Sheila
and I were at a conference-style church gathering, and we were playing, “Who’s
that preacher?”
“That’s
Rev. So-and-so, and that’s his wife over there.”
“Wait. That’s his WIFE?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmmph. Well, they sure don’t act married.”
We went
to my mother-in-law’s house one day, and Sheila walked up the driveway ahead of
me. As I came around the front of my
truck I saw the summer sun glinting off her legs and flaming that natural reddish
tint at the edges of her black-brown hair as she slow motion strided up the
walkway.
I
thought, “She’s so fine. Man, I wanna…”
And I almost broke my leg because I walked into a 4 foot tall pile of bright
white rocks piled in the middle of the driveway right in front of me.
Rev.
So-and-so didn’t seem moved at all by the presence of his wife in the
room. I was so overwhelmed by the experience of my
wife’s presence that my peripheral vision shut down. But both of us are EQUALLY married.
I don’t
always trip when Sheila’s around. Sometimes
I just go on about what ever business I’m handling, but even then I'm still married. Neither my nor Rev. So-and-so’s experience in our wives’ presence
change the nature or our relationships.
We’re still married.
It’s
the same way with the Holy Ghost.
The
Bible distinguishes between our RELATIONSHIP with the Holy Spirit and our
EXPERIENCE of the Holy Spirit through prepositions typically translated With, Upon & In.
-
WITH refers to the presence.
-
UPON depicts an experience.
-
IN means the relationship.
WITH refers to the presence
of the Holy Spirit.
At
the Last Supper before His Crucifxion, Jesus said: And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper,
that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him,
for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14: 16-17)
Jesus
said that the Holy Spirit already
dwells WITH YOU. Before Pentecost, before the Ascension, before the Resurrection
or the Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit was already present in the world near and WITH
the disciples. During the previous 3 ½ years
of ministry, the Holy Spirit who had hovered over the face of the waters at
Creation had moved alongside the disciples, empowering them to heal the
sick, cast out demons, and preach the gospel even when they were far from Jesus’
physical presence. (Luke 10: 1-17)
Even
someone who isn’t saved can sometimes sense the presence of God near/ WITH
them. It is the PRESENCE of the Holy Spirit prodding the sinner that leads an unbeliever to give his/her life to Jesus Christ.
UPON refers to the
experience of the Holy Spirit
Samson’s
became super strong in the face of Philistine aggression when the Holy Spirit
came UPON him (Judges 14: 6, 19). Old
Testament prophets spoke truth beyond their knowledge when the Spirit came UPON them (2Chronicles 15: 1; 24: 20). UPON was the
experience that Elisha sought through his mentor Elijah (2 Kings 2:9).
Sometimes
the spirit would even come UPON someone who wasn’t in right relationship with
God. In 1 Samuel 16: 14, God withdrew
His favor and the Holy Spirit from King Saul.
The king descended into murderous, paranoid, and self-destructive
jealousy of David; but in 1 Samuel 19: 23-24 the Holy Spirit came UPON Saul so
powerfully that he prophesied instead of killing David. Saul woke up naked, and I’m sure his first
thought was, “Man, I’m trippin’” (translated from the original Hebrew).
In
the New Testament, on the day Jesus ascended to Heaven, He promised that you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come UPON you… (Acts 1: 8)
That
promised was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when the disciples had
a profound, miraculous, publicly verifiable EXPERIENCE of the Holy Ghost.
When
people sincerely get caught up in worship and shout, or weep, or run, or dance,
or speak in tongues, or pass out, or in other ways start trippin’; they are having
a Spiritual experience. That’s
wonderful. But ultimately God calls us
beyond presence and experience to RELATIONSHIP with the Holy Ghost.
IN means relationship
— the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you
know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14: 16-17)
About
50 days before the Pentecost experience, on the evening of Resurrection Sunday the disciples
were hiding out from the Jewish leaders.
Jesus appeared, verified His identity, and when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:
22)
Whomever
is saved by faith in Christ already and automatically receives the Holy Ghost
to dwell in their hearts. Before Pentecost, before they spoke in tongues, the disciples were saved. Their relationship was not dependent upon their experience.
Now He who establishes us
with you in Christ and has anointed us is
God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a
guarantee. (2
Corinthians 1: 21-22)
The
indwelling of the Spirit, not the visible
outpouring of an experience, is the mark and seal of salvation. ANYONE can have the experience. Once, God made a donkey speak in an unusual
tongue (Numbers 22).
That
said, genuinely being in relationship with the Holy Spirit of God will make you
trip, but maybe not the way you expect.
Maybe you shout out during worship, and maybe you just spend years in
the Amazon sharing the gospel with a tribe of cannibals.
Maybe
you run up and down the aisle during a piano riff, and maybe you just take in troubled
foster kids alongside your biological children and love them all the same.
Maybe
you trip over the Holy Spirit by passing out when the preacher touches
your forehead, but maybe you just move your family out of your gated community
to live in the most crime-ridden neighborhood in your city because the Holy Spirit
told you to go and love those neighbors as you love yourself.
Rev
So-and-so didn’t stumble one time as far as I could see, but he and his wife
had been together almost as long as my wife and I have been alive. Their relationship defines their experience
not the other way around. And clearly they
gotta be pretty happy with the experience.
When
Sheila and I were dating, I sometimes tripped over her. (Literally, I’d be looking at her and not
watching where I was walking, and the sidewalks on campus weren’t always
even.) But our love deserved more than me trippin’. The highest expression of my love was a
commitment, the surrender of my personal plans to OUR destiny as a couple, as a
family, as one.
He who is joined to the Lord
is one spirit with Him. (1 Corinthians 6: 17)
Now
I have her presence, the experience of her presence, and the
till-death-do-us-part security of our relationship.
That
is what God offers us in the Holy Spirit.
Don’t
settle for less.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director of
rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O
Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
