The Familiar Stranger: (Re)Introducing the Holy Spirit to Those in Search of an Experiential Spirituality

by Tyler Staton

The Holy Spirit is the experiential agent of the Trinitarian God, narrowing the gap between biblical promise and everyday experience and leading to greater spiritual health and maturity.

The Kingdom of God is not an either/or kind of kingdom but a both/and kind of kingdom. The Bible and the Holy Spirit. Thinking and feeling. Teaching and experiencing. Contemplative and charismatic. Biblical exegesis and words of prophecy. Preaching the gospel and signs and wonders.

God has never cared much for the qualified, but he’s shaped history through the available. This isn’t about being qualified. It’s not about being skilled, practiced, or trained. Are you available?

According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit is a particular kind of teacher: one who helps you remember. To put it plainly, the Holy Spirit has no original content. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is entirely about translating the teachings and promises of Jesus in a way that forms us at the deepest level—rewriting our neural pathways and enabling us to embody our redemption. The Holy Spirit pushes the teachings of Jesus from the head, where they can be understood, down into the heart, where they can heal our emotions and become a new foundation for us to live from.

Maybe God whispers because it’s the only way he can get what he wants most, what was lost in Eden: to walk with you and me in familiar intimacy that we might know God as he truly is and discover ourselves as we truly are in his presence.

God doesn’t want a team with a few star players. He wants everyone to play. If we really believed that, we’d eagerly desire prophecy. If we really grasped that God is generous and abundant, tenacious in His pursuit of people but equally stubborn and insistent on bringing that redemption through the likes of us, maybe instead of telling God, “I’m here if you want to say anything,” we’d ask, “God, what are you saying today? Is there something you want to say to someone else through me?”

The gifts of the Spirit are not techniques. They’re gifts. A gift isn’t something you master—it’s something you receive. So if you want an increase in the gift of prophecy, ask God for it in prayer. And be specific. Tell God not only what but also why and how. Why do you want an increase in the gift of prophecy? How will you use it when he gives it to you? When we ask specifically, our eager desire is refined by the way of love. Our motives get picked apart. Our ego gets weeded out. We are made into mature recipients to use the power of the Spirit’s gifts.

Are you eager for manifestations of the Spirit? Are you longing for signs and wonders? For supernatural physical healing and deep inner healing? For the ground-shaking word of prophecy and the still small whisper to the soul? For the fiery power of intercession and the society-altering justice that follows? Then channel all your energy into loving those in your local church who you find are the hardest to love.

the spectacle of Pentecost came in tongues of fire and rushing wind, but the sustaining power of Pentecost came in a community of people humbly and stubbornly loving one another. If it’s the power of Pentecost we’re after, we’d do well to look as much to the people on our right and left as we do up to the heavens. The gift of the Holy Spirit means signs, wonders, and miracles. And the greatest miracle of all just might be living in a community of love over the long haul.

Commit yourself to a local gathering of Jesus followers you will know and be known by, comfort and grieve among, confess to and receive confession from. Commit yourself to a community where power flows through love.