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Category: Holy Spirit (Page 1 of 14)

Trusting the Good News

April 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Every single time the New Testament says somebody is filled with the Holy Spirit, without exception, their mouths open and they start talking about Jesus. Most of those instances are in Acts and Luke, but they are all remarkably consistent. And intentional. The Bible is telling us that the indwelling Spirit gives us the power, he gives us the boldness and courage, to share the Good News with others. You can do and say things for our Lord Jesus with God living inside you that you could never do by yourself.

This is God’s plan. This is how he works. It’s part of the Good News. The problem is, we don’t trust it. We don’t always trust the way God works to spread the Good News and expand his Kingdom to save people.

We don’t trust the Gospel to connect and transform people. Or we don’t trust God’s way or God’s Spirit to communicate his Good News through us. We forget that there’s not one single person I could talk to about Jesus that God’s Spirit hasn’t already been working on. When God puts somebody in my path and an opportunity right in front of me, the fact is that he has been convincing them and drawing them and preparing them for a while now. God’s already started something with this person a long time ago and he’d be thrilled if I just jumped in and shared the fun.

Pew Research released their state of the church report two weeks ago. According to their surveys and research, in 2007,  63% of all Texans went to church at least once a month. In 2024, just 17 years later, the percentage of Texas residents who go to church at least once a month is down to 38%. The odds are right now today higher than they’ve ever been in your life that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church. The odds are higher right now than they’ve ever been since you were born that your co-worker is not a Christian.

And I’m guessing you don’t know how to talk to them about it. The very thought of talking to your friend or neighbor about Jesus or about the Good News makes your stomach fall into your socks. You say you don’t know how to have a spiritual conversation.

Yes, you do. You just don’t trust it. You don’t trust the Good News. Or you don’t trust God’s plan or God’s Spirit.

Talking to people about Jesus is a Holy Spirit activity. You don’t have to start anything with your neighbor or classmate; God’s already started it! Our Lord tells us that God’s Spirit is at work around the clock convincing men and women, exposing what’s wrong in the world, and drawing all people to himself. The Holy Spirit is convicting people of their sin and compelling men and women to seek righteousness and avoid judgment. God’s Spirit is working hard on people all around you. And this same Spirit lives inside you, empowering you like you can’t believe.

Pray that God will open a door, pray that you proclaim Christ clearly, and make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:3-5). The Holy Spirit will put the person directly in front of you, the Holy Spirit will tell you what to say, and the Holy Spirit will do with your conversation what’s going to be best, what he’s already planned and been working on. If you’ll only trust the Good News.

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The Dallas Stars have played three games against Colorado in this first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, they have led the Avalanche for a total of just 62-seconds, and yet they are leading the series two games to one. Two come-from-behind overtime thrillers. Last night, the Stars had to kill off a four-minute double-minor power play at the end of regulation and at the start of overtime just to get to Tyler Seguin’s sudden death winner. For drama, athleticism, pressure, grit, adrenaline, anticipation, and edge-of-your seat tension, there is nothing better than overtime playoff hockey. It’s like having a heart attack on a roller coaster in an electrical storm. Can’t wait til Saturday.

Go Stars

Allan

One Who is More Powerful

January 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I have no faith in the Longhorns. They did against Arizona State yesterday what they have done every week this season: turnovers and penalties. If Sark can’t get that team to tighten up the pre-snap infractions and if Quinn can’t put a little more zip on those long post routes, Texas has no chance against Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. How many times did the announcers say, “That penalty is against the Outland Trophy winner” or “That flag is on the Jim Thorpe Award winner.” Typical Texas. They always have the best players on the field and, some would say, the very best players in the whole country, but they under-perform. They disappoint. The Longhorns are my only chance to win our office football pool. And, like the little kid at the end of the Dr Pepper “Playoffuary” commercial says, “The Longhorns stink.”

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“After me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” ~Matthew 3:11

What John the Baptist is preaching sounds a lot like the Old Testament prophets, calling God’s people into a right relationship with the Lord that must impact every part of their lives. Repentance is a change in your attitude toward God, which changes your attitude toward everything. And everybody. It’s a deep profound change that dramatically impacts your thoughts, actions, and the whole direction of your life. But as much as this sounds like the Old Testament, there’s a distinctly new element to this.

If I’m told over and over again that I need to repent, I need to change, I need to orient my life toward God, nothing significant ever happens. Nothing really changes. It’s like being told to exercise and eat right. I know these things, but I still wind up at Whataburger. I don’t need a preacher telling me to change. I don’t need some prophet telling me to get my life right, or else. I need some power from outside of myself to make me different. It’s got to be something besides me. Because I can ‘t do it!

Thank goodness this is not about New Year’s resolutions. This is about real, lasting, significant change.

