In John 16:7 Jesus says it is for our good that he returns to heaven, so that the Spirit can come. Acts 4 shows one of the reasons it is better to have the Spirit than the physical presence of Jesus. Just days after Pentecost, the apostles Peter and John were dragged before the Jewish rulers; the very people they had been hiding from just a month earlier on the first Easter Saturday. Their courage and eloquence left the Jewish rulers ‘astonished’ (Acts 4:13). What a difference the Spirit makes!
Christians have that same Spirit residing in them today; the same Spirit that transformed the early Christians into spiritual juggernauts. The early church spread the gospel wherever they went, and would sell property to ensure the poor were looked after. So if Christians today have that same Spirit, why aren’t we displaying the same spiritual qualities? I think there are (at least) 3 reasons:
1. We have ignored the Spirit. Francis Chan says ‘if I were Satan, and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom, one of my main strategies would be to get Christians to ignore the Holy Spirit’.
2. We have not appropriated the enormous benefits of having the Spirit within us. Instead of looking to the Spirit to empower our lives, we’re trying to live our lives in our own (pitiful) strength. It’s not called ‘The Fruit of the Spirit’ because humans can do it in their own strength.
3. We are not praying for the Spirit to so powerfully transform our lives that people will not be able to explain our lives (or our church) without acknowledging the Spirit’s work in us. Surely that’s the kind of prayer Jesus can’t wait to answer.
Brendan McLaughlin