Come, Holy Spirit: Seven Ways He Meets Us as We Gather

“Come, Holy Spirit.”

For several Christians right now, that quick prayer is normally related with heightened emotions, unguided-spontaneous activities, and an extreme expectation of God’s nearness. Something abnormal and potent is about to materialize.

Inviting the Spirit to arrive, even so, is no new phenomenon. Christians of all persuasions have sincerely spoken or sung these text for hundreds of years. Which raises a couple issues.

• If God is existing just about everywhere, isn’t the Spirit already in this article?
• Really should we even be praying to the Holy Spirit?
• And what just are we asking the Spirit to come and do?

We’re likely to request to solution these queries, specially as it relates to the gatherings of the church. How are we to believe about the Holy Spirit’s presence and our engagement with him?

In all places and Yet Current

In one sense, we simply cannot get away from the Spirit. King David requested, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or in which shall I flee from your existence?” (Psalm 139:7). Scripture also tells us the Spirit is present when we assemble, dwelling both of those inside persons and in his church (1 Corinthians 3:16–17 6:19). The Holy Spirit is always with us.

In yet another sense, even so, the Spirit can make his presence acknowledged in unique approaches and unique instances. He “localizes” his presence. A single of those people situations is when the church satisfies. When we meet, Paul claims, “To every is supplied the manifestation of the Spirit for the popular good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). The Spirit manifests himself, or “comes,” in a variety of methods and in differing degrees, based on his intentions.

“The Spirit can make his existence known in exceptional approaches and certain moments. He ‘localizes’ his presence.”

That leads us to our second concern: Is it right to pray to the Spirit? Prayers in the New Testament are virtually usually to the Father, sometimes to the Son. But we really don’t obtain any illustrations of praying to the Spirit instantly. Does that make praying to the Spirit wrong?

No. The Holy Spirit, as the 3rd individual of the triune God, can be worshiped, obeyed, and of course, prayed to. Praying to the Spirit is neither forbidden nor mandated in Scripture, and can remind us that the Spirit is without a doubt God. The most important point is to acknowledge our will need for his divine perform each individual time we gather.

Seven Methods the Spirit Comes

What ever language we pick to invoke the Spirit’s activity, there is normally a vagueness in our requests for the Spirit’s operate that can be deceptive, unhelpful, and at moments harmful. So what can we persistently talk to and hope the Holy Spirit to do when we get?

1. The Spirit will come to permit us to worship God.

We are all those who worship by the Spirit of God and can acknowledge the lordship of Jesus only since of his work (Philippians 3:3 1 Corinthians 12:3). Aside from the Spirit, we wouldn’t see or want to reply to God’s glory. John Webster reminds us,

We require to request God to enable us praise him. Praise isn’t normal — we cannot just transform on the faucet and allow it circulation. In the stop, praise is something that God performs in us. There’s no dilemma right here of talent, of capacities that we can work on and hone to perfection. Praise is the Spirit’s present. (Christ Our Salvation, 101)

Although Jesus makes our offerings of worship suitable to God (1 Peter 2:5), the Spirit actually turns our hearts to treasure Christ in excess of the toxic idols that tempt us from without the need of and in.

2. The Spirit will come to assure us.

Whilst recognizing and believing the truth of the gospel is a subject of eternal importance, God needs to give us extra than head understanding. We talk to the Spirit to come so that we could possibly feel the Father’s adopting love. It’s usual to worth doctrine, theology, examine, and orthodoxy and even now be discouraged by our ongoing battle with sin. We can commence to assume God has developed tired of us, is disgusted with us, or has merely overlooked us. Scripture reminds us that, “because you are sons, God has despatched the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). We are personally, passionately, and significantly cherished by our heavenly Father — and the Spirit assures us of that actuality.

3. The Spirit arrives to unify us.

God does not command us to create unity with other believers. Instead, we are to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). When Christ built our unity attainable as a result of his substitutionary sacrifice, Paul calls what we love with each other the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14). Can our unity be strengthened and deepened? Absolutely. But we are helpless to develop it. It is the Spirit who allows us to forgive others, to locate evidences of God’s functioning in these close to us, and to enjoy others with a like that transcends our petty squabbles and cold hearts.

