Experiencing God's Presence #184

Experiencing God's Presence #184

Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.

1 Thessalonians 5:19

The God of all power and strength has put His Spirit within us—a Spirit who can sway hearts, inspire heroic acts, raise the spiritually and physically dead into new life, perform supernatural miracles, and bear supernatural fruit. As a member of the sovereign Trinity, there is no limit to His power. Even so, according to the Word this Spirit breathed into His people, He can be stifled.

How? By resisting Him. By functioning out of our assumptions or principles instead of by His unpredictable leading. By refusing to go with His flow because we have an agenda or a program. By living in a way that’s decidedly out of line with His character. There are so many ways. Whenever we wonder where He is and why He doesn’t seem more powerful in our lives, one of those ways is probably the reason.

Do not stifle the Spirit. He is all-powerful, but He prefers to work with us and through us, not over us and around us. When His movement is flowing and we decide to assert our own agenda rather than His—even when ours is a good agenda that we believe is God’s will—the flowing ceases. He works powerfully when we respond to Him, not when we attempt to manipulate His response to us. The only way not to stifle Him is to listen attentively to Him, heed every prompt He gives, and depend on Him for the outcomes. Anything else is human, fleshly effort.

Hear His heart: “When you depend on Me—in faith, without worry, and without assuming your own plans are the right ones—I am free to work. I love that dynamic between us. That’s how our relationship flows as it should. Seek that alone, and you will experience Me.”

Spirit, I want to experience You. Forgive me for living by principles and not by relationship with You, for assuming my best-laid plans are Yours, and for not depending on You. I invite You to flow through me and from me freely.