This change you need is not about your willpower or your commitment or your resources. It’s not tied to your family or your nation or your church. It has nothing to do with your education or your zip code or your bank account. John the Baptist isn’t talking about some January resolution or a new self-help promotion. He is pointing us to the only source of legitimate change: the Holy Spirit.

The coming Lord, the one more powerful than me–he will baptize you with the promised Holy Spirit. A power who can make a new creation out of stubborn people like us, stones like us, who have no way to save ourselves. This power that is coming is not our power. It’s not the power of your good deeds or your inner resolve or your spiritual disciplines or even your faith and repentance. It’s God’s power. We are made able to repent and bear fruit because of God’s power in the coming Lord Jesus and his Holy Spirit.

The powers of this world are never going to make us into Abraham’s children. We can’t tell ourselves we have better genes or better morals or better theology. We can’t say we were raised better or we have better attitudes or better works. It is God through Christ who is making children of Abraham. God is changing people and making people brand new for his Kingdom.

And it’s happening. It’s already in motion. We are being changed. If we’ll just submit to it. Pay attention to it. Embrace it.

Peace,

Allan

GCR’s Theophanies

September 24, 2024 / / 2 Comments

In Acts 4, the early Church is facing cultural opposition and political oppression in Jerusalem. Peter and John have been jailed, interrogated, and ordered to cease speaking and teaching about the resurrected Jesus. So they go “back to their own people,” they gather with the Church, and they pray for God to give them even more boldness to continue speaking about Jesus and they ask God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform even more miracles and wonders to glorify Jesus.

Our God responds to the prayer immediately by shaking the building and filling them all with Holy Spirit courage.

It’s called a theophany. it’s a visible appearance of God. God revealing his presence in a real, physical way you can see or feel.

God did this for Moses at the burning bush. The fire and the smoke got Moses’ attention and our Lord told him, “I am with you.” God said, “I will be with you,” and he gave Moses the boldness he needed to speak to Pharaoh.

God revealed himself this way to his people on Mount Sinai. There’s thunder and lightning, smoke and fire and noise, and the whole mountain is shaking. “I am with you,” God says. “You are my people and I am your God.” His presence gives them the increased courage and faith they need to obey the commands he gives them on the mountain.

Isaiah experiences the same thing. He goes into the Temple and sees our holy God on his eternal throne. There is smoke and noise and the whole Temple begins to shake. God asks, “Who will go for us?” And Isaiah goes from “Woe is me; I am ruined,” to “Here I am! Send me!”

Go and tell the people. I am with you. Go and speak. I’m right here. Go and live. I am with you. Go and proclaim.

It happens to the first Church on the Day of Pentecost. Those 120 disciples of Jesus praying in the upper room are blown away by the noise, the wind, and the fire. God is here with us! All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, Scripture says, both the men and the women, and they began to speak.

I suggest to you that these kinds of things are still happening today if we’ll pay attention and notice. Our spiritual God is still making himself known in physical ways in order to assure us of his presence and fill us with Holy Spirit boldness. We get these theophanies here at Golf Course Road all the time.

In the past 22 months since we launched our vision of transformation and mission–just a little less than two years ago–we’ve had 174 people place membership at GCR. That’s 174 men, women, and children who are jumping in with our church family. And we don’t know how they’re getting here or why they’re coming. With a lot of our new members, there’s no real connection, no personal invitation, or particular event. They’re just showing up and forming relationships and embracing the mission and becoming important parts of what God is doing in us and through us here. It’s a physical reminder that our God is the one who gathers his people and brings them together for his holy purposes. We’re seeing it here. It’s real.

In that same time frame, in a little less than two years, we’ve had 61 baptisms here at GCR. That reminds us that, yes, God is still saving people. God is still at work in people’s lives. God is still rescuing people and snatching souls from hell! We’re seeing it all the time.

Last May, there were about 30 kids at Emerson Elementary who had lunch debt in the school cafeteria  and were about to be cut off. They were going to be served inferior lunches in special bags for the last month of the school year. It would mark these students as different. It would make them stick out. So we paid off their debt. We didn’t ask any questions, we didn’t ask anybody to fill out a form. Did you know you were in debt? How much debt do you owe? Are you trying to pay off the debt? Would you meet us halfway with your debt? No! We didn’t do any of that, we just paid it all off. Just like Jesus. Just like our God in Christ who forgives our debt and pays off our sin and rescues us from bondage. These students and their parents got a physical, tangible, living parable or proof of God’s grace that sets us free.

Those one hundred Mission Agape boxes we provide every Thanksgiving. Our people buy the food and pack the boxes, and we distribute them to families in need in Midland County. That’s physical proof that our God is still providing what people need through our community of faith.

