Acts 1:7–8 (NKJV) — 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The church, God’s people, are powerless to do God’s work. Why? No power. The Holy Spirit lays dormant in the lives of people who profess Jesus as Savior. A powerless empty shell of what could be. All Christians have the full power of God abiding in them.
I have made purchases that lay dormant in my possession. I made the purchase and then laid the purchase aside. It made no difference how good the product was, how much I needed the product, it just lay where I put it. It was powerless in my possession.
When we received Christ as our Savior we received God’s Holy Spirit in our lives. We were given the potential power of God in our lives. How many of us have abused the gift of the Holy Spirit by allowing Him to just lay dormant in our lives?
Many Christians are ignorant of God’s Holy Spirit. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:10–11, “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.”
The Holy Spirit guides the Christian. Jesus says in John 16:13, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
Paul writes in Ephesians 5:18, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit.” “Drunk with wine” is the ways of the world. Too many churches, Christians, have become drunk with the ways of the world. We have allowed ourselves to indulge too much in the ways of the world and have kept God’s Spirit dormant in our lives.
One who is “drunk with wine” is filled with the thoughts of the flesh. When we are filled with fleshly thoughts our thoughts as one writer puts it are on “partying, loose behavior, immodest clothing, exposure of the body, sexual thoughts, immorality, wicked or evil and unjust behavior or violence and physical abuse, notions of grandeur, strength or power.”
Most professing Christians are powerless because the Holy Spirit of God lays dormant in their lives.
What proof do you have that the Holy Spirit of God is active in your life?