It has been said that we only use ten per cent of our brain. Even though this 10 percent statistic has no scientific basis, it is a fact, easily detectable in our everyday life, that we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. The same can be said of our Christian life.
A lady went to a jeweller to have her watch fixed. He disappeared to the back and soon returned with it running perfectly. Surprised, she asked how he could fix it so soon. He told her it only needed a new battery. “Battery? Nobody said anything about a battery. I’ve been winding it every morning!”
So many Christians do not realize the inner power of the Holy Spirit to handle things they think they must take into their own hands.
We can do so many more things and do them stress free if we pull Him on our side. In His book The Church: What We Are Meant To Be, Ken Hutcherson writes, “When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, it wasn’t dynamite, it was a dynamo! Dynamite makes a loud noise, kicks up a lot of dust, and it’s over. A dynamo is a continual source of power. It builds and builds and builds, and the power never stops flowing.”
He is such a good teacher. He can give us wisdom and the confidence we need to take the right decisions in life and to follow them up.
Yesterday, I was called to speak to a couple who had just lost their baby, two hours old. The mother was distraught. The father was weeping. The small brother and sister were just staring. An inner voice told me to not to say too many words. I just sat down near them and cried with them. Yes, the Holy Spirit can even make us wise and gentle.
The Holy Spirit is a liberator. We forge chains for ourselves and many times on others. Like the prodigal son we toil among the swine herds. And yet, if we call upon Him, He will come and make us free. I have seen with my own eyes people being freed from deep addictions by His power.
The Spirit is like a good medical team. He can heal. We are all fractured beings that the Spirit is working to make complete.
On a particularly rough flight, a woman became very airsick. She was completely wiped out. The stewardess came by to help her. She put her arm under the lady’s arm, helped her sit upright in her seat, gave her gum to chew, went to get her some water and sat beside her for a long time. With the help of the stewardess, the lady finished the trip in far better condition than she began it in.
This is like the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He comes alongside to help us when we are in hopeless defeat. He admonishes us, encourages us, and restores hope and faith in our lives.
An expert in energizing people, someone once defined him. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you” said the departing Jesus to his apostles!
This man, I forgot his name, was one of the main evangelizers in Christianity. When told by his son that the surgery was unsuccessful and that he will never see again, his only comment was “I mean, son, I shall never see your face again?’ “No, dad, probably not in this world.” “Well, son, I have done what I could for God and for his people with my eyes. Now I shall do what I can for God and his people without my eyes!”
This is the power of the Holy Spirit. “What God chooses, He cleanses. What God cleanses, He moulds. What God moulds, He fills. What God fills, He uses.”
“I have been forced to go on a journey I did not want to take,” the woman was telling me. She had a terrible cancer and was in the last few days of her life. And yet, she said, “This, the worst of my times, has also been the best of times. I am closer to God than I have ever been. Because so many of the things I leaned on have been taken away from me, I have been forced to lean on Jesus, and I have found him trustworthy and true.”
The Holy Spirit made real. By God’s grace may it be so for us.