Our posture at pentecost.

I remember one Pentecost Sunday at church I felt prompted by a still small voice to write a resignation letter and stand up and declare it.  I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it and you can imagine the look on the faces of my friends and co-leaders as I opened up my sermon with it.  This wasn’t a gimmick or an illustration, I was on a journey and I desperately needed to do this.

I recently found the letter from 2012.  Here’s an excerpt. 

Dear church, I’ve thought long and hard about this announcement today.  It comes on the back of probably one of the most challenging and difficult seasons that I’ve faced as a leader and certainly the last 12 months have probably been the most challenging of all.  I can honestly say that I have tried my very best to act with integrity, to serve you and to hear and discern what the father has in store for us.

But the last few weeks there has been a dawning realization on me that I can’t do this anymore. I’m not the leader that this church needs.  I can’t bring about by my own efforts, gifts or skills what is required to transform lives or towns.  So with immediate effect I’m going to hand the church over to someone who has more experience and who has a guaranteed track record in building successful churches and transforming communities with the gospel.  

After a few more words that someone was the Holy Spirit that I introduced.  I  sat down. I can’t tell you the sense of relief I felt.  I meant every word.  My posture had been totally revolutionised since encountering the Father’s love. Something had changed in my understanding, something has shifted in my approach to the Holy Spirit.

Two years before I encountered the Father’s love which recalibrated a lot of my theology and impacted my relationship not just to God but to work, ministry and life in general.

I knew deep down that I was loved, that I was family, that I was invited to the party, that before I said or did anything I had all the approval I’ll ever need. It was such a liberating place to be. Striving replaced by rest.

Encountering the Father’s love transformed my understanding of Jesus and the work of the cross.  It transformed my understanding of church and ministry and it was this that turned my understanding of the Spirit on its head.

Growing up in the 70’s in the charismatic house church movement and then mid-80’s becoming part of the Pentecostal church I remember the prayers longing for more power, more of his outpouring…more, more, more.  I remember waiting meetings being encouraged to come up with starter ‘words’ to help the Holy Spirit give me the gift of tongues.

It was forever grasping, striving trying to seize what I didn’t possess. I constantly felt I wasn’t good enough, there must be something in me that’s unacceptable.  It was an exhausting way to live, trying to chase the pot of gold at the end of the Spirit’s rainbow.  

But then in 2010 I encountered the love of my heavenly Father and then perspectives, posture and positioning all changed.

You see, if you approach the Spirit from the perspective on sonship and daughterhood you realise it’s not about seizing but surrender – the body language is totally different!  All those years I strived for more of the Spirit I understood that actually he was longing for more of me and that all I needed to do was to surrender to his invitation.

Where are you this Pentecost? Tired of striving for Him?  Then try surrendering to Him?  He’s longing to ‘put you on’ like the Spirit was clothed with Gideon in the OT.

Surrender flows out of rest that you are eternally and relentlessly loved accepted and adored.

I don't think I've ever approached the Holy Spirit outside of a context of power to do, to achieve etc and thus my obvious lack of results was a demonstration of my lack of faith or approval from Him.  

Approaching the Spirit through sonship and daughterhood  - a relational pathway where you approach the Spirit from a different position completely.

Romans 8:14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a]And by him we cry, “Abba,[b]Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

The primary mission of the Spirit is to impart and restore to us our true identity in Christ, to expose our hearts to the Father’s love, so that we know who we are, his sons and his daughters – restored with full rights – having the full run of the house.  Only a son or a daughter can reveal who the father is – and that’s what the world is longing for.

The living flame of love burns within us because, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5) The Holy Spirit’s power is LOVE.

A Blessing.

So may you this Pentecost Sunday change your posture from one of grasping to one of surrender.

May you delight in His longing for more of you

And may you rest as He clothes himself in you.

May you know that you are deeply and eternally loved

That before you do anything and say anything you are loved

That you no longer have to live like a slave in the house but that the house is yours.

May the Spirit, clothed in you and through, you pour out love, peace and hope into our anxious broken world.