Waiting For the Spirit

After my last post where I took a peek at the dynamics of the early New Testament life of the believers, my mind and heart have been attracted to continue to contemplate more implications and connections with what I am discovering here in Romans 15. I am starting to see more and more links from here to the glimpse we have of what happened in the lives of those first converts.

There has certainly been no shortage of attempts to duplicate the experience of the early church all down through the ages. But very seldom is anything seen or experienced that comes close to the real encounter that those people had with the transformational power of God in their hearts. Nearly all of the incidents purported to be fresh outpourings of the Holy Spirit turn out to be based on some other premise or foundation and end in bitter disappointment or worse, turn into some tragic comedy.

I believe that this is the case because we fail to pay close attention to the issues of the heart that are an important part of that story. And even more so we fail to appreciate the intense feelings God has about the necessity of complete freedom of choice which is required for the heart to properly respond and thrive and mature as He designed. Because of the many lies that we still endorse about God at the heart level we are still incapable of being exposed to the real presence of the Holy Spirit in its fullness. That kind of encounter would prove to produce the very opposite results of that experienced by the early believers. What would very likely happen to most of us if we were to be exposed to the pure presence of fire like that seen in the upper room back then would be closer to what Ananias and Sapphira experienced when they attempted to pull off their little plan.

It is because God loves us and by His grace protects us from His presence of pure passion that we are not granted our demands for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And while we certainly need that Spirit to prepare us for such an encounter, and God is faithful to send it to convict us and offer us opportunities to grow and be transformed in preparation for such an encounter, it is in His mercy that He does not yet bestow that gift in its full power. Otherwise, the results would not end up bringing glory to God's reputation but would further confuse people about the real truth about Him.

I believe that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is very much like something called an “after-burner” that is installed on certain aircraft. I am no expert on such things, but I understand that when the after-burner is kicked on by the pilot that he knows he is in for the ride of his life. Whatever direction his plane is pointed in will be the direction he will move toward but at an extremely higher rate of speed than he was formerly traveling. After the after-burner is turned on is no time to change one's mind about what direction they want to go. When this switch is flipped you had better already be aimed in the direction you want to go, for wherever you are directed you are now going to get there much faster.

Just so, I believe, is the outpouring of the Holy Ghost in our lives. If God were to grant us our demands for Him to turn on the “after-burner” of the Spirit in our lives before our hearts were properly aligned with His ways and His will, we might certainly have a great display of power and commotion. But the end result would likely always result in tragedy of monumental proportions and would bring dishonor to God. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to provide guidance and convictions and gentle promptings to prepare us for the next stage in our experience, and He can do that without using the full power of His presence. But we must be willing to cooperate and have a spirit of obedience, humility and be teachable.

We do have a part to play in our preparation for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives just as did the early believers. And we would do well to carefully study just what it was that they did to prepare their hearts for that wonderful experience. But at least part of what they did in preparation I believe is laid out right here in these chapters of Romans that I have been immersing myself in over the past few weeks.

This preparation involves changing my attitudes and relationships toward those with whom I differ who are part of the body of Christ. It even involves transforming the way I feel toward those whom I may not think are part of that body. For the transformation needed as preparation for the reception of the Holy Spirit is the synchronizing of my heart and disposition to reflect that of God Himself. I need to learn to view others through heaven's eyes and with heaven's spirit by properly being aligned by the still, small voice of the Spirit from heaven that speaks in the quietness of my soul.

Much of the alignment that takes place in my heart is the outcome of my own choices to cooperate with His promptings. Praise and gratitude are things that God cannot do for me, they must be things that I choose to do and to participate in willingly and often. This extends to other areas of my life as well, like how I manage my finances, my attitude about my “stuff”, whether I am generous or stingy, how I treat those I interact with daily. The alignment of my soul is also affected far more than I may realize by the things I fill my mind with from the media, the music I listen to, the movies I watch, the news that forms biases in my thinking.

I must learn to be open to having my direction changed if I am to come into proper alignment for the Holy Spirit to empower with boldness. I must be willing to be transparently honest with my own heart about my motives, my fears, my desires, my emotions and my gut-level beliefs. All of these things are factors in the direction in which my soul is aimed, that determine the target that is the end result of the direction I am really facing. What are my real goals – not just the politically or religiously correct things I should say, but what is deep in the recesses of my heart? What direction would I move in radically if every desire of my heart were to suddenly be powerfully enabled?

James speaks about the dangers of a double-minded person and that they should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. When my left brain professes noble aspirations but my right brain still holds secret desires for revenge or is allowed to dwell on lust for any number of objects, then I am a double-minded man and not ready to an after-burner to blast me into oblivion. A double-minded person is like having the two front wheels of your car seriously out of alignment. If one wheel is headed in one direction and the other is directed in another direction it becomes dangerous to try to drive the car at all, much less at extremely high rates of speed.

It is God's mercy that waits for me to allow Him to bring the two sides of my brain into harmony with each other and to be synchronized with His direction for my life before imparting the power of the Holy Ghost into my experience. But it is also true that I do not have eternity to play around and remain double-minded. I have only a limited time to choose to cooperate with God in His offer to restore me to wholeness and to align me to seek His face and His heart.

So, what is the goal, the target toward which I need to aim both my left intellectual mind and my right brain where my emotions and spirit and heart are largely resident? I believe that it is the heart of God that is so filled with the passion of pure, selfless love that needs to be the object of all my desires and ambitions. When I become filled with an all-consuming desire to know God and the power of His love, then it will be safe for Him to release the tremendous potential of the power of the Holy Spirit into my experience, for the result of that encounter will result in propelling me straight to the object of my focus and my affections – dwelling in the presence of the One in whom is all satisfaction and fulfillment and being ravished by a love I cannot not imagine.

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