Today I want to share a little thought with you that has been nagging at me for quite a while now. It’s a little two-word thought with big implications.
Something we do continually in Christendom is sing, pray, and
even tearfully cry out for “more of the Holy Spirit.” You do it. I do it. We all do it together, and there’s
nothing wrong with that. But one
day, as I was crying out to God to let me experience more of the power and
presence of the Holy Spirit, I had this thought:
“What for?”
I had been meditating on one of my favorite sections of
scripture, John 14-16, and I was
becoming troubled by my reaction to something Jesus had said. Jesus was telling the disciples that it was
better for them that He goes away so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. If you had asked me any time before if I
would rather have the physical, flesh-and-bones Jesus walking and living beside
me, or the Holy Spirit living within me, I would have answered that I’d
rather have the Holy Spirit. I knew intellectually that Jesus
had said it was better. But this time, I
forced myself to really face the reality of whether or not I really
believed it was better.
I love Jesus. I cannot
express in words how badly I want to see him face to face, to hear what his
voice sounds like, to laugh with him, to share a meal with him. If Jesus physically lived with me, and spent
every day with me, and taught me personally, would I ever feel distant from
God? Would I ever worry or be
afraid? Would I ever be lonely or
discouraged? Would I ever lack
boldness? Not likely.
So I asked myself, “Honestly, can I really say that what I’ve
experienced in my relationship with the Holy Spirit is better than that?”
I knew instantly that I had a problem. My experience hadn’t
been better than that. To be honest, I
was still choosing physical Jesus. So
either Jesus was wrong, or I didn’t have a right understanding about
what kind of relationship was available to me with the Holy Spirit.
How could I experience more in this relationship? How could he help me do the “greater
things” Jesus had promised in the book of
John? To see what I was missing in my
relationship with the Holy Spirit, I turned to the book of Acts. It didn’t
take long for me to discover an interesting trend.
Acts 1:8 says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you, and you will be
my witnesses…” On the day of Pentecost, Peter, the
recent three-time denier of Christ, preached the Gospel and 3000
people were saved (Acts 2.) Later, after
being arrested, “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit,”
stood trial before the Jewish council and gave a
defense of Christ that left them “astonished.” Upon their release, the believers
prayed, “and they all were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued
to speak the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4)
As displayed in
scripture, the people who were experiencing the power and presence of the
Holy Spirit were the people who were actually doing things.
That day I had to face the harsh reality that I wasn’t
really doing anything for Christ.
I went to church, asked God to give me more power, and then I did….nothing. Could this be why I wasn’t
experiencing the fullness of my relationship with the Holy Spirit?
On Sunday, Pastor Aaron pointed out that the only people who knew
a miracle had taken place at the wedding (in John 2) were the people who were serving. In the same way today, let us understand
that the pathway to seeing “more of the Holy Spirit”
at work in our lives is not found in a lifestyle of quiet
church-going. The call to follow
Christ is not a call to comfortable, safe, consumption. It is a call to action. If you want to experience more of the power
of God, put yourself in a position where you need that power and see how
God comes through.
The next time you find yourself in a place where you just don’t
“feel God” anymore, the next time you’re
crying out and asking for more power from the Holy Spirit, consider this:
What for?
Edited by: Brigit Edwards
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