We were in a class on Sunday on the Holy Spirit, and I remembered so many things from my time as a little girl at Mechanicsville Christian Center.  My parents were part of the founding group of this now well-developed, growing church in Hanover County, VA.  I can remember meeting in an old country house, homes, and a place that offered Karate during the week before we could afford to build a church building.  We had moved from a church that we attended for many, many years – Walnut Grove Baptist Church to this Spirit filled, joy filled, prayer filled body of believers.  At my age, I was unsure of it all, but as I continued there, it was this body of believers that brought a passion for the Holy Spirit in my life at such a young age.  There was this one man who was about 70 something and I was about 10 years old.  He came over to our house and as we were worshiping, he got so happy in the Lord he danced with me.  No one had really done that in my life, and my heart soared with him!  I remember laughing with him and singing praises to the Lord.

In some regards, I did not reap the full knowledge and benefit of this seed planted until later in life.  God is awesome like that!  Planting, growing, waiting on the Lord and His Work.  It’s never too late!

In this simple little class on Sunday, I had this memory lane experience and was overjoyed to “remember”.  I don’t want to convey that the Holy Spirit has not been active in my life until this class, but it was the context and the combination of many things.  Seasons.  God working.  Change of pace + Change of place = Revelation (The Circle Maker).

I recall that John from the New Testament, was sent to another place to get him in the right place and pace to hear the  last book – Revelation – and write God’s Words down.  Sometimes you end up some place because He has to shake you up, get you out of your comfort zone so you rely on Him totally.

NOTES FROM THE CLASS:

Ephesians 5:18b “Paul says that we are to be filled with the Spirit.” The tense of the Greek for be filled makes clear that such a Spirit-filled condition does not stop with a single experience, but is maintained by continually being filled.

Acts 1:8 ” You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Why do we call on the Spirit?

To experience spiritual refreshment:  Feeling overwhelmed, bored, anxious?  Is 28:11-12 “the weary to rest.”

To overcome weakness: Romans 8:26, speaking in the Spirit helps strengthen you in areas of personal weakness.

To pray God’s perfect will:  Romans 8:27  When you pray in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit prays God’s will through you, addressing issues and circumstances that are often too complicated to understand

To have the mind of Christ:  I Corinthians 2:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”^[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

To build your inner man:  Jude 20; I Corinthians 14:4

To remind us of the Spirit’s indwelling Presence: John 14: 16, 17

To war against the attacks of the enemy:  Ephesians 6:11

Don’t forget the Spirit…. HE is a HE – a person to call on to be filled to overflowing!

Sweet Holy Spirit,

We call on you to fill us today!  Strengthen my inner man and help me to see and hear things beyond the natural world.  Spirit fill me to overflowing so that I can pour out to a world Your love.  Help me not to quench or grieve You by trying to fill myself with worldly things.  Show me your Spirit at work in my life.  We call on you in this moment to seek the deep things of God and to know Your will.  Amen