God created the universe with it. The “I Am” parted the Red Sea with it. Jesus Christ led a perfect, sinless life with it. Men raised other men from the dead with it.
The Holy Spirit is not a softly glowing power. It is literally the power of the omnipotent, cosmos-ruling God!
And if you are a baptized member of the Body of Christ, you possess it.
Herbert W. Armstrong compared the power of the Holy Spirit to electricity. You can’t see it—but you can see its power by the results it produces.
God wants us to derive all the pleasure—all the joy—all the benefits—that come from having this great supernatural power at our disposal. He wants us to use it to drive the sins out of our lives and to take on His beautiful, wonderful, selfless, outgoing, loving character.
Christ said this power would enable us to do even greater works than He did! He said it should be flowing from our belly—our innermost being—like rivers of living waters!
Are we using the Holy Spirit that way?
If you had to measure the spiritual flow of those living waters coming from your innermost being, would it be like a faucet? A little creek or a stream? Would it be a river—or would it truly be rivers of living water?
The Source of Spiritual Power
The Apostle Paul deeply desired that God’s people be filled with the power of the Spirit. He prayed, “That [God] would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16).
What a beautiful, God-inspired prayer: that the brethren—that we—would be strengthened—empowered—in the very core of our being!
God calls the weak and the base of this world. To become converted people who exhibit the very character of God, we cannot just attend a 12-step program or invent techniques for tricking ourselves into becoming more outgoing or less selfish. Our spiritual conversion must come through a strengthening of the inner man via a supernatural power! It must come from the belly—from our core—from the inside out!
Have you had a traumatic life? Do you have layers of garbage and anxieties built up over the years? Have abuses and troubles caused serious scars—deep down?
The Holy Spirit is the only source of power that can pierce through all that and go right into the inner man! It can reach the deepest part of you—even the most wounded, scarred part of your very being—and right there, it can generate a fountainhead of spiritual power!
Paul’s prayer continued: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith … that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (verses 17, 19). Think about this prayer. We don’t receive this kind of power automatically—we have to ask for it.
Paul was bold in asking God for it! He didn’t ask God to supply us a little dribble of the Spirit. He asked for the fullness!
Have you ever prayed that prayer? Would you even dare go that far?
By His power, God answers our prayers, miraculously heals, empowers His Work, performs things greater than our limited minds can even imagine. And Paul knew that this is a “power that worketh in us”! (verse 20).
Is this power working in you? This question goes right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
Are You Led by the Spirit
Note this profound statement Paul made to God’s people in Rome: “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). We are only sons of God if we are being led by God through His Spirit. Do you allow yourself to be led by the Spirit of God?
As powerful as the Holy Spirit is, it never forces, impels, commands or controls us. It leads us. It influences our thinking—it suggests. We must be willing to yield to that influence, to follow, to obey those suggestions.
How sensitive are we to the influence and suggestion of the Spirit of God?
Do we ever think, You know, I should do this or that—and ignore that? Do we display an unwillingness to yield to the Spirit as it leads us?
What determines whether God is able to perform great works in us? How well we are led by the Spirit. Your effectiveness as a Christian is determined by how well you are led by the Spirit. Whether God’s government is in place in your family is determined by whether the head of the house is led by the Spirit.
In many ways, this is where the rubber meets the road in our daily Christian lives. Certainly God leads us by educating us through His Word and through His ministry. But for God to be able to guide and direct our lives as a Father, He also must be able to lead us directly through His Spirit. This is what makes us sons of God!
“Does God directly guide you?” Gerald Flurry asks in The Last Hour. “The sons of God are led by the Spirit. God directly guides and leads them. He doesn’t force them; obedient sons voluntarily submit to their Father. Parents who love their children in the right way inspire a deep love from their children in return. That is what God is doing with us.
“Christ set the example of obeying the Father. If He is coming in our flesh, He does the same in us.”
We are preparing for the day when God will transform us into spirit and supply us His Spirit without measure! So we must be learning and practicing how to use it and be led by it in our daily lives today.
