What comes to mind when you think about the Holy Spirit?
Depending on your church background or tradition, hearing about the importance of being Spirit-led may invoke a lot of thoughts or feelings. For many Christians, this is a positive experience. But for others, it’s something that they’re not so sure about. Talk about the Holy Spirit makes them nervous. They aren’t sure what to make of the Holy Spirit, or what He means for their daily lives.
Let me share a bit about my own experience, which I pray will be helpful for you regardless of where you are at in your journey:
I’ve been a follower of Jesus Christ for 40 years. I grew up in what I would describe as a traditional and conservative church background. What I mean by that in this context is that we believed in the Holy Spirit. He was clearly the third Person in the Trinity. We believed that we as believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But other than that, I don’t remember much talk about the Holy Spirit, and what it meant to be a Spirit-led believer.
The best way I can describe it is like that weird relative that you see at family reunions. You know they are part of the family. You love them dearly. But you aren’t quite sure what to do with them, so you kind of avoid them. That was me when it came to the Holy Spirit for the first 15-20 years of my walk with Jesus.
Fast forward to my mid 20’s, when I began serving as a pastor. In the churches in which I served for more than a decade, there was an openness to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We really encouraged the discovery and practice of the gifts that the Spirit has given to us as believers. We focused a lot on the Spirit’s role in the inspiration of the Scripture. But once again, I don’t remember a lot of talk or experience in what it meant to be prompted or led by the Holy Spirit.
And then just over 9 years ago Adrienne and I show up with our family at a church in Burlington, Ontario, where we continue to be active members. At this point, we were in a difficult season of life, and were looking for a church community who will lovingly and authentically wrap their arms around us in our journey and in our brokenness. By God’s grace, that has been our experience.
As we started to dig deep into this community, one of the things I discovered was that there was a lot more talk about the Holy Spirit in this place. We talked about the “deeper life.” The church hosted training workshops in how to recognize God’s voice and the promptings of the Spirit. I had people giving me prophetic words that resonated deeply and were exactly what we needed in those moments. I heard people praying in their own private prayer languages that I didn’t recognize and in some cases experiencing physical manifestations.
For the record, I had no problem with any of it. But it was all just a little new and different than what I was used to. One of the blessings I’ve experienced since joining this community is that it has helped frame up for me some of my past experience and put it into better context.
For example, when I was 15 years old, I had a transformational spiritual moment while attending a youth summer camp. I remember clearly receiving a deeper hunger to know and follow Jesus, as I listened to a speaker who as she was speaking was responding to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. I remember when I was finishing university and wrestling through a difficult season of life a friend came to me and shared a verse from Scripture that he believed God had laid on his heart and that I needed to hear. It was essentially a prophetic word that changed the direction of my life and opened the door for me into vocational ministry. This was all part of the work of the Holy Spirit in my life.
I say all of that to say this: I am absolutely convinced of the importance of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. In fact, I would say this:
There is no true life with Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit.
To know and follow Jesus means that we must be Spirit-led.