The “4 Midland” worship services with First Methodist, First Presbyterian, and First Baptist. There are always 800-1,000 of us in each other’s buildings, singing with our combined choirs, praying together in our different traditions, loving and accepting one another in the name of Jesus, putting aside our denominational differences to unite for the sake of our city.

That takes Holy Spirit courage! That’s Holy Spirit community! That’s proof that our God is determined to bring all things and all people together in Christ, and he’s doing it in us and through us at GCR! Yes, our God is still stretching out his hand to heal, he is still performing miracles and wonders through the name of his holy servant Jesus! And we’re experiencing it here all the time!

Our spiritual God is constantly making himself known to us in physical ways. We know our God lives inside us and we know his Son is our Lord. So we are not defined by the times. The government does not control how we live our lives. Technology does not define our existence. Postmodernism does not determine how we think. News and entertainment does not account for who we are. We must break the faithless and ignorant habit of letting the journalists tell us what’s doing on. We need to at least give the Holy Spirit equal time!

Peace,

Allan

That They May Live

August 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

On Sunday we wrapped up our summer-long sermon series from Ezekiel with the familiar vision of the valley of dry bones in chapter 37. With Cassie and Laylan Bundy’s impressive mural behind me, we explored the bones the same way Ezekiel did. As the Lord walked his prophet around and through all those bones, I led our congregation through the scene as best I could. This is complete desolation. Total death. These are not dead bodies–these are bones. Dead, dry, bleached-out bones. There is no life here, no possibility of life, not one flicker. This death valley is filled, not with dead corpses, but with skeletal remains. This is the very essence of dead. No life. No pulse. No organs. No breath. No hope.

God’s people have been utterly destroyed because of their sin. That’s the picture here. The covenant curses have been executed. The people are cut off. No relationship with the Lord. No salvation. No possibility. Just miles and miles of dead, dry, lifeless, hopeless bones.

And God asks, “Can these bones live?”

I’ve got to believe Ezekiel’s first thought is, “No! Of course not! These bones can’t live! They’re bones!”

But then Ezekiel remembers to whom he is speaking. This is Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. So he says, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

That’s when God causes the bones to come to life. The Lord God breathes his Holy Spirit into the bones and they do come to life. The bones connect together, bone to bone, tendons and muscles, and they’re covered with skin, and they live!

Ezekiel knows that God has the power to make the dry bones come to life. Now, Ezekiel knows that God will make the dry bones come to life! Of course God can. Praise the Lord, yes, God will!

“You will come to life!”

Today, 2,600 years after Ezekiel’s vision, I see dead people. And you do, too. I feel like sometimes I’m walking right through the middle of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. There are dead men and dead women and dead teenagers everywhere. Spiritually dead. Cut off from God because of their sins. No relationship with the Lord. No salvation. No life. No hope. I see dead people, And you do, too.

Your son has left the Lord. Your daughter is no longer a member of a faith community, she hasn’t been to church in years. Your husband has never submitted to the lordship of Jesus. Your grandchild has never been baptized. Your niece is living in sin. Your nephew doesn’t even believe in God.

Can these bones live?

The Word of the Lord says, “You will come to life! I will put breath in you and you will come to life!”

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the sermon, we took time for everyone in our church to write down the name of someone they know who is spiritually dead. A close relative. A former college roommate. A friend at school or work. Someone they love. Someone who is living far away from the Lord. We wrote down the names of those people and placed them on the dry bones mural on the Worship Center stage.

I believe our God looks at the spiritually dead people that you love and he sees life. He sees it.

We all have people like these in our lives. We grieve. We agonize. Our hearts are broken every day. The biggest and most powerful and most effective thing we can do is to give these people to our God. Hand them to God in prayer and by faith in him to bring them back to life by breathing his Holy Spirit into their souls.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure, but I believe every person in the room walked down to the front and placed at least one name on that painting. Older people from the back of the sanctuary, helping each other up and down the steps. Young families with their kids. The whole youth group. It didn’t take long, because we all have those people in our lives. We know exactly who they are. We think about them and pray about them and grieve over them all the time. We all have these people and we all want so desperately to do something about their condition. You would die for this spiritually dead person in your life right now if it would do any good. So if writing their name on a sticker and placing it on a painting in the Worship Center as a symbolic act of prayer, a symbolic act of giving these people to the Lord, is what is asked… Well, everybody did it. No hesitation. Lots of tears. Lots of names. Lots of hugs around that painting.

One of our shepherds, Marc McQueen, led us in a congregational prayer and lifted every one of those names up to the Lord. He begged our God to breathe his Holy Spirit into these “bones” that they may live. More tears. More hugs.

I look at that massive mural this morning–we don’t know what we’re going to do with this thing–and I am reminded that every one of us has these people in our lives. It’s important to give voice to the pain, to publicly acknowledge the grief for loved ones who have rejected our God and are living outside of his will and his eternal Kingdom. It’s also important to tangibly, physically, do something about it. We can feel so helpless. It’s important to be reminded that we are not alone in our pain–every person in the room is carrying a similar burden.

