SPIRIT-EMPOWERED

Cherylyn Radford, Interim Bowridge Site Pastor

We are in the middle of exploring the different parts of the Alliance Vision prayer that we pray together every week. I am so excited to be writing about "Spirit-empowered", as I have been on a journey to discover the person and work of the Holy Spirit most of my adult life.

I grew up in a very Baptist church in the 70’s and 80’s. We sought to obey God the Father with all our being. We faithfully read and studied Scripture. We proclaimed Jesus to anyone who would listen and chased down the ones who didn’t want to listen. The only mention of the Holy Spirit was when we baptized someone. Otherwise, that was for the Pentecostals. And we regarded them with great suspicion.

So, the last 20 years of my life has been a journey to discover a part of God I was missing, because God exists in three persons. And without being Spirit-empowered, we are missing out on the richness of life that God has for us.

Jesus declared in Acts 1:8 that the disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. In Acts 2:1-12 we see the results of that filling. They were supernaturally able to proclaim the gospel in all kinds of languages and were given the boldness to do so in Jerusalem, of all places. Jerusalem was a scary place because that was where, just a few weeks earlier, Jesus had been put on trial and sentenced to death. This is true power indeed.

Just as Jesus sent the Spirit of God to fill the disciples, so He longs to fill us too, with the exact same Spirit and power that the disciples possessed. We no longer wait together in one place, but we too can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

But so many of us miss it. We are saved, we confess that Jesus is Lord, and then we try and try to live a life that God has called us to, yet we stumble and stumble until many just give up.

I was born again into the family of God around the time I was 5 or 6. I obeyed. I prayed. But I never realized that most of my faith was actually meticulous rule keeping. It was utterly exhausting. It wasn't until I understood that all I had was rule keeping, that I realized I was missing out on this whole abundant life thing. (John 10:10)

I was saved, I could not be snatched from God’s hands, but I was living a half-life. I was living out Galatians 5:16-17 where the desires of the flesh kept winning.

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16-17)

I couldn’t do what it was God had called me to without total surrender, without asking the Spirit of the living God to fill me to the brim. As A.W. Tozer puts it,

"He [the Holy Spirit] wants to be Lord of your life, and He wants to possess you so that you are no longer in command of the little vessel in which you sail. You may be a passenger on board, or one of the crew, but you definitely are not in charge. Someone else is in command of the vessel."

It is as described in Galatians 2:20 when we truly surrender to the Spirit of God and say, “it isn’t about me. It's about you. You get to be in charge.” We no longer simply believe that Jesus is lord over death, we live it out with the Holy Spirit filling every part of us. We need to invite him in, over and over, surrender every morning, and say, “fill me Holy Spirit. Take control.”

Spirit empowerment is about surrender, letting go of the reins so that He can take them up. Our vision of doubling our reach by 2030 is a very ambitious one, one that can only be accomplished by surrender to the Spirit of God and trusting that he will lead us well. This takes tremendous faith and trust.

It will take an investment of time in being still, in listening to the spirit. In order to move forward, we must first stop. Surrender. Listen. And then act in His power. We have hard work ahead to reach our goal. Good work. But work we cannot possibly do on our own.

My prayer for us as a body in this next season is one Paul prayed so long ago: "that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being." (Ephesians 3:16)

May we be a church that is super-naturally powered through total surrender.