I want to introduce this post with a scary Bible parable (Matt.12: 43-45.) Jesus said, “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’ and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will be also with this evil generation.”
Like the demon possessed man in this parable, we need spiritual cleansing—a complete change of heart, not the mere change of outward behavior that this man chose. We need the Holy Spirit to guide our lives, and we receive him when we repent of our sins and surrender our whole life to Christ. But if we are ignorant of this truth, we will suffer, just like the man in this terrifying parable who received temporary relief but NOT deliverance from the demon. In a similar but not identical way, this happened to Saul where a demon came and went to torment him (1Samuel, chapter 16.) A demon cannot possess a Christian, because the Holy Spirit has already taken residence in her heart (1Cor.6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” Romans 8:9 “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”) Satan can only come at a believer and attack her from the outside (often via temptations.)
Being ignorant of Satan’s plans, we may give Satan a foothold into our lives, such as when we harbor long-term, unrighteous anger (Ephesians4:27.) When people are ignorant of Satan’s power or of their own sin, they suffer. Look at King Ai in Joshua 8:14, “But he didn’t realize there was an ambush behind the town,” and he was attacked and died. Soon after that happened, look at the mistake Joshua and his men made: Joshua 9:14, “So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord.” They made a peace treaty with a Canaanite tribe that had tricked them, pretending to be far away foreigners. Look at Samson, after his hair was cut off (Judges16:20) “But he did not know the Lord had departed from him.” He lost the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Canaanites blinded him and captured him. And in Acts 5:7, we see Ananias and his wife Sapphira planned to lie to the church. The Holy Spirit struck Ananias dead when he was alone speaking to Peter. Sapphira did not know what had happened to her husband, as we read: “Now it was about three hours later when his wife came in, not knowing what would happen.” In verse 9, she met her fate when Peter confirmed her husband was dead, and now she would die too for her evil. Just like the unnamed, demon-possessed man in the first parable I shared, these people failed to recognize the danger of being unprepared and not in tune to God’s Spirit.
Even if we sin unintentionally, we must give the Holy Spirit permission to remind us of our sins and then let him convict us and correct us. Both our ignorance of our sin and our lack of close fellowship with the Holy Spirit are dangerous. For those of us who grew up in churches (this includes many Catholic churches and many in the “Reformed” movement) that did not teach us about the Holy Spirit and his power, we lacked essential weapons against Satan. Look at the twelve men Paul encountered in Ephesus. They told Paul, “We did not know there was a Holy Spirit,” Acts 19:2b. It was only after these men received the Holy Spirit that they had the full power to prophesy. We know this is true, because Romans 8:11 says, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Also Ephes. 1:19 says, “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe in him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.”
If you grew up in a denomination that taught you to be afraid of the Holy Spirit, you will not seek Him. In my childhood we were told we lack discerning and thus might accidentally pray to a demon if we called upon the Holy Spirit, so they said we must never ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. Clearly this contradicts the Scriptures which show us that God wants to give us the Holy Spirit; Luke 11:10-13, “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” I am still chilled to think my former denomination said that we are so foolish that we would communicate with a demon if we asked for the Holy Spirit in prayer, as if God would allow such a thing. Clearly God wants us to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help.
Once we know we are safe to communicate with the Holy Spirit, we can ask Him to reveal our sins. Sins can actually be hard to discern, because we may think they are not sins. We may also think aspects of our personality are sins when they are not sinful. To help with this, I’ve found a tool from the Christian Twelve-Step program, “Celebrate Recovery.” We can use their fourth step, “Inventory.” As Christians, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we write down (take an inventory) of our weaknesses and strengths. Initially we write freely without censuring our thoughts. We write down everything that comes to mind, with the weaknesses/sins under one column and strengths under a separate column.
We take our time writing down these things. We can also add to this list in future months. We don’t need to write in complete sentences, since this list is for ourselves only. We may be surprised to realize some strengths spill into our weaknesses, because we sometimes use a good quality to an extreme. We list our strengths, because these show us the gifts of character, temperament and other skills God gave us. Seeing these gifts can help us thank God and also not become discouraged by writing down our weaknesses and sins. God does not want to crush us when he shows us our sins. (Proverbs 3:12 “For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.”) God shows us our sins so we can repent and then heal from the damage our sins cause us including the way our sins separate us from God’s love.
Last week I spoke about how we may try to control others, when we actually need the Holy Spirit to control us. This really is where our power comes from—from outside ourselves. While the Holy Spirit will lead us well, our sinful flesh will lead us into many bad behaviors, as the prophet said in Jeremiah 17:9-10 “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Thus we must be alert to the tricks of Satan that can pull us into empty places and strongholds. The apostle warned us in his book 1Peter 5:8-9a, “Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him…” We need to be aware of our tendency to control others and to be aware of ways our sin and Satan’s traps can pull us out of the Holy Spirit’s control and into Satan’s bad plans that will only feed our insatiable flesh that is never satisfied.
When we allow God to fill us with the Holy Spirit we are satisfied, as David said in Psalm 131:2, “But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” The Holy Spirit gives us such contentment, we receive many “fruits” from him, as we see in Gal. 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
If you are in a dry place now, it does not mean you are also in a stronghold. Sometimes our lives feel dry, because we are exhausted. We may have suffered significant grief. We may be sick, or working very hard at a time when others truly need us. None of these are the empty places of strongholds I spoke of when I introduced the demon-possessed man. The examples I shared are extreme. But we do need to be aware of any ruses Satan may use to pull us away from the Holy Spirit’s power. And if, like me, you grew up not understanding the power of the Holy Spirit, I want to urge you to listen to sermons and Bible studies that teach you about this third person of the Holy Trinity. Study your Bible and look at how the Holy Spirit can transform your life. Find good books by authors who are reliable and read what they teach about the Holy Spirit too. But be very careful. There are dishonest teachers who teach lies about the Holy Spirit. Make sure everything you read aligns with the Scriptures.
And pray! Ask the Holy Spirit to continue to reveal himself to you, so you can grow in your relationship with the Father and Jesus. One of the Holy Spirit’s jobs is to introduce us to Jesus and then to guide us as we get to know him better. I still feel “new” to the power of the Holy Spirit, even though I have been a Christian for decades, because I did understand the Holy Spirit in my earlier years as a Christian. I am still eager to learn more about Him so I can better honor Jesus.
I pray we have blessed you with this week’s post, and if you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks for joining us in this week’s post.