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by
Steve Smith
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October 8 - October 13, 2022
Three areas emerge as essential in the process of personal and communal transformation: (1) biblical paths or methods that any believer can follow, (2) discipleship processes to equip believers to walk those paths, and (3) a spiritual posture of reliance upon the Spirit of God to empower the process.
they view a method, a program, and a pattern as the core. These elements are important for real transformation. But assume nothing. Never assume that the spiritual posture is in place to breathe life into these approaches. Paths and processes should work but not if they are devoid of the power of God.
Just as He modeled baptism, He also modeled to His disciples what a Spirit-led daily walk looked like.
Paul knew what to do but the Spirit showed him where to do it, with whom, and in whose strength.
His Spirit is also moving all around you to open the hearts of people. Your job is not to prepare their hearts. Your job is to find the people God has opened and then to disciple them, revealing paths they can walk in and lead other new disciples down.
We beg for awakening, and yet we neglect the central elements that are required for this miracle to emerge.
brother in ministry described to me his upbringing in a Bible-believing church. Functionally, his church’s view of the Trinity was Father, Son, and Holy Scripture. He was never taught about the Holy Spirit, much less how to be full of the Spirit.
The Spirit Walk is simply letting the Holy Spirit become the guiding force in your life, ministry, church, and organization day by day.
“When I was a young missionary, fifty years ago, I met many spiritual giants. But when it came to kingdom movements, we were methodological pygmies.” But after fifty years of change, he made this observation: “Today I meet a lot of young missionaries who are methodological giants, yet they are spiritual pygmies.”
If we must have one or the other, let us be spiritual giants. But can we not be both methodological and spiritual giants? A tendency grows among disciple-makers, church planters, pastors, and missionaries to focus on methodology in their ministries. And in our personal walks with Jesus, bookstores abound with “5 Simple Steps to…” books. Simple, reproducible methodologies that new believers can live out is critical to personal godliness and a movement of God around us—but methods are mere mechanics without the Spirit of God.
Several years ago, the Lord made it clear to me never to assume that the spiritual vitality of Jesus-followers is in place. He forbade me to train disciples to multiply disciples and churches without emphasizing the majesty of God and the power of the Spirit in a surrendered life.
This is the question we all must confront. The question is not “Have you ever been filled with the Spirit?” The question is “Are you full of the Spirit today?”
Before the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus did not have the indwelling Holy Spirit. They were unable to walk in the guidance and power of the indwelling Spirit hour by hour. Prior to Pentecost they seemed to miss ministry opportunities at times or even revert back to old ways.
This book will guide you into a life of surrender. It outlines predictable, biblical steps for an unpredictable path!
Jesus is the sphere in which we must live our lives. The only lasting things we become and produce are from doing what He is doing. Apart from his life-giving sap flowing through us by His spirit, nothing will greatly change in us and nothing great will emerge in our ministries.
Something is always controlling and filling us. The question is what is filling us. A person’s mind can be controlled by his own selfish will, another person, an ideology, a demonic power, or the Spirit of God. It may be hard to believe, but we have the power to choose which fills us, but it doesn’t just happen. We must work for it.
But the commands, the starting points, are different on the surface. In Ephesians, the command is to be filled with the Spirit. In Colossians, the command is to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
If there are rooms locked away from the control of God’s Word, then Jesus is not dwelling in us fully. He is a limited occupant. We still retain the keys and the control of our lives. We are the landlord. For example, you may surrender to Jesus to be the Lord of your devotional times. You set your alarm to awaken thirty minutes earlier than usual to spend time in the Bible and in prayer before heading to work or to school. You have started unlocking part of your life to His control. But if you allow God to speak only to that area of your life, He is still a limited occupant. If you choose to
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For example, you may surrender to Jesus to be the Lord of your devotional times. You set your alarm to awaken thirty minutes earlier than usual to spend time in the Bible and in prayer before heading to work or to school. You have started unlocking part of your life to His control. But if you allow God to speak only to that area of your life, He is still a limited occupant. If you choose to be involved in relationships that are not healthy and God-honoring, the Spirit does not have that room of your house. If you allow your thoughts to run rampant, He does not occupy that room. If you hoard
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We must reshape our cultural misunderstanding of the Spirit Walk. When someone uses the term “being filled with the Spirit” and is only referring to sensational experiences, they are misusing, and ultimately misunderstanding, this term. It is our responsibility to offer gentle reminders to those who incorrectly use this term that it is intended to refer to experiences that affect your daily walk. The Spirit Walk is a 24-7 lifestyle. Only when we speak up can we hope to shift the cultural misconception about this life-giving concept.
Go back to our illustration of the wilderness trailblazer. You have been traveling with him for several days and feel you are getting the hang of trekking the wilderness. Even so, I doubt you will make this mistake: awaken with the sunrise, make coffee around the campfire, question your guide about the path for the day, and then strike off alone. That would be foolish. Yet how often do we do this in regard to abiding in Christ and being led by the Spirit? We feel like we are doing pretty well spending quiet time with God to start each day—at least better than those who do not. We sit down with
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I feel this
In the Spirit Walk, God leads. We follow. Not the other way around. We must learn to keep in step with the way that He leads.
