"Father, give me a hunger for Your Holy Spirit." (Part 1)

We need the Holy Spirit desperately. We have forgotten His purpose and power. We have pushed Him to the side to depend on our own strength, talents, and gifts. All while the world is dying, without hope, and lost. We need the Holy Spirit to revive us, fill us, empower us, and teach us.

Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit is just like JESUS! The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, Helper, Teacher, Empowerer, and Convincer.

John 14:16-17 (NKJV)
¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

John 14:18 really sums up the heart of the Father here..."I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."

Wow! Thank You Jesus! Jesus was comforting the disciples that He wasn't going to leave them high and dry. He wasn't going to leave them feeling abandoned or drowning in the deep end...He was sending His Spirit to remind them of everything He taught and did, and to empower them to do even greater things! (John 1:50)

John 14:26 (NKJV)
²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

I truly appreciate what Pastor Jack Hayford says about the Holy Spirit being our Teacher. He says, "As a teacher, the Holy Spirit's help is not so much an academic process as one of inward instruction. He teaches us what to do and say at the important times. He helps us keep our life - our conduct and our standards - in accordance with what Jesus wants and what the Bible says." (Jack Hayford; Spirit-Filled: The Overflowing Power of the Holy Spirit; page 35.)

Yes and amen! The Holy Spirit is our Teacher to lead us on the right path, right in Jesus' footprints. He is not a crutch to lean on but a Comforter to be dependent on. I'll say something a little radical here. Why don't we just allow God to POSSESS us with His Spirit? Give Him free-will and control in our lives! I'm serious. I want God to own me, possess me, seal His Name upon my heart. Yes, I am saved by grace through faith so therefore my Name is written on His Hand and I am His. But I want it to continually go deeper. Down to every motive, emotion, thought, and breath of my lungs!

This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. He fills us.

I realize I could be rustling some religious feathers or pushing over some religious cows but listen, we NEED the Holy Spirit to fill and empower us.

We can't fully realize His Kingdom without being filled.
We can't fully witness for Christ without being filled.
We can't fully worship Jesus without being filled.
We need to be filled up, baptized in, and overflowing with the Holy Spirit.
Let me stir the hunger for the Holy Spirit a little more.

Acts 2:38-39 (NKJV)
³⁸ Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Check this out. The prelude to versus 38 & 39 are of the disciples, and those praying in the Upper Room, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Thousands of people gather to see what the commotion is all about, and they hear the miracle of tongues of fire, and the Gospel being preached by Peter. Those listening to the message ask, 'how then can we be saved?'

Filled with power now from the Holy Spirit (and with more boldness and confidence than ever before) Peter declares to them verses 38 & 39. Not only are these verses revealing the way to be saved and forgiven...but also to be totally transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Here it is: Repent (John 3:3), be Baptized (Matthew 28:18-19), and Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).

I can't agree with you more that the Holy Spirit is with every believer to stir up a hunger for more of God, and to convict and guide us. But the real question is, is every believer FILLED with the Holy Spirit? I'm not trying to paint a picture for you as to what this looks like. Your denominational background or doctrinal preference may be in opposition to this belief. But let me challenge all of us with a simple prayer to pray...

"Father, give me a hunger for Your Holy Spirit."

You can't argue with the fact that with the Holy Spirit we can testify and witness more effectively to the world of Jesus Christ; we can heal the sick, raise the dead, give sight to the blind. We can grow closer to the Father and fully worship Him. We can receive the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12). We receive Comfort, Truth, and Guidance from the Holy Spirit. Don't you want Him to be in you and overflowing from you???

All in all, let me simply encourage you to pray that simple prayer and then let God (who by the way is the best Father and gives the best gifts) fill that hunger.

"Father, give me a hunger for Your Holy Spirit."

100 year old broken grave stones...

A friend and brother in the Lord, Jack Moody, sent me this devotional he wrote and it convicted my heart. He gave me his permission to share it with you for this week's Preparing For Rain blog. May it delve deep into your spirit. Blessings my friends.

In late Autumn 2011, I had the privilege to travel to an abandoned cemetery south of Springfield, IL in a remote rural area surrounded by harvested corn fields to learn how to restore 100 [year] old head stones. I was with the State Historical Archivist and her staff.  There were several of us invited to spend two Saturdays in the cold and wind, surrounded by a small forest to learn the proper technique to repair 100 year old broken grave stones. It seems the fence that used to surround this family cemetery of 20-30 graves was broken in a storm, the story goes, and the cattle came marching through this graveyard and their bodies hit most of the grave stones and broke them in half.  Some of the stones were half buried in the ground. But most were to be found and we fixed them using proper preservation techniques.

 

For two Saturdays in a row we braved the winds and bitter cold to mix special cement and clamps and “right” broken head stones back on top of their bottom pieces. It was hard work. As we worked I noticed that many families in the 1800’s not only placed a “head stone” but also a foot stone at the other end of the grave and side-rails along both sides. It very much resembled a bed of sorts. 

 

Digging out buried head stones we found artifacts that had been placed by grieving loved ones on top of the soil before the burial was completed. One set of graves were young brothers 10 and 12 years old. One boy had fallen into a river and was drowning and when his brother jumped in to try to save him, he drowned too. I stood there reading this story on the graves and felt what the parents must have gone through having tragically lost two sons at such a young age. Perhaps the deteriorated items we found just under the top soil of the graves were things the parents placed as a memorial. I was sad the whole rest of the day. Somehow, my being so cold did not matter anymore. We carefully cleaned the small items and placed them back in the top soil in a well arranged manner. Head stones, foot stones, side rails, trinkets, words carved in stone, all depicting the memories of people who lived in Illinois over 100 years ago. 

 

It has been two years since I spent those hours in that cemetery learning special preservation techniques to extend the life of grave markers in an old abandoned cemetery.  Death is the final curtain. Rich or poor, young or old, death awaits each of us at the end of our lives. Death leaves life before the grave. Try as we do to remember our loved ones as if they are still with us in life, they are departed from all the world they once lived in. We strike the stone to carve their names for us, not for them. For those who faced death before they actually died and took seriously the consequences of what will happen to them beyond the body are those who will only experience one death, not two. For those who never accepted Jesus as the Lord of their lives, a second more frightful death stands in the wings. Jesus died so we will only experience one death. You will find no headstone for Jesus, no earthly marker to remember His life. He was risen after three days from the grave. 1 Timothy 2:3 says, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Ask not what you can do for God, rather ask God  what He already did for you.

Jack Moody, Pastor

Bloomington, Illinois