4. The Spirit will come to rework us.

God in no way intends for us to depart our Sunday gatherings unchanged and unaffected. Just as God saves us to make us like his Son (Romans 8:29), he calls us jointly for the exact same intent. And how do we adjust? Not by hearing yet another record of matters we aren’t executing, resolving to do far better upcoming time, or groveling in our sinfulness. The Spirit adjustments us as we behold the glory of Christ in the gospel and his phrase (2 Corinthians 3:18). He is the Holy Spirit, who will work to totally free us from all the defiling outcomes of sin.

5. The Spirit arrives to empower us.

What can make for a strong Sunday conference at your church? Definitely trustworthy preaching and skilled musical management are components, but people aren’t the only techniques God needs to exhibit his power when we get. “To each individual is offered the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Not to some, but to just about every. Each one particular of us is a probable implies by means of which God wants to manifest the Spirit by displaying his electric power, kindness, and fact to other people. As we eagerly desire spiritual presents of all varieties (1 Corinthians 14:1), we are asking the Spirit to appear and do what we could in no way do on our individual. How distinct our churches may glimpse if every single member asked the Spirit to appear and empower him or her to provide others for the glory of Christ!

6. The Spirit will come to enlighten us.

Additional times than I can rely, I have sat under the faithful preaching of God’s term and viewed some thing I in no way noticed in advance of. Which is the Spirit’s operate. Apart from the Spirit in us, we’d be unable to comprehend or benefit from the Bible. Paul tells the Corinthian church that “we have received not the spirit of the planet, but the Spirit who is from God, that we could realize the points freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12). No quantity of human wisdom, examine, knowledge, or work can replace the need for God’s Spirit to open up the eyes of our hearts to obtain God’s real truth and behold the natural beauty of Christ.

7. The Spirit arrives to reveal God’s existence.

The present day emphasis amid some church buildings on pursuing the existence of God has prompted other churches to belittle or disregard the pursuit completely. But the Spirit’s presence is a lot more than mere doctrine. It is an unspeakable gift to be felt and cherished. He is the ensure of our inheritance, a foretaste of that working day when the dwelling spot of God will be with man and we will see him deal with to facial area (Revelation 21:3 22:4). For our good and for God’s glory, the Spirit at moments will make us knowledgeable that God is with us — inexplicably, wondrously, mercifully. And he does not restrict himself to activities that are either prepared or spontaneous. He works by way of each to bring conviction, peace, joy, and awe. So why would not we want to encounter his existence a lot more usually?

Holy Spirit, Appear

Graham Harrison, a United kingdom pastor who is now with the Lord, the moment reported,

There can be no substitute for that manifested existence of God which is generally a biblical possibility for the folks of God. When it is not currently being knowledgeable, they ought to humbly seek him for it, not neglecting their ongoing obligations, nor denying their current blessings, but recognizing that there is normally infinitely additional with their God and Father who wants fellowship with those people redeemed by the blood of his Son and regenerated by the get the job done of his Spirit.

“God hardly ever intends for us to leave our Sunday gatherings unchanged and unaffected.”

Without having neglecting what God has known as us to do, nor denying his assure to be with us at all times, we can prolonged and pray for a higher manifestation of the Spirit’s get the job done in our midst. We can question the Holy Spirit to arrive and do what only he can do.

And to what close? Certainly for our edification and pleasure. But eventually that Jesus may well obtain far more of the glory he by itself deserves: “[The Holy Spirit] will glorify me, for he will get what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13–14). Hence, Webster suggests, “The essential movement of our everyday living with each other, the fundamental movement of assembly for worship, has to be prayer for the coming of the Spirit to make us new. That, Sunday by Sunday, is the main business enterprise of our lives” (Christ Our Salvation, 96).

And so we pray, once again and again, “Holy Spirit, arrive.”