Powerhouse Ministry

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

If you then... know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! No one can enter the Kingdom of God with being born of... Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Do not take your holy spirit from me... I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. When he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.

No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan... The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit . Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My proclamation [was] not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.

Now concerning spiritual gifts... there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit... To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge... to another faith..., to another gifts of healing..., to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues... We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith, ministry... teaching... exhortation... generosity... [leadership]... [compassion].

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit... For just as the body is one and has many members... so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God... Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... Fasten the belt of truth... put on the breastplate of righteousness... proclaim the gospel of peace...take the shield of faith... the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times.

The Spirit is the truth. The Spirit gives life. God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

John 4: 24; Luke 11:13; John 3:5-8; Psalm 51:11; John 14:16,17,26; John 16:8; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Ephesians 1:13; Luke 4:1; Acts 8:15,17; Ephesians 5:18-20; 1 Corinthians 2:4-5; Romans 8:2; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Ephesians 4:30; Luke 4:18-19; 1 Corinthians 12:1-10; Romans 12:6-7; 1 Corinthians 12:11-13; 1 John 4:1; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 John 5:6; John 6:63; 2 Timothy 1:7; Romans 8:26; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:22.
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The Holy Spirit is God in action. He has sometimes been described as the 'third person in the Trinity'. Notice we used 'he' - the Holy Spirit is not an 'it' or a thing (although the Bible describes his operations as being like the wind, unpredictable or even mysterious). The English language used to say 'Holy Ghost', but the Spirit is not a 'spook' either.

He is like Jesus, who is like God: he can think, will and feel - that is, he possesses all the attributes of any personality: intellect, emotion and will. He can be grieved and he can be quenched or stifled and ignored.

The Holy Spirit 'inspires' people to say what God wants them to say (or to write those things down). So prophets and Scripture are 'inspired' by the Spirit.

The Spirit guides us into the truth about Jesus, about ourselves and our sinfulness - and its consequence, judgment - and gives us the 'big picture' and God's will for the future (John 16:8-13).

When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit enters your life, and he will never leave you. In a sense, he's a guest: you've let him in the front door. It's now an exciting (and sometimes scary) process letting him take control of every room in your home. (Perhaps you could imagine these rooms, invite him in, and talk about what he discovers there!).

He helps us to pray (Romans 8:26), to communicate to others about Christ (Mark 13:11), to love (Galatians 5:22), and to do what is right (1 John 2:27).

So be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). You get drunk with wine by choosing the sort you want, imbibing it, and ingesting it. Then your behaviour exhibits some changes according to how much and how often you drink (changing - and eventually controlling - you). So with the Spirit, says Paul. But in one sense you don't get more of the Spirit; he gets more of you.

How am I filled with the Holy Spirit? First you must desire him - hungering and thirsting for what is right (Matthew 5:6). This involves confession of your sins (1 John 1:9). Then ask him to fill you: if you ask for anything he wants, he'll hear you (1 John 5:14,15). Thank him for filling you, and by faith live moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day in his power and under his direction.

He wants to change you, though your basic temperament remains the same. Paul, for example, was a very aggressive person before his conversion but the Spirit redirected all that emotional energy towards more positive ends. Being 'filled with the Spirit' simply means being controlled by him.

Are you supposed to 'feel' anything when the Spirit comes into your life? Yes and no. Some do, some don't. Some have a 'peak experience' - for a few it's quite powerful. For others it's quite a matter-of-fact transaction. The Spirit operates uniquely in each of us. Remember, he's like the wind - sometimes a hurricane, sometimes a gentle breeze.

Indeed, Paul and Luke describe receiving the Spirit in different ways. For Paul 'receiving' the Spirit makes us God's children (Romans 8:15). For Luke 'receiving' the Spirit gives us power (Acts 1:8). However, Paul also writes about receiving the Spirit with accompanying miracles (Galatians 3:1-5). Christians today generally follow either Luke or Paul on this point - the Pentecostals like Luke, the evangelicals Paul. In the early church, 'Spirit' and 'Word' went hand in hand. Let us combine both Luke and Paul: allowing the Spirit to make us holy, give us wisdom and endue us with power. Throughout the world, where 'signs and wonders' accompany the proclamation of the good news the church is dynamic and alive. However the great need for those young churches is Bible teaching - but without losing their enthusiasm. More of that later.

About miracles: some Christians expect a 'miracle a day'; others confine them to the pages of their Bibles! Jesus did promise that his followers would perform the same miracles he did - even greater ones (John 14:12). His power still the same. But note that biblical miracles clustered around just four historical periods - the creation, Moses and the Exodus, the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the apostolic era. There were always a few miracles at other times (eg. those in the Book of Daniel). Does God still heal miraculously? Certainly, and we should pray for that possibility. But today no one has a gift of healing like Jesus' or Paul's. No one can heal anyone at any time. Sometimes Paul healed everyone in a city. But no faith healer I have heard of has a gift like that today. Some of them build hospitals: if they had Paul's gift they might be emptying them!

