Get Out of the Way

At South Shore, we are going through an in depth, powerful series on the Holy Spirit. I have not been here for much of the series, but the weeks I have been here have both encouraged and challenged me in my walk with Christ. By the way, that is what solid, biblical teaching is supposed to do.

I have been thinking a lot about Christians' responses to the Holy Spirit and the conversations that stir up when He is talked about. I realized that we (myself being the foremost) love to dissect the teachings of the Holy Spirit. We love to analyze who He is and what He does in our lives. We get so fired up when we realize the power that He gives us. And then we go out and argue about how He gives us that power.

In many churches around today, if you mention tongues, healing, prophecy or any of the 'dynamic' gifts, people start grabbing their pitchforks and torches. It's almost like we are afraid of what God will do if we give the Holy Spirit too much room.

Let me say here that this post doesn't really have much to do with those specific gifts. The point I want to get across is that, as Pastor Frank said this past weekend, we spend so much time arguing over how the Holy Spirit works and how He empowers us; all the while we spend no time actually tapping into that power.

A thought hit me this past weekend; Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4 that true worshippers must worship him in "Spirit and in truth." Way too many believers only worship Jesus halfway; either they worship all in Spirit or they worship all in truth. What wrong with that you ask? Well if you only worship in Spirit, there is no truth. You will do what you want and become like the people of Israel in the book of Judges who did what was right in their own eyes. If you worship in only truth, you'll be boring, have no power and God will be more of an intellectual pursuit than anything else.

Some of us are afraid to tap into the Holy Spirit's power because we are afraid of the change that we know He will bring. Others are afraid to study truth because we know it will make us uncomfortable and it may change the way we do things.

But can you imagine how much stronger your relationship with God will become if your worship (your life) flowed out of the truth of the Gospel and manifested itself with the power given to us by the Holy Spirit? Here's my challenge to you: seriously ask the Holy Spirit to change your heart on this. I have had to do this so many times. We let what we have been taught and/or experienced our whole lives influence the way we worship. Let the Word and the Spirit lead you to proper worship. Let it happen, and try not to freak out when it does!

I'm not saying let's get crazy and change everything we believe; I'm saying let's let God be God for once in our lives. Stop trying to fit Him into a mold. Because the truth is, He wants to do something amazing through us and we are too busy getting in the way.