Luke 2: 40And the child grew (enlarge, increase), and waxed strong (to empower, strengthen) in spirit, filled (to influence, occupy) with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit. Jesus’ spirit did not have to be born again, it was perfect, but Jesus’ spirit had to grow and at the age of 12 he confounded the religious leaders of his day.
When we are born our spirit has to grow up into God. Our spirit is not perfect, it is perfect in seed form, but it has to grow. All of the D.N.A of God is in that seed and that seed will produce a full grown son of God if we learn how to grow our spirit.
The seed of God is incorruptible, it cannot sin it is perfect; it is the eternal life of God in seed form. But the seed has to grow, and that seed is conceived in our spirit, when it is born again.
Our spirit is not the seed; the seed is in our spirit when our spirit becomes alive to God. The seed contains the life of God, which flows into our spirit when we learn how to activate our spirit.
Activating our spirit is joining it to the Lord’s Spirit to become one spirit. We join our spirit to the Lords through focus; it is called abiding in the vine.
When our spirit is alive to God, we are able to tune into the Lord and draw the fruit of His Spirit into us. Our spirit has access to the fruit of God’s Spirit –Galatians 5: 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (restraint).
If our spirit is alive to God, we should be able to tune into a fruit of Gods Spirit so that we can feel it flowing into us. We should be able to feel Gods love flow into us, to feel his peace flow into us, to feel his joy flow into us, to feel his longsuffering flow into us.
The presence of God is in the fruit of His Spirit and we have to learn how to practice being aware of it.
Jesus’s spirit began to be strengthened and grow. This is talking about Jesus, the child grew not just physically but he became strong in spirit. Filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and with favor with God and man.
Now in the natural it takes a long time relatively speaking to grow up, talking about physically and emotionally and all of those things, it takes a long time to grow up. Not so in the realm of the spirit.
You do not have to wait for 30 years to grow up in the realm of the spirit, like I did. It has taken me a long, long time to grow up spiritually. But you can grow very very quickly in the realm of the spirit. Your spirit can mature.
When Jesus was the age of 12 he was confounding the religious leaders in Israel. And it says the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, while he was still a child. So our spirit can grow up very quickly
When we receive the nature of Jesus, what the bible calls the new nature; it is talking about the fruit of the Spirit. What is God’s nature like? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, all of those things. That what he’s like, that is who he is, and that is in us, that’s in our spirit. The seed is in the new creation.
Luke 2: 40And the child grew (enlarge, increase), and waxed strong (to empower, strengthen) in spirit, filled (to influence, occupy) with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
As a child, Jesus’ spirit enlarged, it grew through the infilling of wisdom: and the grace of God, the power of God clothed his spirit.
It wasn’t just Jesus, that terminology was used also for John the Baptist. In Luke 1:8 it says and the child grew, talking about John the Baptist and waxed strong in spirit and was in the desert till the day of his showing to Israel.
John the Baptist’s spirit became strong in the Lord and grew. Our new born spirit has to grow, it has to expand and increase and be formed into the image of Jesus Christ, a fully mature son of God.
When we pray in the spirit (in other tongues) our spirit is being exercised and is strengthened and grows. When we worship God in the Spirit, our spirit enlarges very quickly. The bible talks a lot about being enlarged in God. It’s not our physical body; it’s our spirit being enlarged in God.
Worship enlarges our spirit. All we have to do is begin to worship and our spirit grows, it just instantly grows. Speaking in tongues, building ourselves up in the faith, praying in the Holy Ghost strengthens our spirit. He that prays in an unknown tongue edifies- the Greek word means builds up your spirit -like being in the gym for the physical body. The stronger our spirit is the more it takes dominance over the soul.
Some people’s spirits are so small within them, that they can hardly find it. They have never meditated on the word, so that the life of God flows into their imagination, the screen of their mind. They don’t pray in the spirit, they don’t spent time in the presence of God, they don’t worship and that seed remains as a seed. It is not watered and it’s not feed and the living word does not grow within their spirit, it remains as a seed. The seed doesn’t germinate; it doesn’t come forth because they don’t feed it. They don’t water that seed; they don’t exposure it to the sun, the presence of God. Their spirit is emancipated, their spirit is the new created man, but it doesn’t grow, it is still a child.
If we don’t strengthen our spirit, it is not going to come forth; it is too weak to come forth. We have to strengthen our spirit; we have to enlarge ourselves in God.
We talk about Peter’s shadow, what was it? It was the power of God emanating through him. His spirit was so large, many many times bigger than his body, that when he passed down the road and people got caught in the overflow of his spirit, in the dynamic of God in his spirit they were healed. They passed through his spirit, his spirit filled the atmosphere around him.
The English word shadow doesn’t give us the right picture. It means effulgence, an out flow. It is an outflow, a virtue. Enlarging our spirit until it becomes the dominant influence in our lives. The life of God flows out of heaven though our spirit, soul and body out into the world so that the kingdom of God has drawn near.