“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in Me.” John 14:1 (NLT)
Jesus told us that unless He went to the Father the Holy Spirit would not come to us (John 16:7). Jesus did go to the Father, the Holy Spirit did come to us, and has remained in and with us. He is to be trusted the same as we trust the Father and the Son. But so many don’t actually trust Him. They think He is the crazy One in the Trinity and needs to be kept locked up. Of course, most do not actually say that!
Nevertheless, many leaders are afraid that if they allow the Holy Spirit loose in their church He will create a mess! So instead of allowing the third person of the Godhead to have leadership in our services we, man, maintain the control out of fear of what might happen. Sadly, that speaks volumes about who we believe God really is and our lack of trust that He knows what’s best. Bobby Conner recently shared on Elijah Streams (April 4) that a pastor once commented about not letting the Holy Spirit have control of his services because of the mess He might stir up. Bobby replied, with tenderness toward this pastor, that the Holy Spirit knows how to best glorify the Father! Wow! When we refuse the Holy Spirit control, we are in essence saying, we know how to best glorify the Father. Here’s the secret, we don’t know what is best or how to glorify God as the Holy Spirit does!!!
The Apostle Paul revealed to us that “no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11). Likewise, if we don’t even know how to pray properly without the Holy Spirit, but need His help to pray in accordance to God’s will (Romans 8:26-27), how much do we need His help to worship? How often do we simply sing songs with our lips and our heads, but our hearts are far from Him (Matthew 15:8, Isaiah 29:13)? It is time to completely yield to Him, and allow the Holy Spirit to glorify the Father through us!
Please invite the Holy Spirit to take His place of leadership in your life. Tell Him you yield to His control, to His voice and working in your life. Pray that every stronghold that the enemy has entrenched in your church would be exposed and torn down. And specifically, cry out for your pastor, that any place of fear of loss of control to the Holy Spirit and subsequent messiness would be exposed for what it is, a lack of trust in the God. Pray that the Holy Spirit would have absolute access to all that your church does. Pray that churches around Athens would completely surrender to the Holy Spirit!
