I wanted to focus a little on Holy Spirit in us, and how if we listen to our feelings too much we can limit what He wants to do in us and through us.
I’ll start by saying that the normal experience for a Christian is to be filled with Holy Spirit. Whether that happens at the point of salvation, or subsequently, the point is that we, like the first disciples and early believers, are meant to be full of Holy Spirit. And at times, the presence of Holy Spirit in us can give rise to some deep and powerful feelings. You’d expect that – right? God living in you will not slip by unnoticed.
I was preaching about this yesterday, and when I asked who had been filled with Holy Spirit there was an enthusiastic show of hands. When I asked who was full now there was a lot of indecision. The reason? I think many people were basing their judgement on whether they felt full of Holy Spirit or not. Because His presence in us gives rise to powerful feelings at times, we can be tricked into thinking that the absence of any feelings might mean that we are no longer full of Holy Spirit.
The truth is that or feelings literally can change with the weather. If it’s sunny we feel happy; if it’s cold, wet and windy we feel a little less cheerful. A nice worship song can stir our emotions, as can an electricity bill! If we decide that since we have no great feelings of the presence of Holy Spirit, therefore He must be absent (or at least not as present as we would like) then we naturally tend not to be flowing easily in His purpose.
So, what is His purpose? Ask that question and I get answers like ‘give us gifts or fruit (or both!’), ‘convict us’, ‘lead us into truth’, ‘guide us’ etc. But these things are not His purpose. They are things He does to further His purpose. His main purpose is twofold:
- Firstly to transform us; to make us like Jesus.
- Secondly to flow out of us to impact the world and the people around us
Looking at the first part, basically it’s a job of restoration that He has. I used to be a builder and I used to love looking over decrepit buildings with a view to restoring them and improving them for the owner. And the truth here is that anything is possible, provided that the owner has enough money. The budget controlled how much could be done. Holy Spirit however, has no budget to limit Him in the business of transforming us into the likeness of Jesus. No expense spared! Nothing is too much trouble for Him. As we saw last week, His job is to prepare a Bride that is fitting for King Jesus.
In this context it is worth mentioning the fruit of the Spirit – Love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness and self control. (All the right fruit but not necessarily in the right order!). I used to see these things as individual fruit that grew separately from each other. So maybe I needed more patience, or perhaps needed to ask for the fruit of kindness. The truth is that these are all aspects of one fruit. Like a blackberry has lots of bobbly bits around the core stem that make a blackberry, so the Fruit (singular) has lots of bobbles (love, joy, peace etc.) round the core stem which is self control. Without self control (and openness to Holy Spirit in us) this kind of fruit will not grow.
The second part of His purpose is to flow out of us, “like rivers of living water” as Jesus said in John Ch. 7. Someone once asked the question “Is the Holy Spirit in you a lake or a river?”. Think about it for a moment.
It is in this context that the Gifts of the Spirit come into use – or they should do! The best gift is the one that you need at that moment. For the most part God is not after Specialists. As a general rule He would rather that we learned to be open to Holy Spirit in us enough to be able to step out in any of the gifts as the situation demands.
In the past, probably like many believers, I have gone to conferences and meetings hoping for some encounter with God that would propel me into seeing more of the supernatural – miracles, healings, ability to evict the demonic, share the gospel etc etc. All the time I was ignoring the fact that I already was fully equipped in terms of annointing and empowering. In the Old Testament people were generally anointed for a particular task. In the New Testament we are all anointed from the start of our Christian life for all of our life.
2 Peter 1 v 3 says “His divine power has given us everything that we need for a Godly (God-like) life.” Ephesians 1 v 19 talking about the power of Holy Spirit in us from Day 1 says that that Power is the same power that Father God used to raise Jesus from the dead.
I think the enemy would be very happy for us to ignore this truth, and have us chase round conferences asking God to do what He has already done for us; or be so focussed on our fleeting emotions that we conclude that His power has left us or receded. The truth is that I didn’t find out the reality of Holy Spirits’ power in me until I took a risk, and offered to pray for healing for a stranger out on the street. The man was healed. He was shocked – so was I!! But then I knew what I carried within me – what we all carry within us. And it didn’t depend on my feelings, or on who had prayed over me at the latest meeting.
In 2 Kings 4 Elisha tells the impoverished widow to gather all the jars that she could find and fill them from the small jar of oil that she had. A miracle took place and as long as she kept pouring, the oil kept flowing.
The river is in us now, ready to flow. When we pour it will flow. Simples really!
Church is out there 