Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit

by Francis Chan

The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation. And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural. The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice.

However, I also believe that the Spirit is more obviously active in places where people are desperate for Him, humbled before Him, and not distracted by their pursuit of wealth or comforts (like we are).

The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.

I know only that when you surrender fully to the Spirit, Christ will be magnified, not you (John 16:14).

Paul wrote to the Corinthians that his words were not “wise and persuasive” but rather a “demonstration of the Spirit’s power” in order that their faith “might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:4–5 NIV). Later in the same letter he reiterates that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (4:20 NIV).

The kingdom of god is not of talk but of power

But what would it look like to live exegetically? If we were to start with Scripture and allow it to dictate our actions, how would we live?

[We] have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. -A. W. Tozer-

I asked the Spirit to make them “living and active” to me, though I’d been reading them for years. I asked God to “penetrate” the wrong and ill-conceived notions I’d collected along the way (Heb. 4:12 NIV).

Rather than guarding your perspective, consider taking a fresh look at familiar passages to make sure you haven’t missed something. You may end up with the same theology you’ve always had, but maybe you won’t.

The truth is that the Spirit of the living God is guaranteed to ask you to go somewhere or do something you wouldn’t normally want or choose to do. The Spirit will lead you to the way of the cross, as He led Jesus to the cross, and that is definitely not a safe or pretty or comfortable place to be. The Holy Spirit of God will mold you into the person you were made to be. This often incredibly painful process strips you of selfishness, pride, and fear.

But if you decide you do want to know His will, there will be moments when you have to let go of the fear of what that might mean—when you have to release your grip of control on your life and decide to be led, come what may.

Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21–22 NIV). Rather than rejecting the possibility of God supernaturally speaking through people, I should have tested what I was hearing in the context of faithful community.

Another valid test for prophecy is the standard of edification. The purpose of prophecy is to encourage and build up the body of Christ. Like every other gift, if it is not done out of love, it is meaningless (1 Cor. 13:2, 8; 14:3, 31).

This is why orthodox (as in “committed to exegetical living”) and radical (as in “willing to do whatever and go wherever the Spirit leads, even if it doesn’t make sense”) community is vital to living lives that comply with the leading of the Holy Spirit.

So while good theology at its best can lead us to live godly lives, bad theology will always point us in the wrong direction.

The point is not to completely understand God but to worship Him. Let the very fact that you cannot know Him fully lead you to praise Him for His infiniteness and grandeur.

But consider this truly amazing fact: Because the Spirit is holy and dwells in us, our bodies are holy sanctuaries from God’s vantage point. Too often we disdain our bodies as the source of sin and our fallenness; yet they are precisely where God the Spirit chooses to dwell!

But the intent and purpose of feelings came from God. Since He created emotions, why is it difficult to believe that He Himself has emotions? The Spirit is grieved when there is a breach in relationship, whether it be relationship with God or relationship with other people.

I pray for the day when believers care more about the Spirit’s grief than their own.

If you are like me, you probably have a plan for your own life, for your church, and maybe even for the larger body of Christ. That’s why we all desperately need to pray, as Christ did, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

The fruit of being led by the Spirit of God includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attitudes and actions will characterize our lives as we allow ourselves to be grown and molded by the Spirit. The Spirit is our sanctifier (2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 5:22–23).

A sure sign of the Holy Spirit’s working is that Christ is magnified, not people.

Let’s pray that God would empower us so radically that we would get no glory. That people would see our works and glorify God.

But if you say you are called to be in the place you are, a few questions need to be considered. For example, how would you be missed if you left this place? What would change? Basically, what difference does your presence here make?

It is true that God may have called you to be exactly where you are. But it’s absolutely vital to grasp that He didn’t call you there so you could settle in and live out your life in comfort and superficial peace.

I suppose this is clarification thatt my desiire to travel and be free from traditional office work is not necessarily from God. How would i be helping others?

We are most alive when we are loving and actively giving of ourselves because we were made to do these things. It is when we live like this that the Spirit of God moves and acts in and through us in ways that on our own we are not capable of. This is our purpose for living.

When we are at our wits’ end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own? -Karl Barth-

if we are never alone or feeling like we need Him, how much do we care or need to know that God is with us?

Our lack of intimacy often is due to our refusal to unplug and shut off communication from all others so we can be alone with Him.

In Galatians 3, we read that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us … so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (vv. 13–14). Wow. I am sure I have read that often enough, but until I started paying attention to the Holy Spirit, I am not sure that it really struck me. Christ redeemed us from the curse we were under so that we could receive the promise of the Holy Spirit.

God said to Israel, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD” (Jer. 29:13–14). When is the last time you sought after God with all your heart?