Be The Fruit

When is the Holy Spirit working?

by Bill Blair on 10/09/08 at 12:46 pm

Have you ever noticed that when people give the Holy Spirit credit for teaching something  or moving them in a certain direction that it is always “in the moment?”  For example, I often hear about people who are preaching that move from a planned teaching to something else because the “Spirit took them in a different direction.”  I sometimes cynically wonder, “did the Spirit move them, or did they just forget what they were supposed to say?”

One thing I don’t think I have ever heard is a person giving credit to the Holy Spirit for helping them in their studies.  Let me be clear, I have heard people credit the Spirit for opening their eyes and giving them a specific “word” that impacted them, but I have never heard anyone credit the Spirit for helping with something like a 15 page paper.

 Is the Spirit not at work when we study and write?  Is the Spirit only at work when we perceive a supernatural change of direction?

 The truth is that without the help of the Spirit, we cannot understand the gospel.  For we know that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). So it takes the Spirit to make us understand the gospel, and other doctrines of study build off of understanding and agreeing with that truth so it must be that the Spirit is there to open our eyes to truths such as justification by faith, creation, etc…

Perhaps we have such a longing for the “moment” or “experience” that we only look for the Spirit’s work in the dramatic rather than looking for His work in the daily grind of our lives.  I think we would do well to remember that the Spirit is at work all the time enabling us bear the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22,23).  This list of the fruit of the Spirit are all things that can really only be seen by looking at our daily walk, our daily grind, and not as an “in the moment” change as I described earlier.

What do you say?  Is the work of the Spirit seen “in the moment” or in the “daily grind?”  Is it both? 

I by no means claim to have a great understanding of how the Spirit works, but I think too many of us get caught up thinking that the Spirit only works in dramatic events, and not in things like helping us understand the Bible, choose right from wrong, or in just being kind to a friend or neighbor.

I would love to hear some thoughts on this topic because this is something I have been thinking through lately.