We Are Not AloneSample

‘Can you hear the wind of the Spirit?’

If you read the book of Acts in one sitting, you quickly realize that the Church universal today needs a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit.

For some in the Church that will be a hard admission. Many of us are attached to a version of church which is ageing fast and has long been left behind by a world hurtling towards a new paradigm of what it means to be human; what gives life its meaning. Our attachment palliates the need for change.

It’s not that our goal of transforming society with the love and power of God is out of date. It’s often how we go about it that needs an overhaul and it’s how we open our lives afresh to the Holy Spirit of God that will energise a new start for us.

In Acts, one thing is clear, the Church is God’s, not ours. God came in incredible spiritual power to a people who were ready for such action, such expansion, such transformative mission; whose vision was the whole world for God, whose hearts were longing for God, whose priority was prayer, and whose passion was Jesus. In a very real way, the Acts Church was the pure water of Church.

Today, although in a different era and context, followers of Jesus need this same readiness of spirit and willingness to let go of the Church into the hands of God. We need to come with humility before God and admit that we cannot be the world-transforming Church God wants us to be without the power and full partnership of God’s Spirit.

We cannot be the people of holiness and powerful influence we aspire to be without a fresh and full measure of God’s Spirit washing over us and flowing out from us. We need to repent of spiritual lethargy, judgemental attitude and smallness of vision, and know the joy of our salvation again. And how desperately we need the unity of the Spirit and a freedom from our inhibitions.

Such a revival might begin inside our church buildings and homes but, like Pentecost, it will quickly burst out onto the streets and become revival in the marketplace. God wants unchurched people everywhere to experience the wind of the Spirit blowing through their lives, taking them to Jesus, transforming them, just as much as he wants the wind to revive his already followers and bring deep spiritual renewal to their lives and their mission.

The late General Eva Burrows once asked thousands of Salvation Army members in a packed auditorium in Sydney, Australia, ‘Can you hear the wind of the Spirit blowing through the gum trees?’ That’s a question for the ages that demands both a personal and a corporate answer.

The Holy Spirit came in power to the Acts Church. In fact, the Church wasn’t really the Church until the Spirit came. The Christian community today, needs the Spirit to come in power again. This is not something we dream of for our future. It is a present reality and we need to claim it and live in it now – together.

For reflection:

Have you ever been part of a community of faith where it was obvious that God’s Spirit was filling and blessing people abundantly, including you? What was it like?

What stands out for you in the book of Acts that is important for individual Christians and Christian communities today? Name two or three things.

If you could implement a ‘revival plan’ for your church, what would you put into it? How would it take shape?