The reason God gives His Spirit to the members of the Body of Christ is that we might serve Him as a priest. The Spirit is as a holy anointing oil that sets aside the members of the Body for their appointed role as servants of God, as priests, rulers, teachers, deliverers, judges, and worshipers of God.

God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him. The more we obey Him the more of His Spirit we will possess.

He will bring justice to the nations.

The Christian churches are looking for the Lord to come and carry them to Heaven. This is not what is going to take place. The Lord is coming to bring justice to the saved nations of the earth. We will be caught up to meet Him in the air so we can descend together with Him and work with Him in the cause of justice.

The world today, as always has been true, is filled with injustice. The poor are oppressed. The meek are outwitted by the schemers who plot, cheat, steal, take what they want by trickery and violence. All of this is an abomination to God. The Servant of the Lord will descend from Heaven with enough power to put an end to the wickedness of the destroyers of the earth.

Then will the meek rejoice and inherit the earth.

He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. (Isaiah 42:2—NIV)

The meaning here goes far beyond speaking with a loud voice. We know that the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Body, raised His voice on occasion.

Rather the concept is that of lifting up ourselves instead of waiting on the Lord.

Throughout Church history men and women have lifted up themselves to do the work of the Kingdom (as they supposed). They thought they were serving God and may have done great good in some instances, and great harm on other occasions.

"The just shall live by faith" means the righteous do not lift up themselves in their own wisdom and strength, in their pride, but look to God in faith for every decision they make.

In the days to come we need to cease lifting up ourselves to do the Lord's work. It is time now to wait on the Lord, to inquire in His temple. We need to do as Jesus did. He acted only as He saw the Father act. What the Father did, that is what Jesus did.

The pressures are so great today that for a person to launch into religious activity without hearing from the Lord will prove to be futile. We must learn to wait until we know what the Lord is saying.

The Lord mentioned people who claimed to have prophesied in His name, to have worked miracles, to have cast out demons. He will drive some of them from Him because they are wicked.

This tells us the Holy Spirit will honor the name of Jesus even though the minister is wicked. People will be saved and delivered from demons. But the minister has no inheritance in the Lord if he does not behave righteously.

To be continued.