The Holy Spirit is underappreciated and underpreached by the twenty-first century church. A sort of prejudice against the Holy Spirit impedes many from learning more about him. In fact, the body of Christ is often divided into two sides. One side stresses the Word of God, separating itself from what it views as the emotional fanaticism often linked to those emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit. The other side is sometimes known for drifting into unbiblical manifestations and unorthodox teaching while attributing it all to the Spirit of God.
Seeing the abuse and bad teaching, many on the first side will say, “I’m not interested in experiences and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I just want to study the Word.” But it was the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible, and there are lots of promises concerning his person and work. How can anyone treasure God’s Word without giving the Holy Spirit his rightful place?
Those who move in circles strongly emphasizing the Holy Spirit must be reminded that everything must be tested by scripture. The Spirit never contradicts the Word he gave us. He also never puts the focus on the preacher because the Holy Spirit was sent to glorify Christ alone (John 16:14).
Somewhere in the middle is the kind of Christianity we see in scripture where the Word of God is honored along with a childlike dependence and openness to the Holy Spirit.
Only the Holy Spirit can make the things of Christ real and alive to people. Christianity does not stop at the cross where Jesus died and paid the price for our sins. After Good Friday was Resurrection Sunday when the Spirit raised Christ.
“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39).
Everything about the Spirit speaks to powerful currents of life that refresh and flow out to bless others. May the Holy Spirit come down on us, for we are truly helpless without him.
Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.