Deeply consider these three points on how to do that.
1. Maximize Your Most Important Hour of Each Day.
The most important hour of each day is the hour you spend in prayer, speaking with the only Source of your spiritual power and effectiveness.
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. … Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:10, 18). How can we overcome our spiritual timidity and become strong in God and in the power of His might? Only by tapping the Source of that power, foremost in prayer—in particular, praying “in the Spirit.”
When you’re on your knees, do you get drowsy? Do you tend to repeat yourself? Do you just go through the motions?
We are only effective as Christians insofar as we develop a truly robust relationship with our Father in daily, robust communication with Him. And the kind of prayer that will get results is prayer that is inspired and fueled by the Spirit. Here is where being led by the Spirit starts!
In The Plain Truth About Healing, Mr. Armstrong wrote about the first-century men of God who had the same power Christ had—“because they lived and walked close to God and were filled with the Holy Spirit!” He continued, “And we seem to lack that power today, not because God denies us that power, but because we are so close to a modern, materialistic world—our minds are so filled with the material interests of this life; our minds and our hearts are so far from God; we are so out of touch with Him through lack of enough time spent in the study of His Word and lack of enough of the right kind of surrendered, submissive, earnest and heartrending prayer—and, consequently, because we are not filled with the Holy Spirit which affords us the power of God!” How perfectly does this describe you and me?
When you start your prayer, ask God to inspire it. Ask Him to stir up the Spirit within you. Ask Him to give you urgency and fervor and concentration. Ask Him to make you bold and powerful in your prayer!
We can do nothing of ourselves! To have effective prayers, God must be working in our minds by His Spirit!
Do you realize that you have to ask for the Spirit? (Luke 11:13). How often do you ask? As James 4:2 says, “ye have not, because ye ask not.”
Jesus Christ, in His model prayer, said, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In addition to our physical needs, we have daily spiritual needs, the most important of which is that our inner man be renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Ask for more of God’s Holy Spirit every day.
Consider writing Galatians 5:22-23 on your prayer list. It lists nine qualities of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control. From time to time—perhaps a couple of times a week—go down the list of these qualities that Spirit should be producing in your life. Put that list before God and ask for the specifics. When you’re weak in an area, pinpoint it. Ask God for more love. Tell God why you need it! Ask for more joy, and tell God where and why you need it. Ask for more peace, more longsuffering. More gentleness—what is that? Where do you need it in your life? Analyze it. Tell God where you need more temperance, or self-control. That is a fruit of the Spirit! Do you ever beat yourself up because you lack self-control? Do you truly realize that you can do nothing of yourself?
You might also include on your prayer list 2 Timothy 1:7, which says the Holy Spirit is “not … the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Consider also Isaiah 11:2-5, which call it “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” Just those three passages list 17 deep, wonderful qualities of godly character that the Holy Spirit will bring into your life! These are qualities we should be growing in and exhibiting more and more as we are led by that Spirit.
When we come up short in an area or fail to grow spiritually, we must remember to go back to the Source of the spiritual power to grow! We achieve nothing by human might or power—but only by God’s Spirit (Zechariah 4:6).
Our prayer life is the single most important key to our spiritual life—how much spiritual power we have, how much faith we have, how Spirit-minded we are. To be led by the Spirit, we must tap the Source of spiritual power by praying in the Spirit every day.
2. Be Honest About How Much You Mind the Things of the Flesh.
We cannot walk after the flesh and after the Spirit at the same time. Romans 8:5 contrasts being “after the flesh,” minding the things of the flesh, and being “after the Spirit”—two ways of life completely at odds with one another.
To the Galatians, Paul wrote, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:16-17).
The flesh lusts against the Spirit. If you satisfy fleshly lusts, you beat down the influence of God’s Spirit. Your mind becomes clouded with carnality. Sin cuts us off from the Spirit of God. Acts 2:38 shows that the Holy Spirit can only flow through a repentant mind. Thus, we must remain in a daily, continual state of repentance.
