Discover A Powerful New Life In Jesus Every Day

Bible Reading: Luke 1:39-56

The first time a baby jumps in the womb is called a quickening^[a]. A sign of life, a sign of vitality, that gets your attention. A tiny heel kick from the inside of your gut that awakens your entire body. When Mary was pregnant with Jesus she visited her relative Elizabeth. The Bible records, “At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41). Then Elizabeth exclaimed what God had revealed to her that Mary was carrying the Messiah. Then Mary began to prophesy. What started as a little leap from deep within the womb became a song, a sermon, and a Bible passage. All physical things came from the spiritual. Hebrews 11:3 states, “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.” Which means all physical things find their bearing in the spiritual: a spiritual purpose, meaning, and ultimately intended use as worship to God. Just as there is a physical experience of quickening, there is a spiritual experience of a quickening. Paul once said, “Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (Galatians 4:19). How can Paul say he is going through labor pains when he is a man? Well, it is a spiritual thing he was going through. He was laboring in prayer for them. And at times, prayer is like going through labor. How many of us have experienced this and stay with a matter the Holy Spirit is praying through us until we felt it was accomplished in the spirit? It’s impossible without the Holy Spirit to understand what this experience is like. It’s why we must be filled with and baptized in the Holy Spirit. God wants to give birth to things in this life, on this side of heaven. He wants us to see His Word come to pass and actually happen, but it must be accomplished first in the spiritual before it can be made manifest in the physical. Sometimes this means we must go through deep times of prayer, as God leads by His Spirit, to see this done. Wailing, moaning, and grieving, while throwing a fit, is not the same as being led into travailing as Paul has described. But what I want to focus on is how Elizabeth experienced a quickening. Before anything is born, it all begins with a quickening.

When hearing the Word of God, when reading the Scriptures, God will work a quickening in our spirit by the Holy Spirit. For some of us the only quickening we’ve experienced is when God brought us from death unto life. We’ve experienced what Paul wrote, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Had to go to the King James Version to find the word quickened. A more modern way of saying this is we were made alive, who had previously been dead in our sins. Many Christians have experienced the quickening of their spirit, in fact, all Christians should have at least once. They have been brought from death and into life, but many stop there. Everything since then, every sermon heard, every Bible verse read, every small group session has been little more than a teaser for the brain, a pull on the heart strings, and another assignment to look the part of being Christian. Notice how the soul, the mind, will, and emotions can end up taking charge of someone’s life. Just because it made you go ‘hmm’, cause it was intelligent, or it made you cry because it was a touching story, or because you can act on it with your will does not make it a spiritual quickening from God. These things are not what stimulates the quickening power of God for transformation. The Word hasn’t come to life in them and been fully formed until they are no longer the same man, woman, or child from before. Humanity has an incredible ability to dress up nice, but the heart could remain cold. Passionate about doing the right thing, but missing the point, the actual power of God to transform.

God is so wonderful that He did not put these things out of arms reach. He placed them in us the moment we were saved. Now is the time to be fully formed in Christ. Today is the day of salvation. Jesus sent us His Spirit so we could have this. Jesus said this of the Holy Spirit:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’”

If there hasn’t been a quickening in your spirit then today is the time for one. If you have grown cold but used to experience this quickening then today is the day to seek this work of God. If you say there was a day that used to happen but think you know all there is to know then today is the day for God to amaze you with His manifold wisdom (Ephesians 3:10). The book of Job states, “Then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out. And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding’” (Job 28:27-28). God takes wisdom out and places it like a jewel up for evaluation. The word “declare” in this verse can be translated as ‘to count’, and God counted each and every different facet and way the light shines through the gem of wisdom.

He’s fully searched it out, no coast left untreaded, no distant corner of the map left untraced with foggy edges. He knows the full extent of wisdom, and “in him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and “this is the secret: Christ lives in you” (Colossians 1:27b). But how willing are we to continue searching, keep counting, keep full of wonder at how beautiful and endless the truth of our Christ really is? He has an endless supply, and endless supply of ways to quicken, bring life to us. And one way He does this is by the quickening of our spirit. Paul said, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). We get older, the day the Lord calls us home draws nearer, our aging bodies prove how God said, “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27), but inwardly, in the spirit, we experience continual, eternal, quickening, lifegiving, revelatory power from God if we would only seek Him.

He does not speak on His own. He speaks the Word of God. He grabs the truth, and how blessed are we to have the truth placed before us in a book we can grab, feel, see, and read, and then highlights it with the revelatory power of God. It’s like something inside our hearts makes the words burn with life, “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” or even all the above at the same time (2 Timothy 3:16). As we read, the Holy Spirit makes these words come to life for us, for our life, for our walk with God, and uses this to bear fruit in the world, a living manifestation of his Word. He doesn’t send his Word to fill a dusty spot on a bookshelf. He brings this Word to life by the Holy Spirit in our lives.

This quickening experience is the living Word of God. Planted as a seed. Alive and able to perform all God hath sent it to accomplish. Our job is to grab ahold of that seed when God prompts that moment of realization. Read that seed God revealed to us in His Word. Meditate on it. Pray over it. This gives it water and sunshine. Ask God to grant the growth and that we would fully grab ahold of it by faith. Through this we experience the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit this truth is expanded into song, sermons, and good works. We bear fruit when we remain in Him and He in us. A daily quickening of the Spirit is sure to be a life lived in worship just as Mary and Elizabeth experienced. Without this daily refreshing presence of God we are empty vessels. May we all burn with a desire that we would continually, “be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18), and that from this would flow a growth of understanding of the promises and goodness of God. And that from this, the blessing will flow out to others, encouraging other believers and sharing the blessing we have freely received from God.