Respecting the Holy Spirit in Older Believers
/Recently, I was thinking about my mother and my mother-in-law and other older loved ones in my past…wishing I had been more understanding and sympathetic with their struggle with aging and weakness and decline. Now I find it’s my turn. And now I know what it feels like to age and say “good-bye” to capacities and people and opportunities and youthful strength.
So today I’m revisiting this post…for my own encouragement and for yours too, dear reader. We are all aging. May the Lord meet you in whatever stage of the process you are in.
And let’s support one another.
But the godly will flourish like palm trees …
Even in old age they will still produce fruit;
they will remain vital and green.
They will declare, “The Lord is just!
He is my rock!
There is no evil in him!”
Psalm 90:11, 14-15 NLT
During worship one Sundqy, I was arrested by the final stanza and chorus in one of our worship songs:
My final breath shall be forever Jesus
When shadows lengthen before my eyes
My Lord and Friend
Companion through the valley
When dearest ones are left behind
His hand will lead me to the light …
When I meet His gaze I will sing my praise to the King forever Jesus
All my sorrows past
I am home at last
With my King forever Jesus
With my King forever Jesus
With my King forever Jesus
And I thought of the beautiful group of online sisters I lead on Tuesday evenings — most of us in our 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and even 90! We are in various areas of the country, though mostly in Ohio. And we share so many things, mainly our love for Jesus and each other because we are sisters IN HIM!
But because of our age, some of us are beginning to really feel the wearing down of our “earth suits” ( as one author has describe our bodies and as my sweet friend Penny reminded me just the other day).
But you know, we are experiencing what God has promised all along,
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Cor 4:16-18 NASB
And so week by week, we look at those “unseen things” together, knowing that His indwelling Spirit is there even when we can’t express Him well anymore or understand as clearly as we once did. That’s just the outer man anyway. The inner person is being renewed day by day.
That makes me think of my sweet mom who has been face to face with her Jesus since late 2015. There was something that arrested me right in my tracks the day of my mom's funeral. I was undone by deep sobs of realization. And the depth of it had been helped along by the incense and the reverence afforded the treatment of my dear mama's frail little body being put to rest.
It wasn't the finality of it all. It had already been final when she had breathed her last, days before. No! It was the Sacredness that came crashing through! My mama's now feeble and even ashen body had been the very dwelling place of GOD!
And that sacredness started long before her death...the sacredness was about the Glory, the Living God Himself, indwelling that humble little person named Jeanette Galuszka Renner day after day, year after year of her joyful, suffering life.
And that big gilded family Bible sitting on our coffee table for years had declared it:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple [a Holy of Holies] of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? 1 Cor 6:19 ESV
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col 1:27 NASB
...the Spirit of God dwells in you. Romans 8:9 ESV
But we have this treasure [the glorious Christ] in jars of clay [our bodies], to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2 Cor 4:7 ESV
And on and on...in fact, it proved true her favorite verse that she had often quoted to me even as a child:
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him”—
And then is added...
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. 1 Cor 2:9-10 ESV
And the same is true of us. It really doesn't matter how frail, broken, misshapen we think we may be...we are each a perfect home for God Himself on this earth, despite our "dustiness." He has chosen to live in His loved ones to the very end of life in our earth suits and on into eternity.
Do you have an aged loved one whom you need to view differently — as a sanctuary of the Living God? Respect the Holy Spirit in that fragile sacred person.
Or what about yourself, O aged and beloved dwelling place of God? Can you now see how glorious you really are? God lives in YOU…yes, little ole “failing in strength” YOU. Respect the Holy Spirit in Your beautiful life!
Amen!
My hymn of praise shall be forever Jesus
My firm foundation in shifting sands
My strength and hope through many fears and failures
The disappointments of the past
His constant love has held me fast
Chorus
So for all my days I will sing my praise to the King forever Jesus
Though the storms will rage
He is strong to save
He's the King forever Jesus
My shout of joy shall be forever Jesus
Who brought the suffering who made a way
His life a gift, His death a precious ransom
That wipes the sinner's guilt away
And turns our night to glorious day
Chorus
So for all my days I will sing my praise to the King forever Jesus
Though the storms will rage
He is strong to save
He's the King forever Jesus
My final breath shall be forever Jesus
When shadows lengthen before my eyes
My Lord and Friend
Companion through the valley
When dearest ones are left behind
His hand will lead me to the light
Chorus
So for all my days I will sing my praise to the King forever Jesus
Though the storms will rage
He is strong to save
He's the King forever Jesus
When I meet His gaze I will sing my praise to the King forever Jesus
All my sorrows past
I am home at last
With my King forever Jesus
With my King forever Jesus
With my King forever Jesus