But here is the beautiful part: If we feed the Spirit, the pulls of the flesh grow weak! Set your mind and heart on the things of God, and temptations fade. Spiritually speaking, our best defense is a strong offense.
Evaluate your day-to-day life to see whether you are truly minding the things of the flesh or the things of the Spirit. To see the difference between these two, and to measure which of them you are walking in, contrast verses 19-21 with verses 22-25 of Galatians 5. In your daily activities, which fruits are manifest?
Notice how James expresses this same concept: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you …” (James 4:7-8).
Succumbing to temptation and giving in to sin reveal a lack of closeness to God. Mr. Armstrong compared it to being suddenly thrust into the boxing ring with the world’s heavyweight champion without having trained for the match. Unless we are continually drawing close to God, we will be too far from Him to suddenly summon His help in our moment of need.
“Spiritual training, to get and keep in constant vigilant condition to meet the foe of temptation and sin requires continuous, earnest, persistent prayer! That is why we are commanded so often to pray without ceasing! To keep it up!” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “If we draw nigh to God, and then keep close to Him, our problem will be solved. We will then have the faith. We will then be continually filled with His Spirit—His power to overcome. We can keep in spiritual training only if we keep our affections—our minds—our thoughts—on spiritual things. Read Colossians 3:1-10. Most of us keep our minds filled with earthly, material cares and interests, turning to the spiritual only occasionally! Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness!” (“How to Be an Overcomer,” Plain Truth, July 1964).
Notice. Using the Holy Spirit successfully is a combined effort between us and God. It doesn’t take over our lives and work as if by magic. Nor does it only come into play after we have completely exhausted ourselves, trying to overcome by our own effort.
Rather, the Holy Spirit works in a blending of our effort and God’s power. You draw near to God, and He responds by drawing near to you. You start the process. You must deliberately set your weak will in the right direction, putting the effort and time into that earnest, persistent prayer, striving to keep your mind on the spiritual, showing God your determination to engage in that spiritual struggle!
And then, within that struggle—not at the end of the struggle, but toward the beginning and in the midst of it—God adds His godly power to your human power. That’s a promise!
As Paul elsewhere wrote, “… I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Colossians 1:29). He was working, agonizing in his effort—not sitting back and expecting God to do everything—and then God’s power blended with that effort and worked in him mightily!
If you have a problem, God wants to see you, like Paul, laboring to get rid of it. He gives His Spirit to those who obey (Acts 5:32). Thus, when He sees your obedient attitude and determination, then He amplifies your effort by giving you His Spirit with the fruit of self-control—the Spirit of power!
3. Learn to Heed the Still, Small Voice.
1 Kings 19 tells of a time when Elijah was discouraged because the work he was doing didn’t seem to be yielding fruit. God had him stand on the mountain, and there was a mighty wind, but God wasn’t in the wind—then an earthquake and a fire, but God wasn’t in these—then God spoke in a still, small voice.
“What was God’s point?” Mr. Flurry asks in From the Beginning. “God does not often manifest Himself in mind-shattering physical events. Usually He comes in a still, small voice. But it is still the same omnipotent God! You must learn to recognize God in that ‘still, small voice’ ….”
Again, if we are led by God’s Spirit, we are sons of God. Do you respond to the Spirit of God like a son responding to a father? When the Spirit begets us as children of God, it opens up a Father-son relationship where God is able to guide and influence us—through His Spirit (Romans 8:15).
How does that work? “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). The phrase bears witness with means to testify jointly, or corroborate by evidence. God’s Spirit is able to interact with our human spirit—and by that means, our Father speaks to us! He’s not forcing us to do anything. Even when He commands something, He still gives us the choice whether or not to obey. But with His Spirit influencing our human spirit, He can testify to us.
Ezra 1:1-2 provide a specific example: God sent a message to the Persian King Cyrus by stirring up his spirit. He didn’t speak to him in a loud voice, or send a prophet or a telegram. God’s Holy Spirit bore witness with Cyrus’s human spirit—and was able to get a very specific message through to him: Build a temple in Jerusalem. God similarly stirred up Mr. Armstrong’s spirit—and Mr. Flurry’s spirit—with a similar message: to build a house for God.
