The Atmosphere

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." Galatians 4:16...."When His Holy Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without knowing it." Oswald Chambers

I think the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit are fast becoming lost in the western church. This isn't a new thought. A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, and Oswald Chambers warned of it generations ago. More recently, Francis Chan and others have sounded the alarm. How have we not heard them? Why has it continued to mark us?

The Word of God calls Him our Helper, Comforter, Guide, and much more. Can we admit that a great part of our problem is that in our hearts, we don't really believe we need Him in these roles? We've become very accustomed to our own self-sufficiency. We trust in our ability to figure things out, maneuver a way through, get to the place we want to be. We want a faith-walk that we can control. We fear a life that is beyond our control. I think that this is the greatest reason that we know so little of what it is to walk in the Spirit. It is also a major reason that we seem to carry out the desires of our flesh markedly more than the desires of His Spirit. We believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit, but we're strangers to His Person and personality. There's little surprise then that we're much more comfortable living in the flesh than we are in the Spirit. Yet a life in His Spirit is what we're called to, commanded to enter into. Besides the above reasons, there's another; our ignorance. We think such a life is impossible, yet if we let the truth of His Word sink into our hearts and minds, we'll find that it isn't. It isn't impossible at all.

I heard someone say that we're to live in "the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit." In the physical sense, we live by breathing in the oxygen of our earthly atmosphere. We breathe in, and we breathe out. Living in the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit is to do the same. There are two atmospheres available to a believer. The first is to choose to depend on the atmosphere of the world. This is easy and natural. We're born fallen creatures into a fallen world. To be able to live in the atmosphere of heaven, of the Holy Spirit, will require His work of saving grace in our hearts. This brings us into the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, yet, so many, familiar only with the first, choose to continue to live there. It's what they've always known. They have a sense of control there. No such control exists in the atmosphere of heaven and the Spirit. The key to entering into His atmosphere is....surrender. Complete surrender. And it's a moment by moment choice.

I don't remember the source of it, but written in one of my prayer journals is this definition; to be filled with His Holy Spirit is a moment by moment surrender to His moment by moment infilling." Breathe out all reliance upon self, and breathe in His Life, Power, and ability to live in the fullness of life He has promised. Our great problem is that we don't know how to live in moment by moment dependence and consciousness of Him. He's a part of our lives, but He's not our life. There's only place where He can be; at the cross. We can live out a moment by moment surrender because we live moment by moment at the cross. The cross is the doorway between life in the atmosphere we've always known into the atmosphere that we were created for. We leave the polluted atmosphere of the world to the pure atmosphere of heaven. Impossible? He's promised it. Can we dare to put His promise to the test?

To walk in His Spirit is to breathe free air. I think all of us, confined during this pandemic, are longing to breathe "free air." I'm believing that such a longing for the free air of His Spirit is growing by the day in His Church. May we live in the atmosphere of His Spirit, saturated by His Presence. Free.

Blessings,
Pastor O