Brian's Blog

I ran across these two quotes recently on the Holy Spirit. Both quotes are by solidly conservative teachers – both named “Chuck” (although I can’t imagine calling Dr. Ryrie “Chuck”) and both help us realize our need for a daily enabling work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Chuck Swindoll says, “Surely the awesome Spirit of God wishes to do more within us than what is presently going on. There are scars He wants to remove. There are fractured feelings He wants to heal. There are insights He longs to reveal. There are profound dimensions of life He would dearly love to open up. But none of the above will happen automatically – not as long as He remains a sterile, untouchable blip on our theological PC.”

Charles (Chuck) Ryrie states, “The solution to the problems of the church today is to solve the individual Christian’s problems, and the solution to those problems in a Person – the Holy Spirit. He is the antidote for every error, the power for every weakness, the victory for every defeat, and the answer for every need. And He is available to every believer, for He lives in his heart and life. The answer and the power have already been given us in the indwelling Holy Spirit.”

These are pretty bold statements – statements that may reveal our complete lack of attention on the deity that God has eternally placed inside each believer. The Holy Spirit resides in those who trust Christ not only for the purpose of sealing us for God’s kingdom in heaven but to also help us get beyond our humanity and weaknesses by His leading and greatly matter for God’s kingdom right here, right now!

To be “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18; Romans 8:14) we must make sure that we don’t “grieve” the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30) with attitudes or life patterns that are sinful. We also must be certain that we don’t “extinguish” the fire of the Spirit’s leading in our lives (1 Thess. 5:19). These “extinguishers” can take many forms – delaying, excusing or ignoring His promptings are obvious extinguishers of His leading. One of my biggest “extinguishers” is that of the fear of man. Being fearful of what people think of me, or concerned about their disapproval or their criticism has often been water on the flame of the Spirit’s prompting in my life.

This fear of man complex is probably one of the biggest changes that the Scriptures mention about the first century disciples. This is the reason why we see them go from hiding after Christ’s death to declaring “we ought to obey God rather than man” in the first chapters of Acts. So let’s not fear man or stall when we sense God’s Spirit leading us to do something for His kingdom. Be sensitive and act upon His prompting right away!

In 1983 John Sculley quit his post at Pepsico to become the president of Apple Computer. He took a big risk leaving his prestigious position with a well-established firm to join ranks with an unproven little outfit that offered no guarantees, only the excitement of one man’s transforming vision. Scully says he made the risky move after Apple cofounder Steve Jobs goaded him with the questions, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

Changing the world was hardly the thought that would come to anyone’s mind when looking at the original disciples. Our mental images of the disciples tend to amplify their presence and ability. If you have ever seen the statues that are purposed to present their stature, we get the impression that these men were firm, staunch, brave and resolute. As unmovable as the rock they are carved in. I believe that to appreciate the transformation they experienced we need a little before-an-after portrait of the men who first walked with Christ.

Robert Coleman, in his “Master Plan of Evangelism” writes . . .

“What is more revealing about these men is that at first they do not impress us as being key men. None of them occupied prominent places in the Synagogue, nor did any of them belong to the Levitical priesthood. For the most part they were common laboring men, probably having no professional training beyond the rudiments of knowledge necessary for their vocation.” Coleman continues, “Perhaps a few of them came from families of some considerable means, such as Zebedee, but none of them could have been considered wealthy. They had no academic degrees in the arts and philosophies of their day. Like their master, their formal education likely consisted only of the Synagogue schools. Most of them were raised in the poor section of the country around Galilee. Apparently the only one of the twelve who came from the more refined region of Judea was Judas Iscariot. By any standard of sophisticated culture then and now they would surely be considered as a rather ragged aggregation of souls. One might wonder how Jesus could ever use them. They were impulsive, temperamental, easily offended, and had all the prejudices of their environment. In short, these men selected by the Lord to be His assistants represented an average cross section of the lot of society in their day. Not the kind of group one would expect to win the world for Christ.”

That sounds like a rather raw rendition of these men Christ chose to serve under Him. The truth is clear about these guys, they bore the marks of those least likely to survive, let alone succeed!

And then something happened. Acts 1:8 “and you will receive “dunamis” after the Holy Spirit will come upon you. And you will be my witnesses.”

I’m fully convinced, friends, that were it not for an enabling encounter with the intimate Spirit of God, these men would have had absolutely no impact on our world. Despite having spent three years with Christ, their personal deficiencies were yet at a climax and there appeared to be no human way out. They would have passed into oblivion like the millions of others who have come and gone in the last two millennia.

Is it really any different for us?? Do we think that we can take on our world and make a genuine difference for Christ without any assistance from the Spirit of God? If the Holy Spirit made that big of a turn-around in the disciple’s lives, could He do great things with us as well? What would be different with us and our ministry if we were running at full throttle on the supernatural fuel of the Spirit of God? Think about that for a bit!

The Holy Spirit. He has been seen in the Bible since the first page of the history of our world – Gen 1:2. He is seen in nearly every book of the Bible. He was active in the major events and people of biblical history. We also know that He was active in the writing of the Bible. However, as often as we see the Holy Spirit in the Bible, much of the Christian’s understanding of the Holy Spirit can be summed up in one word – Confusion! Who is He? What does He do? How does He work?

Much of modern Christianity ends up on either extreme of understanding and practice when it comes to the Holy Spirit. On one side, some are so obsessed with the Holy Spirit that all teaching and attention orbits around Him nearly exclusively.

On the other side, our type of church tends to virtually ignore the Holy Spirit altogether. We have no problem talking about the Holy Spirit being the seal to guarantee our salvation, however, there’s little talk about what He is supposed to be doing every day in our lives.

Calvary (where I pastor) has a long history of minimal if any teaching and discussion on the Holy Spirit? Why is that? Why do many fundamental churches like ours seem to retreat or become skeptical when we hear about His present day working? What are we afraid of? What effect, if any, does our neglect of the Holy Spirit have in our own lives or our church ministry? What would change if we were more tuned in to His leading and guiding? These questions and more are what I’m thinking about today. Do you have any answers to them? If so, let’s hear it.