The Holy Spirit Factor

We  have a huge assignment.  We have a seemingly impossible job to accomplish.  God has called us to be about world evangelism.  To reach to the furthest and most dark places in our world.   As a pastor the enormity of my task often leaves me discouraged.  How will I reach my lost neighbor?  How will I reach that lost teen-ager?  How will I help that struggling family?  It seems, at times, that it is not even worth trying.  I might as well bunker down, stock up on food and ammo and wait for the end.  God has not called us to this kind of existence.  God has not called us to be exclusivists, pacifists, pessimists or pewists  (I made up that word.  DEF: one who only sits in a pew/church and does nothing). 

I have been thinking a lot about this whole evangelism thing.  Why does it seem so difficult, unnatural, and stretching at times?  Well, I have the answer.  We are forgetting the Holy Spirit factor. 

Too many Christians are running on empty.  We are just making it.  We are taking it a day at a time.  We are saved, but there is nothing exciting or contagious about our salvation.  There is no overflow.  So, we simply exist as Christians while a world around us goes to hell.  We make occasional guilt-driven attempts at evangelism that most often end unsuccessfully.  We then blame it on the hardness of people around us and again isolate. 

I think that we need to take care of the core issue.  We are running on empty.  God never intended for you to run on empty.  He gave us a cure for this - the Holy Spirit. 

When you are saved you experience the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  It is an amazing thing.  He brings confidence of your salvation, conviction of sin, and stakes claim to your life. 

I am Pentecostal!!!  This means I believe in a subsequent work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believer.  It is the overflowing of the Holy Spirit.  When this happens to you and I we are filled with boldness and power to accomplish the task at hand - evangelism of the world.  It is the Holy Spirit Factor.   The overflowing of the Holy Spirit makes evangelism natural, powerful and effective.  If you read the first seven chapters of Acts you will see a group of cowardly disciples turned into a band of warriors.  It was the Holy Spirit Factor. 

God wants to fill you fresh and new.  D.L Moody was asked why he spoke on the need for the continual filling of the Holy Spirit to which he replies, "I need the continual filling of the Holy Spirit because I leak."  I right this blog to encourage you to take time to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  If you are continually filled I guarantee you that you will like the things that begin to flow from you and so will the world around you. 

FYI: My blogs are written without edit or rewrite.  They are intended to simply be a raw expression of my thoughts.  Please excuse grammar and spelling.