Day 20 - Come Holy Spirit – But are We Ready?

Read: Acts 4:23-31

“Come Holy Spirit.”

It is one of the oldest Christian prayers. It is a prayer that our brothers and sisters have prayed for centuries.

I wonder though if we understand the weight of what we are asking? I’m not sure, (to borrow from the writer Annie Dillard), whether we have “the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke?” We are asking for the God of the universe to come and reveal himself to us in a real and tangible way.

That should give us pause for thought.

What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to “show up”?

I grew up in an environment where the work of the Spirit predominantly centred on encountering God personally - encountering the Spirit on a Sunday at the altar would bring peace, joy, and the love of God into my life. Encountering the Spirit in that personal way is, in large measure, what kept me walking with the Lord throughout the tumultuous teenage years.

Those encounters are crucial; they are just not the whole story. The overwhelming evidence of the scriptures is that when the Spirit does come, it is not about people feeling better, but about God’s glory. Or to put it in more pointed terms for today: when the Spirit comes, it is to fulfill God’s purposes, not my own.

So, one unmistakable answer to the question of what it means for the Spirit to show up is that God’s people think about themselves less, think about others more, and serve them in Jesus’ name empowered by a strength outside their own. Being filled with the Spirit will inevitably lead to an entire life oriented towards His mission. And whilst that includes serving one another in Church, it is broader than that; a Sunday to Saturday life lived for the sake of the world.

We see this Spirt-showing-up-and-reorienting-His-people-towards-the-world in several ways. Firstly, when we see the Spirit filling someone in the book of Acts, there is often a description of God’s people courageously proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom - that is, Jesus is king, and his rule is now available to all. Acts 4:23-31 is particularly insightful here. Amid persecution and challenge, the believers prayed, not for their own protection or deliverance from the authorities, but that they would be a faithful witness for Christ. The Spirit then “shows up”, fills them all, and they speak “God’s message with boldness.”

Secondly, we see a new type of communal life generated by the Spirit. After the Spirit first fell, we see a commitment to others and a display of generosity that is staggering. The selling of possessions to supply the needs of others and feeding each other was so common that there were no needy people among them (Acts 2:44-47; 4:32-37). This communal life together was a powerful witness to the truth of the gospel, and many came to know the Lord as a result.

There are many other things that can be said. These are but two examples that illustrate that when the Spirit comes, there is a movement outwards, a reorientation away from ourselves and towards the world.

By all means, let us rejoice that the Spirit draws us to Christ, that we can sense his presence and his love, but that love was never meant to stay with us. Our encounter with the Spirit may be personal, but it was never to be private.

Challenge: Put It into Practice

Here are some thoughts to put this into practice:

Surrender - The fundamental starting point for living this out is a posture of surrender. Let us seek the Spirit’s filling, but let us do so with a commitment that we will act on what he leads us to.

Pray - Actually ask the Spirit to come and fill you.

Be Alert - Go throughout your day and try to turn your awareness to God’s Spirit with you moment-by-moment. It may help to set reminders on your phone or on pieces of paper throughout the day to do this.

Act - Be open to opportunities to minister in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Spirit, and when they occur, step out. Be wise as you do it (emotionally intelligent and perceptive to the other person), but act. It may mean proclaiming the gospel in a culturally sensitive way (Acts 17:22-33); it may mean praying for someone (either with them present or without), or sharing with them something you feel the Lord revealing (Acts 21:10-11), it may mean an act of friendship (Acts 9:10-19), or service (Acts 9:36), or generosity (Acts 11:27-30), or sacrifice (Acts 5:32-37), or stepping across cultural or religious lines (Acts 10), or even a confrontation with spiritual powers (Acts 13:9-12).

Reject Pressure - Don’t place any expectation on yourself for the outcome of your obedience. Fruit is not your responsibility, obedience is.