Have you ever read something that just seemed to literally leap off the page at you when you read it?
I have.
It's like the first time I saw a movie in HD with 7.1 surround compared to the SD non-surround that I was used to. It's like when I went to the theater for the second time to watch Avatar by James Cameron only that this time I was watching it in 3D.
It makes me think, "Has that always been there? I am pretty sure it has since I know that I have read this a few times before but something about THIS time really resonates with me."
Have you been there? Have you had this type of experience? My hunch is that you have.
I was listening to an audiobook recently by Francis Chan entitled, "Forgotten God: reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit" and the entirety of the book reverberated with my soul as if God were strumming the strings of my heart. But one part of this book seemed to leap off the page at me (or in my instance, echo through the speakers).
In the epilogue of the book, Francis encourages readers to do something with what they have read and not allow other well-meaning Christians to "normalize" them. He writes that often when a Christ-follower is fully yielding to The Spirit, the actions of that person can seem a bit extra-ordinary or super-natural. The typical "Christian" response is to pull them aside and "try to calm people down who are just too passionate or too sacrificial and radical."
He then shares how he has done the same to others as well as had this quenching of The Spirit done to him. Francis admits, "As a Church, we tend to do this to people who are passionate and bold. We mellow them out-- institutionalized them, deaden them-- to the work that the Spirit is doing in them."
This next part got me.
God had used Francis to capture the attention of my heart and my soul was attentive and tuned in to what The Holy Spirit wanted me to hear. He continued with Scripture describing what happened after God healed a man through Peter and John who stood trial before the religious leaders because The Holy Spirit performed this miracle. He writes, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." Acts 4:13, NIV
Peter and John were "unschooled, ordinary men." Not superheroes. Not celebrities. Not even well educated. They were definitely not saints according to our traditional, orthodox thinking. They were blue collar workers who were fully yielded to The Holy Spirit living IN them.
I can't get that out of my heart-- "unschooled, ordinary men." In light of this, who am I? What implication does that have for my life? As a person who trusts in Christ, what results or fruit should I see in my life? Admittedly, I am just a t-shirt and jeans guy who is desperately in love with Jesus. If I actually believe the Bible is true about this, then I too have the same Holy Spirit alive within me. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and empowered the Apostles to do all that they did is also alive in me.
Do I actually live like this is true? Can my life be explained apart from the work of The Holy Spirit? Am I living in such a way that people can look at my life and it makes sense? Shouldn't people be saying of me, "Isn't this Dave, the C-average student with no college degree who never attended Bible school? We are astonished at what God is doing in him and through him!"
What's crazy to me is that Peter and John in verse 29 prayed that God would enable them to speak with great boldness. What?!? Didn't that just happen? Yet, in their prayer, they recognized that The Holy Spirit of God within them was all the more capable to do exceedingly greater things than they could imagine! They wanted more. They wanted more of God to be evident in their lives so that people would continually look at their words and actions and declare, "they [are] unschooled, ordinary men, [and we are] astonished!"
I love the response of the people who witnessed all of this. "After further threats [from the religious leaders] they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened." (Acts 4:21, NIV) That should always be the response to The Holy Spirit alive and at work in our lives... God gets the glory. Period. (see also Matthew 5:16)
So to you who are like me, ordinary people... may we be fully yielded to act and respond to the work of the Holy Spirit alive and at work in our being so that others may see the outcome of our lives and be astonished giving glory, honor, and praise to our Father in Heaven because we too are with Jesus.