According to Wikipedia, the United States has the world’s largest Christian population, which makes us a “Christian Nation”. And yet…
Where is the power of Holy Spirit in traditional church services? Where is the power of the Spirit of God in scripted and pre-planned bulletins, with structured prayers, readings and responses and hymns half-heartedly sang by bored congregations?
“What sorrow awaits you experts in religious law! For you remove the key to knowledge from the people. You don’t enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from entering.” – Luke 11:52 NLT
The key which opens the door to knowledge about the Kingdom of God is the Spirit of God, and yet some pastors and church goers stay intentionally far away from something as uncontrollable and uncontainable as the Spirit. The word “spiritual” has been tainted by New Age beliefs that don’t align with Biblical teaching in recent years, but it was highjacked by the Enemy because most Bible-following churches weren’t embracing it anyway.
As a spiritual person, the church often feels restricting, inhibiting, boring and lifeless. The structured readings and rote responses feel like cult-like chanting with no expression, no joy, and no movement of Spirit. The church and concept of spiritual gifts became separated into categories, groups, and sign up sheets. Spiritual gifts became talked about but never talked up, and they were referred to but never embraced.
Where is the power of Holy Spirit when the pastor or priest is elevated as the teacher, the ony one with the key of knowledge, the decider of what is Holy and unholy, and is also expected to properly shepherd the scattered flocks that are listed and registered as members but who infrequently attend church anyway?
Where is the power of Holy Spirit when people call themselves a Christian but then live no differently than unbelievers? If it isn’t possible to tell the difference between a Christian and an unbeliever by how they live, talk, and speak every day, then is there really a difference at all?
WE HAVE GIVEN AWAY OUR POWER, CHRISTIANS AND CHURCHES.
We have allowed religion to supercede spirituality, and Holy Spirit has been relegated to a name only in most churches, just as many “Christians” have relegated themselves to being a Christian in name only. If “power” means making an impact on those around us, then our power isn’t in a list of members, our power isn’t in how many butts we have in the seats, our power isn’t in how much money is in the offering plate, and our power isn’t in having a big fancy building, a fancy fellowship hall, or annual events.
OUR POWER IS FOUND IN THE POWER OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER, JESUS CHRIST, AND HOLY SPIRIT.
The world must see Christians making a difference in the world, not isolated from the world, not as boring religious people, not as judgemental Christians, but as a group of people who are made VERY ALIVE by the Spirit.
Christians should be standing out from unbelievers as those who have the key to the knowledge of God, the Creator of the Universe and all that it contains. Christians should be making powerful ripples across communities simply by living with the power of Holy Spirit within them.
CHALLENGE YOURSELF: Are you a “Christian”, or are you a Holy Spirit-filled Christian? Are you religious, or are you spiritual? Who is in charge of your life; do you think you’re in charge, or is God in charge? Are you led by your plans and agenda, or are you led by the Spirit of God’s plans? What changes do you need to make to shift from being religious to being Spirit-filled?
And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. – 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 NLT