The Empowering Presence of the Holy Spirit

Theologian Wayne Grudem defines the Holy Spirit's role as to "make known the presence of God in the world, and specifically the church." The presence of the Spirit distinguishes the Christian church and is the privilege of all who put their trust in Jesus (Acts 2:16-21; Rom. 8:9-11). The power of the Holy Spirit enables Christians to live as children of God (Gal. 4:6-7; Rom. 8:14-16).

The influence of the Spirit's presence is both powerfully proclaimed and carefully described in chapter 5 of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Paul is aware of two dangers. He warns the Galatians against "moralism" or legalism, the idea that you can get into God's good books by human moral effort and religious ritual. And he warns against immorality or "license," the idea that sin and evil do not matter to God.

Christians are not slaves to religious rules, but neither are they slaves to immoral practices. The Holy Spirit is neither a "legalistic" nor an "antinomian" spirit. His presence empowers us to live as Jesus desires. Jesus has set Christians free, and they are to stay free (v. 1), but they are to use this freedom to live as Jesus intended, which is to live a life of love (vv. 13-14).

Paul tells us that we are to "live by the Spirit" (v. 16 NIV), be "led by the Spirit" (v. 18), and "keep in step with the Spirit" (v. 25). These phrases mean that we need consciously and purposefully to rely on the Spirit for our living, guiding, and walking.

This deliberate reliance on the Spirit is brought out by the structure of the passage. It is constructed in a kind of literary tension. A sort of comparison or distinction runs from the top to the bottom, producing tension, like a stress fracture on a wall that runs from the ceiling to the floor. The tension is between the sinful nature and the Spirit: We are either living by the Spirit or gratifying the sinful nature.

Paul portrays this tension by comparing the works of the sinful nature with the fruit of the Spirit. Christians live in the tension of the sinful nature and the Holy Spirit tugging against each other:

• The acts of the sinful nature are a jarring disunity ("acts" in the plural); the fruit of the Spirit is a single united expression of a God of love ("fruit" in the singular).
• The acts of the sinful nature tail off into constant painful and dull repetition ("and the like," v. 21); the fruit of the Spirit climaxes in spiritual freedom ("Against such things there is no law," v. 23).
• The sinful nature is the remainder of a taste for sin that dogs the footsteps of the most holy person ("You do not do what you want," v. 17); the fruit of the Spirit is a dynamic of spiritual growth that is given by God (we live by the Spirit, v. 16; we are led by the Spirit, v. 18; we have the fruit of the Spirit, v. 22).

Our human nature exerts a constant gravitational pull toward selfishness and wrongdoing. God's Spirit releases people to be full of love for God and others. Reading this passage is intended to make us cry out in need of the empowering presence of the Spirit.

But needing the Spirit requires practice. For example, I am a very occasional golfer. By occasional I mean that I have played the game not more than a dozen times in my life and only once in the last two years. I'm not even sure I know what a handicap is.

The strange thing about golf for me, though, is that practicing seems to do me no good whatsoever. If I just wander up to the tee and give the annoying little white thing a good whack, then as likely as not it will go soaring off at least roughly in the right direction. If, on the other hand, I think about what I am meant to be doing beforehand, if I take a couple of practice swings like they do on TV, I am doomed. Anyone within 20 yards of me—forward, backward, or sideways—had better beware!

By saying that we need to put into practice this hunger for the Spirit, I do not mean the equivalent of doing a couple of warm-up golf swings. In the English language the word practice is ambivalent: it either means preparing yourself for what you have to do (e.g. doing "practice papers" for exams), or it means actually doing what you have to do (putting it into practice). It is in this latter sense that I mean "practice." The Galatians 5 passage encourages us to put needing the Spirit into practice.
Here are some suggestions about how to do this:

1. Acknowledge your total reliance on the Spirit. That may sound a little nebulous, but it is important to cultivate an attitude of needing the Spirit first. Think on Christ's words "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), or on what Paul says in Galatians 5:16, "Live by the Spirit." We want to foster the attitude not of gritting our teeth and being stoical but of relying totally on the spiritual desires the Spirit stirs up within us.

2. Ask God for the Spirit. Jesus promised that our heavenly Father would give the Spirit to all who ask him (Luke 11:13). Paul tells us that since we live by the Spirit, we are to keep in step with the Spirit, to progress with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). You could pray with Paul for the main fruit of the Spirit: "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you" (1 Thess. 3:12).

3. Don't allow a wedge to be driven between Word and Spirit. God's Spirit is connected to God's Word as breath is to speech. He who has the Spirit will listen to the Word and follow its teaching, for what it is teaching is what the Holy Spirit is saying. "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17).

4. Believe that the Spirit has power to vanquish your sins and bad habits. Trust his promises, for instance that "sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14), or that you "have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24). It may be that a particular sin or sinful habit is solved overnight, but it is unlikely to be solved so quickly. Do not put conditions on when God must do something.

5. Do that which the Spirit stirs up in you to do. Relying on the Spirit, act. We walk, not sit in the Spirit; we work, not wallow in the Spirit; we fight, not flop in the Spirit. Effort is required, but the desire is the Spirit's. It is a hand-in-glove scenario: We work in God's power, but we do work. The amazing thing is that this can give us incredible confidence. Even when we are weak, we can be confident, because he says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).


Excerpted from Authentic Spirituality, copyright © 2000, 2009 by Dr. Josh Moody, published by Regent College Publishing. Used by permission.