Psalm 139:7- "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your Presence?" Proverbs 20:7- "The Lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; It searches out his inmost being." Luke 24:49- "I am going to send you what My Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.".....Who is the Holy Spirit? He is nothing less than God Almighty. We see from these verses that He is everywhere at all times and that we can never escape His Presence, that He searches the spirit of man and knows us to the very core, and that He desires that His people wait upon Him. He knows that we absolutely require His constant Presence and makes Himself known to us, but do we allow Him to move as He would in every detail in our lives? We believe Him, yes- but do we allow Him to be what He intends to be in our lives? Remember that He always points to Christ, always testifies of Christ, always draws people, by His power, to Christ (John 15:26). He enables believers to be passionate witnesses for our Savior- and the power is HIS. Why then, do we act as if we we're ashamed of Him? Many of God's own children treat the Holy Spirit like the proverbial 'ugly stepchild'. We want to intellectualize everything spiritual and make the Holy Spirit fit into our nice, 'tidy', 'respectable' idea of our own churchianity- and then we have the gall to wonder why He doesn't move in and through us as we know He desires to!....
God have mercy on us, we must stop trying to be 'gate keepers' for the Spirit of God! We cannot use Him (remember, He is God)- rather, we have the incredible privilege of being open, willing, yielded vessels through whom He can move, yet we want to relegate Him to the back room for fear that He may do something among us which brings us out of our comfort zone- after all, what would we do if lives were actually touched and changed? What do we do if He steps out of the 'box' that we try to put Him into?....
Let's look directly into the mirror and ask ourselves, "How much of God do I really want in my life? Do I desire 'rivers of Living Water' gushing through my soul, as God would love to pour into me, or am I satisfied with an intermittent drip? We're the ones who limit Him- it is He who would do so much more in and through us, if we were only willing! Remember that as we receive, we also give out. We are the Body of Christ, and we were never meant to be stingy, either in receiving, or in giving out- that's simply not God's way of doing things. He is always robust, always so generous in His love, mercy and life changing power, and He would have us be the same- after all, we are HIS children!....
I urge every believer who senses a 'dryness' in his or her life to begin seeking- earnestly- the very heart of God. Allow His Spirit to move in you, first individually, then as a body, in a totally yielded and open manner, and ask Him to do all of the wonderful things in and through your life that He would. He will not lead you into anything silly or ridiculous, and He will never violate His Word. He WILL begin to move POWERFULLY in you, and He WILL give you a new-found adoration of Him, though. Are you up for it?
En Agape,
Pastor Jim Ewing
