The Holy Spirit is our ignitor

Rev. Ronald Green

If we would ask ourselves what does God look for in His Church? We would realize it's not the number of programs, nor personalities nor platforms. God wants to see how much of the Holy Spirit is operating in His church. He wants to see it in such a way that the culture around us can turn only their heads towards us and say, "Wow, their impact is great."

As we follow the Holy Spirit, we will be equipped to advance God's Kingdom agenda by promoting Kingdom solutions to life's problems. We can only do this by prioritizing the Holy Spirit's presence so that it can be set free to usher in a radical change in our lives and in our culture.

Whether a basketball player is making every basket every time he shoots the ball, or a baseball player is hitting every pitch, people say things like, "They are in the zone." In other words, they’re in the flow where everything is clicking for them, and it's all coming together as it should. The Holy Spirit can do the same for our families churches and ministries. The Holy Spirit wants all of us as Kingdom followers to live in the spiritual zone. It wants us in His flow. He wants us to keep our tanks so full of Him that He can fuel our thoughts and decisions in order to bring God's Glory. In order to maintain a full tank of the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to allow it to burn always. The Holy Spirit is our ignitor. We must let it burn fully within us for us to experience its power. The Holy Spirit is responsible for empowering us to display the power within us.

How many of us ever experienced the feeling of having a dead battery in your automobile? It takes a live charge from another battery that's operable to be hooked up to our dead battery to jump-start our car. The car wasn't able to move until someone transferred the power needed.

The Bible contains all of the information we need in order to live our lives to the fullest. But, if we are not properly hooked up to the Holy Spirit, it won't mean anything. We won't be able to go anywhere. Information without power is just information. The Holy Spirit must supply the power we need in order to enable us to use it. Without the Holy Spirit we are spiritually stuck. When Jesus ascended to heaven and left His followers on earth, He left us the "Dunamis." This is the word the original Greek uses to describe the power Jesus left behind in the person of the Spirit. The word "Dunamis" may sound familiar to us because it's the word from which we derive our English word, dynamite. That's explosive power. That's life-changing power. In fact, that's world-changing power. It's the power we need in our daily walk with Christ. Let us not be afraid to ask that the Holy Spirit provide wisdom and teach us of the ways that truly matter, and may the Holy Spirit continue to move us.

The Rev. Ronald O. Green is a retired area minister.