It’s important to be reminded that God alone can make the “bones” come to life. We know this is God’s will. We know this is what he wants. He will bring our loved ones to life. And when he does, in his way and in his time, then, as he says, we will know that he is the Lord.

Peace,

Allan

Letters From Christ

October 25, 2023 / / 0 Comments

The Arizona Diamondbacks, huh? You know, since Genesis 3 the serpent’s head is meant by God to be crushed. The Rangers are poised to proclaim the Gospel!

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Old letter writing 2 | Stock Video | Pond5

“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” ~2 Corinthians 3:4

Jesus’ greatest gift to us as we wait for his triumphant return is the power of his presence through the Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit is alive and powerful and real. And he lives inside all who confess Jesus as Lord and put their faith for salvation in God through Christ.

He lives inside us.

Did you catch that part? The Spirit is within us, a holy being inside unholy humans. It’s amazing. It’s like science fiction. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend. The presence of God is not given to us in the clouds somewhere. It’s not at the top of a smoking and shaking mountain. It’s not hidden away in a chapel or a church building. God’s Spirit is not above us or beside us. He’s within us. He dwells inside us.

And he’s authoring a masterpiece. He’s writing a classic for the ages. In fact, what he’s writing is going to be read by everybody you know. They won’t find this masterpiece at Barnes and Noble. They can’t download it off Amazon. They read this divine work of art when they come in contact with you.

You are that Holy Spirit masterpiece, authored by the true and living God. Yes, it’s you! Look in the mirror! Don’t get distracted by the funny ears and the blemished skin. Don’t allow your height or your weight to keep you from recognizing it. Do not dare minimize what God is doing in your life. It’s not about you and me. It’s about the Spirit of God changing you, changing us, into his majestic handiwork. It’s about us living by his Spirit as a display, a massive banner, proclaiming his power and love to all we meet.

Peace,

Allan

Prophesy: Discern the Word They Heard

May 27, 2023 / / 3 Comments

“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophesy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort.” ~1 Corinthians 14:1-3

What do you do when that person shows up and says, “I have a word for you from the Lord?” You didn’t expect it, you weren’t asking for it, but a brother or sister in Christ says, “God told me to tell you…” or “God put it on my heart to say…”  How do you discern the word they heard? Let me suggest four questions to ask about the message this well-meaning Christian gives you. How do you know if it’s really from God?

Well, does it lift up Jesus as Lord? The Holy Spirit of Christ will always point to the lordship of Christ.

“No one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” ~1 Corinthians 12:3

Remember, there’s more than one voice out there seeking your attention. Any word from anyone that diminishes Jesus or questions his deity or his humanity, any word that reduces the sufficiency of his atonement, any word that questions his uniqueness as the one and only way to the Father – that message is not from God. The voice of God will always exalt his Son as Lord.

Does it hold up Jesus’ Gospel of grace? This is a very important question. Some people want to share words of encouragement or teaching with you, but these words speak to a form of legalistic slavery. The church in Galatia was being upset and divided by a word that was confirming Jesus as Lord, but was also wanting to add circumcision to the Gospel. Any news that undermines the Good News of grace and freedom in Christ, any news that puts an emphasis on human works and rules over freedom and grace in Jesus – that is not from God.

Does it flow from a Christ-like life? No matter how gifted the person might be, the Bible never exalts giftedness over character. A person who hears and speaks words from Jesus should bear the fruit of Christ in his or her own life.

“Watch out for false prophets… By their fruit you will recognize them… A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” ~Matthew 7:15-17

If someone tells you they’ve got a word from the Lord for you, and your first thought is, “I don’t know about that,” because of the kind of person he or she is, you’re on to something. If that person is a known liar or a gossip, if that person is a busybody or lacks self control, if that person is divisive or ungrateful, that person is not speaking for our God.

Finally, does it build up the Body of Christ? Remember, prophesy is given to us by God to strengthen, encourage, and comfort his people, the Church. Prophesy is not about discovering the mysteries of the end times or predicting the future. It’s not for judging or condemning anyone. It’s intended by God to build up disciples of Jesus. So any words that discourage, insult, criticize, or divide should not be excused with the “God told me” trump card. And they shouldn’t be considered as potentially from the Lord.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” ~Ephesians 4:29-30

Interesting, huh? 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 says you’re quenching the Spirit when you tell people they can’t speak words from God. Ephesians 4 says you grieve the Spirit when you speak words that are ugly or hurtful and claim that God gave them to you.

We need to take care of God’s gifts. And the Bible says one of his greatest gifts is prophesy.

Peace,

Allan

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