In our day-to-day lives, God stirs up our spirit with messages of a humbler sort: to obey His law—to treat someone a certain way—to pray for something in particular—to do that kind act—to make that phone call.
What kinds of things does God’s Spirit lead you to do on a moment-by-moment basis? How practiced are you at being led by His Holy Spirit? How readily is God able to stir up your spirit with His Holy Spirit? How well do you recognize when the Spirit is trying to lead you?
You may be able to understand this concept better by considering your conscience.
The word conscience appears 31 times in the Bible—all in the New Testament, all from the same Greek word, which means moral consciousness. The conscience is something that comes with our human spirit. Romans 2:14-15 reveal that, even in the unconverted, the conscience “bear[s] witness”—the same word as in Romans 8:16. That little voice testifies to us. It speaks to us in a way we can liken to the Holy Spirit—but purely on the human-spirit level. Conscience is an internal sense that we should do this or shouldn’t do that, a gift God gives to all people in order to guide our actions.
It’s important to realize: Unlike the Holy Spirit, our conscience can be misinformed. 1 Corinthians 8 relates the example of someone who believes he shouldn’t eat meat offered to idols. His conscience tells him it is wrong. No law of God says it’s wrong.
But note: God says that if this man thinks eating this meat is wrong and eats it anyway, he is defiling his conscience and harming his character! If he believes something shouldn’t be eaten, he should not eat it—even if, technically, nothing in God’s law forbids it (see also Romans 14:14). Listen to that inner voice, God tells us. Don’t ignore it, and don’t do anything that would damage it! If a man is not careful, he can sear or defile his conscience—blunt or lose that sense of moral consciousness—until he is past the point of feeling anything when doing something he knows is wrong (see 1 Timothy 4:2 and Titus 1:15). This is dangerous.
Of course, once a man is informed of the truth from God’s Word and from God’s ministry, he shouldn’t hang on to unbiblical ideas. We each must educate our conscience, or it can turn into self-righteousness.
Here is the spiritual principle our conscience is meant to teach us. “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).
We can liken our conscience to a tutor, intended to help us learn to walk in the Spirit! God is able to speak to us through His Spirit in much the way our conscience does.
And in one sense, God’s Spirit is very much like your conscience: It doesn’t force you, impel you, command you or control you. It leads, influences, suggests.
There is an enormous warning we must remember about this, however. We should never assume we are being led by the Spirit. When we hear a still, small voice, the only way to know whether it is from God or from ourselves—or even from Satan, who can also broadcast his warped thinking into our minds—is whether it aligns with what God has revealed through His Word and His government. Remember, we are cursed if we trust ourselves (Jeremiah 17:5). Never base a judgment on some “feeling” or “sense” we have that contradicts the Word of God! Unless we remember this point, we will run into eternal life-threatening problems as we seek to be led by God’s Spirit in this way.
What you think about something doesn’t change whether God’s law condones it or forbids it. God alone decides right from wrong. That is why it is so important that we study God’s Word to know right from wrong (Romans 7:7) and get counsel from His ministry, educating ourselves so our inner sense of “moral consciousness” actually aligns with God’s definition of sin.
Being led by God’s Spirit is essentially walking by faith. We must learn to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Hebrews 10:38 tells us to live by faith. That faith must be based on the promises of God. As we step out and obey God based on those promises, God will supply us with more of His Spirit, which will increase our faith and our spiritual power.
“Are you empowered by the Spirit? Could you lead congregations? Could you teach college classes? That is what you are called to do!” Mr. Flurry wrote in The Last Hour. “We must have and use God’s Spirit to endure this last hour! That is the only way to survive.”
Strive to be led by the Holy Spirit in your daily life. And as Paul said, would that God grant you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That His spiritual power would flow from your innermost being as rivers of living water. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.