themselves as being kind of like a – yep, I used to say it too – like a pipe. You know … the water goes in one end and comes out the other. And all you do is, like, channel God … channel Jesus.

But actually, Jesus wasn't saying that. Jesus was saying that if you are His – and let me say, when Jesus made that statement: “…out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” there's an explanatory bit after that. Not … He didn't … Jesus didn't say it, but it's an explanation that says He said this of the Holy Spirit that those who believe on Him would receive.

When God's Spirit fills your being, you become – not a pipe, not a channel – you become a source, because the source of life, the God of the Universe … and please don't even try and get your mind around how the God, whom the Universe cannot contain can come and dwell in fullness in you. 

But if that's not true, then don't bother believing your Bible. In fact, don't bother believing anything, because what Jesus came to do was never fulfilled. But it was!

[07:50] 

Jesus said that He would send His Spirit – and He did. And ever since then, if you believe in Jesus and you give your life to Him, you become … not only do you become His, not only do you receive his life so that you are forgiven – so you're cleansed from your sins, so you're born again – you become, if you wish, someone whom God can … I don't know quite how to say this because I don't want to say can fill … I want to say wants to fill.

I would say, you are now made to be not just someone who can put your hand up and say, “Hey, I'm a born again Christian and I go to church and I, you know, I do my best to live for God,” – but people who will say: “I have received Jesus as my Savior and my God, I receive your spirit into my life. I make my life available to you. I open my heart to you. Fill me, fill me, fill me, and keep filling me. And out of my innermost being, let there flow rivers of living water.”

You know, I love these things because by themselves, standalone, they could seem like fanciful ideas or concepts, or whatever you like. But I am saying these things are true to start with. I tell you absolutely from my experience, they are true. You know, when I was a young Christian, when I first got to know Jesus at 17, I really was very sincere about wanting to live for God.

[09:31] 

My life had been changed. I knew what it was to be born-again. I loved it. And I was followed up by a church near where I lived, and I found myself amongst these Christians, and I was discovering this ‘Christian life’.

But on the other hand, I was also a teenager who was an apprentice aircraft mechanic, and I worked at our main airport. And the guys that I worked amongst weren't overall a godly kind of bunch of people. The day before I went to that Billy Graham Crusade (that I've talked about in an earlier podcast) I went along there and, that night, to my surprise – or at least I didn't expect it – I came to know Jesus.

The guys I worked with, that day before I went that night to that Crusade, were the same guys I went back to work to be with the next day. They hadn't changed, but I had. I was very aware of the change. It was real. And the thing was, I wanted to live for God now. I didn't want to be the guy I used to be. Not because I'd had a change of mind, not because I’d decided to turn over a new leaf. But because I was changed on the inside in a way that I didn't even understand. I couldn't explain it to anybody, but I knew it was real. Well, I joined this church and I really wanted to live for God.

[10:51] 

And as the months ticked by, and I loved being amongst these newfound … they were more than friends, they were other people who believed in Jesus like I did.

And I felt, you know, a desire on the one hand – but a powerlessness on the other.

And one night when I was with a bunch of other people – we'd been at a Bible study at our minister's house and a few of us had stayed behind, and we were talking and, I don't know, somehow it came up that we were talking about what I was told was the baptism in the Holy Spirit or, if you like, the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

I didn't know about these things – so many things I didn't know then – but I knew that something was still lacking in my life, and I guess I was talking that night about, you know, wanting the power to live for God, the power to express myself so as to give God's expression out of my life. I wanted the means (looking back on it, I wouldn't have said this then, because I didn't know the terminology) to be a life-giving … a life giver … to be a true expression of God.

And my minister said to me … told me about … “well, you know, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And he said to me, “tonight when you go home, get down by your bedside to pray and ask God to fill you with His Spirit. But don't wait until you feel something before you also thank Him. Because thanking Him means you believe,” (well, it should mean that you believe that what you've asked for is yours). “So don't wait to start thanking God until you know it's happened, but thank Him because you've asked him and He's promised … Jesus said … it would happen.” 

And I did that. This naive young 17-year-old went home and did that – and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It happened, it was real, it was wonderful. And it changed my life.

Not that I got to know Jesus better, but that I got to be an expression of Jesus in a way that I couldn't have otherwise.

[13:14]

Well, not long after that I … after I'd shared my experience with my minister and I was asked to lead the singing at one of our once-a-month … we used to put on a Christian movie night at our church (they were the days before videos … before a lot of things). And we used to have to rent Christian movies and put one on, one Saturday night of the month. And beforehand – being a bunch of Christians – we would sing some nice Christian choruses. And I was asked to lead the singing, but I refused. I was a really shy guy and I was very embarrassed to be in front of a bunch of people.

And the same minister came up to me – the guy who had told me not long before that about being filled with the Holy Spirit – and he said something very straight to me. He said:
“What are you going to do with the gift God has given you? Are you going to put it in your back pocket?”

Those words stung, because I knew they were true. You see, I was still the same guy. I still had the same natural feelings. I still felt shy, I still felt inadequate, I still felt embarrassed. But I knew that God had done something in my life that I asked Him to do … and I was too scared to even lead the singing at a Saturday night movie gathering!

[14:38] 

Well, that was a long time ago – but I tell you, to belong to God and to be filled with the Holy Spirit is a beautiful ongoing reality. Not for the experience’s sake, but for what they do with us and our lives now.