When you let the Spirit fill you, the fruit naturally emerges in your life. If you want to be more loving, then be full of the Spirit. If you want to be more patient, then be full of the Spirit. Learn daily to crucify yourself and let Christ fully dwell in you. Then you will produce all the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
When you allow the Lord to be in control of your life and to be the One guiding you every minute of the day, that is called being full of the Spirit. Every day, every moment, someone or something controls you. How can you swap out your own personal control for the control of God in your life? Daily, you need to make a swap: giving up your control and surrendering to His.
The part of you we see on the outside—the fruit of the Spirit in your life, the gifts of the Spirit in your life, the fruit of your ministry—are all built upon these foundational principles. Surrender to His will and His every word Wait on God in prayer Avoid sin and let God root out all unrighteousness Pursue the promptings of the Spirit
Each shouts one word, which describes the first activity in our framework: CONTROL! The essential question is whether you are letting God control and fill you in each moment. To be filled is to be controlled. If you are filled with alcohol, you are controlled by its influence.
Surrender, Not Commitment The essence of control is surrender. And surrender is not the same as commitment.
He said, “When you make a commitment, you are still in control, no matter how noble the thing you commit to. One can commit to pray, to study the Bible, to give money, or to commit to automobile payments, or to lose weight. Whatever he chooses to do, he commits to it. But surrender is different. If someone holds a gun and asks you to lift your hands in the air as a token of surrender, you don’t tell that person what you are committed to. You simply surrender and do as you are told.”
He said, “Americans love commitment because they are still in control. But the key word is surrender. We are to be slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Commitment is not a bad thing, except when it gets in the way of surrender.
Total surrender does not include negotiations. If you sign that blank paper, you are surrendering to God. But if you wait for God to write the terms of the contract, adjust it with your negotiations, and then sign it conditionally, the focus is still on yourself. By making even subtle changes, you are moving closer to commitment and further from surrender.
Perhaps we believe that He is good in the sense of good (righteous) versus evil. But do we trust that He is good in terms of being a loving, benevolent Father to us?
Abiding in Christ is initiated with your signature on a blank sheet of paper.
When we prioritize what is best for ourselves and for the welfare of our churches rather than the salvation of the world, is it surprising that revival eludes us?
Perhaps at a pivotal juncture of your life, you said “yes” to Jesus. But then one day as you were reading your Bible, you found a command that you did not like—one not comfortable to obey. To go back to the original framework of how to treat your enemies, perhaps you discovered you were supposed to love them. But pray for them? Really, God? Bless them? Really, God? Can’t I just tolerate them? Will you stay surrendered? Each new word you discover in the Bible is a challenge to stay surrendered to the Master.
Jesus modeled for us how to walk through this process of surrender. In the wilderness temptations at the beginning of His ministry and in his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane on the last night of His ministry, Jesus demonstrated complete surrender to the Father’s will.
He wants you to humble yourself before Him, and this frequently happens when you assume a prayerful posture.
What posture of your heart calls God to thunder in response? What postures of your heart are so thrilling to the heart of God that He responds in clear ways that you can almost feel or hear? The most compelling prayer you can offer is that your life might bring the greatest honor, glory, and fame to the name of God.
Too much of our modern Christianity is self-centered and abhorrent to God. We ask Jesus to “come into our hearts.” God has no interest in coming into your heart when it is not surrendered. He does not want to come into your kingdom in power, but He wants you to come into His kingdom in surrender. You are not doing Him a favor by giving Him a space in your heart. He wants it all.
The prayer of surrender is the prayer not only to know God’s will but to have the courage to do it. Are
Once you know the story line, you can take up your place in it, not as a side character but as a protagonist driven forward by the power of the Author. Knowing the story line is knowing God’s will.
But something even more exciting has developed in our chapter of history. Though this was a good first step, engagement of each people group was never the goal. Reaching them completely was. And this is where things get thrilling.
The Spirit of God is accelerating the story line through His surrendered followers on every continent. And He is doing that through Acts-like movements—church-planting movements.
As Moses arrived at a place of surrender, God promised His special presence to go with Moses. Moses had enough time to work through his objections one by one.
Having the right heart is the foundation for the Spirit of God to show up in power in your life.
Are you the kind of person to whom God would entrust a movement of His kingdom?
He’s not looking for spiritual giants; only surrendered hearts.
If disciples of Jesus today would simply take these longer periods of time away with God solely to focus on Him, the church at large would be revived. If disciples of Jesus would spend long times alone with Him, His priorities would become theirs.
Your frequent forays with God can include a hike in the woods or a time of prayer near a lake—any place you feel safe and comfortable to meet God. These times help you stay surrendered day by day.
your day by starting the day with Him. The goal of your quiet time is to make sure that you are still surrendered. The goal of this time is to meet with God, hear Him, and surrender to His plans for that day. Your quiet time is a chance once more to sign the blank page of surrender to every word of Christ. A quiet time is not the same thing as abiding in Christ. The aim of quiet time is to launch you into walking in the Spirit or abiding in Christ throughout the day. That morning time is your date with God, which allows you to stay connected to Him all day long. Abiding in Christ is a
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