Christians sometimes get nervous about spiritual gifts they don't fully understand, especially if they sense the Holy Spirit nudging them to be the channel of such a gift. It is important to remember that the Spirit doesn't offer white-elephant gifts. His presents are not useless, like the thing you took home from the last Christmas party. We are wise not to turn up our noses at his gifts, for he knows what he is doing. And the Church is waiting to benefit from our gift-offerings...

Stay open-minded. Don't fall for Cornford's Law, which says 'Nothing should ever be done for the first time.' Instead, opt for the perspective of Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts: 'Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.'

If we could scan a congregation with God's radar, we would probably spot dozens of unused gifts - spiritual capacities lying dormant in the lives of many Christians. Meanwhile, the whole church is poorer.

When the Spirit's power invades a fisherman like Simon Peter or a shoe salesman like D L Moody, or a young American who's only done a couple of years in Bible colleges like Billy Graham they can be very effective evangelists indeed. 'Correct' doctrine, homiletically-sound sermons, professional techniques all have their place, but throughout the world the churches that are open to the Lord's power working among them are alive. Churches that have shunned this dimension for a rationalistic faith are declining everywhere.

Introducing his Letters to Young Churches J B Phillips states: 'The great difference between present-day Christianity and that in these letters, is that, to us, it is primarily a performance; to them it was a real experience. We reduce the Christian religion to a code... a rule of heart and life. To these it was quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether.'
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All the great figures in Acts are people of the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit, Peter addressed the sanhedrin (4:8). When there was a need for new workers, the instruction was to seek out seven men of honest report and full of the Spirit (6:3). Stephen was full of faith and the Holy Spirit (6:5)... Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit at the beginning of his ministry for Christ (9:17, 13:8). Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith (11:24). The criterion by which the early church judged a person was that person's relationship to the Holy Spirit... It is even said of Jesus himself that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power (10:38)... Had it not been for the guidance of the Spirit, the church might well have remained nothing more than a sect of Judaism... The real test of a church lies not in the statistics which an ecclesiastical yearbook can convey, but in the presence or absence of the Spirit.'

William Barclay, The Promise of the Spirit, London: Epworth, 1960, pp. 55ff.

One of the marks of the Spirit's moving amongst us is that 'we hear the sound thereof'. This is the indisputable evidence of the Spirit. When the wind is blowing, it makes its presence felt. You hear its sound... When the Spirit of God stirs up a church or an individual or a community, there are palpable evidences of his working. Even the unbeliever becomes aware that something is going on. [The effects can be seen. The sound can be heard...] The hard supercilious pagan world of Greece and Rome professed itself indifferent to the gospel; but it could not deny that wherever Christ's people went strange things kept happening... The world, says the Book of Acts, saw the evidences: it 'took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus'

James S. Stewart, The Wind of the Spirit, Eastbourne: Victory Press, 1975, pp. 14-15.

People receive the Holy Spirit, in Luke's meaning of the term, in different ways. Some people receive the Spirit more or less spontaneously, while for others the response is quite conscious and deliberate; some experience dramatic manifestations of the Spirit, while with others the manifestatikons are more subdued. The way in which people receive the Spirit will be determined, to some extent, by the situation and by the person (his or her personality type, age, station in life, church environment). More important than the particular way we receive the Spirit, however, is what we do after having received.

It's like the difference between a big church wedding and a small family wedding. The kind of wedding you have doesn't determine the kind of marriage you'll have. What's important is how you live out the reality of married life.

Larry Christenson, 'Receiving the Holy Spirit' in LaVonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988, p. 164.

Notice that Luke equates being 'filled with the Spirit' with moral qualities, goodness and faith (Acts 11:24). Being 'Spirit-filled' does not refer to a special experience, as such, although we ought to be open to whatever experiences of the Spirit the Lord has for us. Sometimes, in Acts, people spoke in tongues when 'filled with the Spirit'; but Acts often speaks of people filled with the Spirit with no reference, explicit or implicit, to tongues (4:8,31; 6:3,5; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9,52). 'If being Spirit-filled without glossolalia was the lot of some, then, it may be God's path for some now' (J.I.Packer). However, you can't be 'Spirit-filled' without exhibiting fruits of the Spirit such as goodness and faith. They are the inevitable proofs of the Spirit's presence in our lives.

Rowland Croucher, Your Church Can Come Alive, Melbourne: JMM, 1996.

Leonard Ravenhill tells a story about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village. When they came to an old man by a fence, one of the tourists asked, 'Were any great people born in this village?'

The old man leaned on his cane and replied, 'Nope, only babies.'