None of these … no experiences with God will substitute for you living in faith and obedience and trust – as I have already talked about on these podcasts. But that's … you know … that's for you. Those things are in the area of your choice – how you live your life. But as far as God's part in your life and as far as what God wants to do in you, and do through you, you will never know that unless you surrender your life to Him and ask God to make you an expression of Him in the most normal way in the world.

How He does it is up to Him. This is not something spooky, but neither is it something like you put on externally. It's not a role you play. Unfortunately, some Christians do role play. Some Christians learn the Christian jargon and they learn all sorts of things that Christians say and do. And they play the role. They play the game when it suits them, especially when they're around people that they want to think well of them.

[16:04] 

What I'm talking about is belonging to God … allowing God by His Holy Spirit to fill you and making yourself available to God so that you can be the expression of God in this world that He intended you to be … that you were created to be!

[16:26] 

And I want to come to something that I come back to – something that I, one way or another, often say, often say here. It's this: that the ‘Christian life’ so called … You know, when people talk about the Christian life, it's like, “Well, there's this kind of life and there's that kind of life and then there's the Christian life.” And from that viewpoint I don't particularly like it being called ‘the Christian life’. I would say there is one life that you and I were created to live, and that's the life that comes from God.

[17:01]

When God created Adam, in the Garden of Eden, we read one of those wonderful words that say, “God breathed into him the breath of life.” God breathed into him. The life of God was breathed into Adam!

We are all Adam's children. Just because he turned his back on God, as we know, and brought sin and destruction on the whole human race – and Jesus has undone all that – so now, when you come to Jesus, you don't become like a Christian and live a ‘Christian life’. You become what God intended you to be … what God first made Adam to be … what Jesus was when He walked this earth. And that is, a human being made in the image of God, who is intended by God not only to know Him, but to be filledwith Him.

Not only to be filled with him, but to be one that is a source of life out of whom flow rivers of living water.

Now that of course will cost you everything, just like it did Jesus.

[18:21] 

Christians are always glad that Jesus was so single-minded. I like to think of Him being, you know, rather than single minded, it's more like, ah, it's single-hearted like His … but if you like … it's His whole being. His whole being was for one reason, but it wasn't because He was the Son of God – the Eternal Son of God. I'm talking about Jesus the man, who came to this earth and laid aside every advantage of being God so that He could identify with you. And you in turn then would be identified with Him.

He, at a tremendous price, with incredible suffering, took your sins upon Him so that you would receive eternal life as God's gift. Because of what Jesus did … God's gift … you were made for eternal life. But the eternal life starts from the point at which you come to Jesus here in this life. And that eternal life is the life of God. Jesus once said that He has come that we might have life and that we might have it in abundance. Like, eternal life by its very nature is an unlimited life!

Yeah, you can say we live in a world that's full of limitations, and we are humans who have human limitations, and we live in bodies that have limitations. But the miracle of God is that eternal life starts here and now for those who belong to Him. They start … it starts … here, and it continues on beyond this life into Eternity. But it starts here and now.

But eternal life is not given to you to be something that you kind of … I don't know … just keep for your own wonderful benefit.

[20:07] 

Jesus said, “I am the truth, I am…”  Sorry, I'll start that again in case you were poised, wanting to correct me! He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He didn't say, “I know the way, the truth and the life. He didn't say, “I will tell you about the way, the truth and the life” … “I am!”

And that's the Jesus who dwells inside you, if you have opened your heart to Him. And that life is the life. There is only one life. Anything else, anything else that anyone can have that looks like, you know … because they've got a pulse and they're living, breathing and all that, you know, brain activity and all those things that we define as well, that person's alive … to the most vibrant, expressive person. 

But that's not life. That's life without life! Unless God's life is in them, that's still existence. Nothing but existence.

[21:14] 

The life that God came to give you is life. One life. And that life is for you. And that life is meant to be expressed in you and through you. And that life is meant to be a source of life to others.

When Jesus spoke about “…out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” He wasn't talking about trickles. He wasn't talking about little spurts. He was talking about … even not about … a river, but he was talking about rivers of living water.

[21:50] 

And again, how do you picture that with your mind? Just let your heart respond to that. It's the truth.

Life with God is wonderful. The only life that there really is, the only life that any human being was made to live, is God's life.

If you are His and your life is in His hands, do not limit God in your own life. Do not limit what God … who God can be not only to you, but how God can express Himself through you. Don't form your own ideas and plans and speculation, or not even speculation, but fanciful ideas about how you would like the life of God to be in you. That's not for you to do.

Because when you … when you belong to God, you place yourself under God's lordship. You say, “God, here I am. Here I'm yours. And everything that you give me is for your glory. So God, live your life through me. Express your life through Me. Be known through me.” 

If you are not living like that in relationship with God, you're not living the life that God meant you to have. And worse than that, you will always deprive other people of that life that could be theirs if only they would receive it or have an opportunity to receive it, because it comes from you.

[23:21] 

So often, you know, there's people perform things in the name of Jesus. People do great things in the name of Jesus. People write great things in the name of Jesus, and that's great. But all those are man's expressions of what God is all about. But if you let the Spirit of God have His way in your life, He will be the expression of God in and through you that He wants to be.

Each one of us is unique in our relationship with God … is individual … and God knows how He wants to be expressed in your life.