Compelling Reasons to Pursue a Deeper Filling in the Holy Spirit – Introduction
Have you ever sensed a need to be filled with more of the Holy Spirit’s power, presence, fruit, gifts, anointing, or boldness in your life? I remember one such time in my own life, many years ago.
I was between seminary semesters, and served as a summer missionary in Berkeley, California, for the American Baptist Home Missions Society. I was one of four summer missionaries assigned to The Telegraph Avenue Project.
Working out of a church basement near the UC campus, our services included a Runaway Center, a coffee house, and one free meal five days a week. I had charge of the coffee house. Although I was able to make an impact for Christ in some lives, my experiences left me spiritually and emotionally depleted. Prior to this, I had worked in youth and college-career ministry at a large evangelical church. Things went well there, and I didn’t feel inadequate in that context.
Berkeley, however, was another story! That ministry didn’t involve nice, middle-class Christian kids. It plunged me into a world of war-deserters, communists, the mentally ill, gang members from the Oakland ghetto, drug addicts, and more. True, I did have some incredible experiences, which I wrote about in my first book, Berkeley Journal: Jesus and the Street-People. But as I returned to seminary, I had the unsettling sense that I had barely scratched the surface of Berkeley’s desperate needs. While I knew the Holy Spirit was in my life, I also knew I needed a lot more of Him to minister to the depths of need and brokenness I had witnessed in Berkeley.
Prior to Berkeley, I had been fairly ignorant of the Spirit’s power and gifts. Now I felt a growing interest and hunger for more of Him. I read a book about the Holy Spirit’s ministry that answered many of my questions. Subsequently, alone in my seminary apartment, I prayed something like this: Lord, if this experience of a deeper filling with the Holy Spirit is of You, and if it will help me be more effective in witness and ministry, and if I won’t cause division over it – I’d like to have it.
God answered my prayer! The Holy Spirit gently came upon me like warm oil, starting with my head, and then moving down my spine. I opened my mouth and began to pray in word-syllables I did not understand. It felt like my spirit and God’s Spirit were intertwining in some significant and powerful way.
Thereafter I noticed a deeper delight in worshiping the Lord, a greater boldness in preaching and sharing my faith, and a new expectancy and release in the operation of spiritual gifts.
That experience markedly changed my life and ministry. And, it left me with a life-long quest: I want MORE of the Holy Spirit!
Every believer should want more. After all, we need Him for virtually every aspect of our Christian life and ministry. Consider these amazing things that the Holy Spirit does in us.
He gives us life.
He illuminates our intellects.
He sanctifies our emotions.
He refines our character.
He instills godly values and reverence for God’s Word.
He motivates our wills and empowers our witness.
He moves our hearts.
He enables a relationship of love and trust with God.
He enables us to perceive the spiritual dimension of life and to navigate effectively in it.
He makes God’s presence real to us and inspires our worship of Him.
He fills us with love and makes us a family.
In short, the Holy Spirit makes the Christian life a great adventure! And that’s why I cry over and over again: COME, HOLY SPIRIT!!! I know we already have Him, but I know also that we need more of Him! We need Him to fill us to overflowing, not only as individuals, but as churches.