Nobody starts out great. God has no instant giants of faith. The most gifted Christian you know began tentatively, serving the Lord with butterflies inside, not sure if he or she would ever make an impact for the kingdom of God. But availability turned into ability. The Holy Spirit's gifts were welcomed and then released to help change the world.

Dean Merrill, 'Why Does a Church Need Spiritual Gifts?' in LaVonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988, pp. 167-168.

I've spoken in tongues as part of my devotional life for about thirty-four years, and I can can assure you the practice does not give you warts, make your hair fall out, or fry your brain. In fact, it doesn't even require working up a sweat (despite what you may have seen or heard about in some religious meeting).

It is simply an alternate way of communicating with God - a Route B that bypasses the usual patterns of stringing words together from a learned vocabulary... It is an unleashing of speech from deep within, speech that carries feelings, needs, concerns, and praises heavenward in a mystical way.

Might speaking in tongues simply be a form of 'right-brain praying'? We don't know...

There are documented cases of hearers in various parts of the world being surprised by a language they knew but the speaker didn't - which is what happened on the Day of Pentecost. A Brazilian visitor to our church approached my father during the prayer time and said, 'Excuse me, but who's praying in Portuguese here?' The two men walked to the altar area to investigate, and the visitor singled out my [fourteen-year old] cousin. She had studied no foreign language...

Not all churches are comfortable with [tongues], and the Holy Spirit does not force in upon them. He is gentle as a dove...

We may never fully understand tongues in the sense of being able to draw a schematic diagram of how they occur. But our faith was not made for scientific analysis. We serve a God bigger than our minds, a God who regularly surprises us, a God whose ways are not always our ways - and would we want it any differently?

Dean Merrill, 'What About Speaking in Tongues?' in LaVonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988 pp. 172-173.

In the Nicene Creed the Holy Spirit is linked to prophetic utterance. While prophetic speech is more often linked in the OT to oracles pertaining to the public or political sphere, this is generalized in the early Christian community to include all instances of address which summon the hearer into renovation and enhancement of authentic life - [an] appropriate, truthful, and liberating speech. The capacdity to speak in ways which loosen the bonds of brokenness and invite the other into new and richer life is a... gift of the Holy Spirit...

Thomas Aquinas understood the Holy Spirit in terms of friendship. In this view the Holy Spirit befriends us and conveys to us the love of God. Thus the Spirit, like a friend, draws us near to all our secrets, never betraying us but gently summoning us to richer and fuller life.

T. W. Jennings, 'Holy Spirit, Doctrine of, and Pastoral Care', in Rodney J. Hunter, (Ed.), Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Nashville: Abingdon, 1990, p.526.

The one who has been taught by the Holy Spirit will be a seer rather than a scholar. The difference is that the scholar sees and the seer sees through; and that is a mighty difference indeed.

A.W.Tozer, in Harry Verploegh (comp.), Signposts: A Collection of Sayings from A W Tozer, Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1988, p. 102.

In the biblical cosmology, there is an invisible realm populated by demonic and angelic beings. The Bible says that Satan himself can appear as an angel of light. We live in a rationalistic age that both scoffs at the notion of the devil and is at the same time obsessed with the occult in popular culture. For people of faith, the best advice comes from British apologist G.K.Chesterton, who said we can make two mistakes about the devil: the first is to deny he exists, and the second is to pay any attention to him.

Kenneth Swanson, Uncommon Prayer, NY: Ballantine, 1987, p. 179
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O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts.

Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, quoted in Margaret Pepper, The Pan Dictionary of Religious Quotations, London: Pan Books, 1989, p. 238.

Let us pray
(in the Spirit who dwells within us.)
Father of light, from whom every good gift comes,
send your Spirit into our lives
with the power of a mighty wind,
and by the flame of your wisdom
open the horizons of our minds.
Loosen our tongues to sing your praise
in words beyond the power of speech,
for without your Spirit
man could never raise his voice in words of peace
or announce the truth that Jesus is Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Daily Mass Book, Lent 1991-1992 Brisbane, The Liturgical Commission, p.209.

Father God, I need your life and your power. For too long I have been in control of my life. I have sinned against you, against others, and against myself. Thank you for forgiving my sins.

Please take control of my life. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, as you have promised - and done with so many others when they asked.

Thank you for fulfilling your promise in me. I accept your Spirit in all his fullness into my life, and will be sensitive to his will for me. I accept whatever gifts he brings, whatever truths he teaches, whatever directions he offers. May I live in the power of your Spirit, exult in the joy of your Spirit, pray with the words your Spirit suggests, and relate to others with his love. Amen.
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A Benediction: May the Holy Spirit indwell you to give you life in all its fullness, teach you the way of truth and holiness, empower you to serve and obey the living God, spread love within your being and from you to others, and lead you in the way everlasting. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.