Come Holy Spirit - Day Three


Phil Strout, the leader of Vineyard USA taught us to Hear and Obey. He reminded us that if we are faithful in little, He will make us rulers of much. It’s the follow-through that counts; not just how we start. We are to have a trusting obedience.  In Luke 5 Simon says, “I will do as you say” without question. 

Phil shared a story of a powerful man of God that he interned under a man who was teaching him a lot about leadership and serving. One day he asked him to tie up some peas in the garden they were tending. He explained exactly how he wanted them tied. Having grown up on a farm, Phil only half listened and then went on and tied the peas his way, thinking that his mentor would not notice or care. That afternoon his mentor called him into his office and asked if he had explained how he wanted the peas tied. Phil said yes. Then he asked if Phil had agreed to do it that way. Again Phil said yes. Then he asked if the first two things were true, why did he ignore the instruction and do it his way.  While Phil felt that his way of tying the peas was better, he had missed the point that his mentor had instructed him on how he wanted the peas tied and that he had disobeyed. How could his mentor trust him with other things of greater importance if he couldn’t even trust him to obey on how to tie peas? He then recounted the story of John 21 when the disciples had fished all night and not caught anything and then he instructs them to throw the nets over the other side of the boat and when they do so the nets are filled to the breaking point. In the natural it doesn’t make sense. The disciples must have thought to themselves, “What difference is 3 feet, or the width of the boat going to make in fishing?” But they didn’t question and they obeyed. That is what we need to do. If we say “Come Holy Spirit” we then cannot negotiate outcomes. We cannot say:
·         Like this, but not like that
·         Here, but not there
·         Now, no hold on, later
·         On us, not them

One of the things that He said that impacted me the most was when he quoted a friend saying, “What got us this far, won’t get us to tomorrow”. We can’t depend on past experiences and past words from God. We have to seek Him daily and obey Him even when what He tells us to do doesn’t make sense to us or seems completely different than what He told us to yesterday. The Kingdom of God cannot be just a part of our lives; it has to completely swallow us up.

Debbie Wright, the Leader of Vineyard UK, shared that Jesus gave His disciples two directives: Wait and Go. Wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and then go; be obedient to His leading. She also warned us that when the Holy Spirit shows up sometimes things can get a little messy. It is the job of the Pastor to pastor these moves of God and explain what God is doing. This was modeled perfectly by the next speaker Mike Palavachi, who during ministry time ran a sort of play by play explaining what God was doing as the Spirit started to move and some people were laughing, others crying, others shaking and still others were slain in the Spirit.

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