The Holy Spirit - Forgotten God?

Good Wednesday morning, my friends.

I started reading another Francis Chan book yesterday called "Forgotten God".  The introduction begins with these thoughts:

You might think that calling the Holy Spirit the "forgotten God" is a bit extreme. Maybe you agree that the church has focused too much attention elsewhere but feel it is an exaggeration to say we have forgotten about the Spirit. I don't think so. 

From my perspective, the Holy Spirit is tragically neglected and, for all practical purposes, forgotten. While no evangelical would deny His existence, I'm willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence or action in their lives over the past year. And many of them do not believe they can.

The benchmark of success in church services has become more about attendance than the movement of the Holy Spirit. The "entertainment" model of church was largely adopted in the 1980s and '90s, and while it alleviated some of our boredom for a couple of hours a week, it filled our churches with self-focused consumers rather than self-sacrificing servants attuned to the Holy Spirit. 

Perhaps we're too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read? Imagine being rescued after twenty years and then attending a typical evangelical church. Chances are you'd be shocked (for a whole lot of reasons, but that is another story). Having read the Scriptures outside the context of contemporary church culture, you would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer's existence as air is to staying alive. You would know that the Spirit led the first Christians to do unexplainable things, to live lives that didn't make sense to the culture around them, and ultimately to spread the story of God's grace around the world. 

There is a big gap between what we read in Scripture about the Holy Spirit and how most believers and churches operate today. In many modern churches, you would be stunned by the apparent absence of the Spirit in any manifest way. And this, I believe, is the crux of the problem. 

If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God's kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church. We understand something very important is 

missing. The feeling is so strong that some have run away from the church and God's Word completely. 

I believe that this missing  something is actually a missing Someone—namely, the Holy Spirit. Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation. And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural. The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice.

What do you think?  Do you think Satan has subverted the church by getting it's members to ignore the Holy Spirit?  I see a lot of truth in this observation, but I also believe that the Holy Spirit is starting to move again in a bigger way within the church.  I would love to hear what you think about this.

Francis Chan goes on:

I am tired of merely talking about God.  I want to see God move through me ... and through the worldwide body of Christ. I know there's more. We all know there's more. ... I refuse to live the remainder of my life where I am right now, stagnating at this point. Don't get me wrong: God has already done so much in my life, and I am grateful for it. I'm just convinced there's more. There's more of the Spirit and more of God than any of us is experiencing. I want to go there—not just intellectually, but in life, with everything that I am.

Challenging, isn't it?  Actually, I find it scary.  But I would love to know what it would be like to be living with the Spirit that infiltrated the first century church.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Bruce

Holy Spirit, be with me today.

Be my teacher, my guide, my counselor, my friend.

Fill me with your gifts, especially the gifts of

wisdom, discernment, knowledge, understanding, compassion, love, and awe in God's presence.

In all that I think, say, and do, let it be in accordance with your most holy and perfect will.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

AMEN.

(http://www.yenra.com/catholic/prayers/totheholyspirit2.html)

Bruce MacPherson  macpherson@celtic.ca / Blog: The Celtic Christian / Home: 613.489.4174 Cell: 613.720.0821 You are receiving this email because you have requested it or I felt you would be interested in this material. If you would like to be removed from this email list, please do not hesitate to contact me at the above email address.  Likewise, if you know of someone else who you believe would appreciate receiving these messages, please let me know.