Living in the Spirit

Really have to be sensitive in our lives to the prompting of the Spirit. To be a part of the kingdom, we've got to be a part of spiritual things. It's not genetic; it isn't inherited. It's something that you have been given. Sometimes you don't see what the Holy Spirit is doing at the moment.

As we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Assemblies of God, it's an especially appropriate time for a fresh affirmation of Pentecostal theology and its application, both in the church and in our personal lives. Dr. Woods' book is especially significant and timely, and its theme and the instruction it provides—living in the Spirit—conveys the truths, values, and commitment that compelled our Pentecostal forefathers and emphasizes our vital need for living in the Spirit in today's world. The book's subtitle, "Drawing us to God, sending us to the world," reminds us that living in the Spirit effects personal spirituality, both in worship and in witness, as it brings us into greater intimacy with God and equips us to proclaim the message of Jesus in the world. Living in the Spirit offers inspiration and instruction concerning the vital role of the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives. Though the book is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of Pentecostal doctrine, it offers comprehensive perspectives from the leader of our fellowship.

As I interviewed Dr. Wood, his spontaneous responses clearly revealed the scope and depth of his knowledge of the scriptures and the history of the Pentecostal movement. Dr. Wood's ability to express Pentecostal theology in creative and refreshing ways is unique. I believe his many insights in this book will inspire you both to study the scriptures and increasingly to seek the Spirit's enablement.

Well, I grew up in the Assemblies of God. My parents were pioneer missionaries in China and Tibet. Then, when they came home, I was a boy of eight years of age, and pastored small churches, and Dad did a lot of evangelistic work in the pioneer churches, and so I should have had no reason why I was so warped in my understanding of the Holy Spirit. But I had the most warped view of the Holy Spirit. For one thing, He was called the Holy Ghost, and I realized there are people who still use that term, but for me, ghost was something spooky and scary. Ghost was something I hung around cemeteries. Besides, I was one of these kids who kept going forward to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and never received it. So I began to think that the ghost had something against me, you know, and I did, I did. I didn't, you know, the word spirit. I don't know that every conscious tenor, you remember the word spirit being used, and of course, in the in the Greek and in the Hebrew, the Hebrew word is ruach and the Greek word is pneuma, and both those are words that mean wind or breath; it's not some something that hangs around a cemetery or or or jumps out from behind a closed door and spooks somebody, you know. But I thought of the Holy Spirit as spooky. Here I am in a Pentecostal church, a Pentecostal kid growing up in the youth group, and I've totally warped. Then the word holy—the people in the little churches my dad pastored, they passed themselves off as holy. Many of them were just downright nasty people. They looked very austere, and that was their holiness; it was all exterior, but they were a little bit like the Pharisees who found fault in everybody else but were proud that they were holy, you know. So I put those two together, and I did not have a wholesome view of the Holy Spirit. And you know, I wish, I wish, looking back, I would have somehow paid more attention, or probably there was better teaching even from my pastor dad, but somehow I wasn't getting it, and it wasn't coming through to me. So it's been a, it's been a real metamorphosis for me, especially in my teenage years, to understand that the Holy Spirit is a, is a warm—I mean, when Jesus says, "I will send you another comforter," there in the Greek there are two words for the word another: one is the word heteros, which we use heterogeneities, or something different, and another is the word allos, which means another of the same kind. And Jesus said, "I'm going to send you another of the same kind." Paraclete means one who helps. So, "I'm going to send you someone like myself. He'll not be visible in the flesh like I am, but He'll be exactly like me."

Well, was I ever—that I ever regarded Jesus as spooky? Did I ever regard Him as, you know, as weird? Holy? No, no. Jesus' holy is healthy. When you are a holy person, you are a healthy person in mind, body, soul, and spirit. Why are you healthy? Because you are becoming into the pattern and the conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus was holy, and His holiness is in our lives today, and the Spirit brings us the wholeness, the healthiness, the wholesomeness of Jesus Christ, and I see Him that way now, but I had to come out of some very warped notions that, you know—I knew, I knew that Jesus loved me as a kid. I wasn't too sure about the Father because we had a lot of preaching in those early days that I call eternal insecurity. So if you were doing one thing wrong at the time the Lord returned, you were going to stay on the ground, no matter, you know. So that's why I got saved multiple, multiple times, you know, over the course of years. And so, but it was like Jesus is my friend, but the Father is looking for an excuse to keep me out of heaven if I do one thing wrong, is leaving me on the ground. And then the Holy Spirit was the Holy Ghost. And so, out of the Trinity, the only one I really felt I could relate to was Jesus.

Well, now, you know, when you when you read the Gospels, when you understand the work of the Spirit, unfortunately, as you walk with the Lord, He does reveal Himself to you, and your view of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit matures. So I understand far differently, of course, today that the Father sent the Son because the Father loves me, and then, of course, the Holy Spirit is seeking to birth the life, ministry, and empowerment of Jesus into our lives. So the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all for us, and they and they seek for us to have a life that has meaning and value. The Holy Spirit is a person with whom we have fellowship, according to the Apostle Paul. The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit—the word koinonia—it's the same word that I use for a wonderful evening with a great friend, you know, great conversation over a wonderful meal, and we just had that kind of glow of koinonia, in connection. That's the same word described to the relationship we can have with the Holy Spirit. He talks to us; we talk to Him; we praise through us; we just moment by moment, all day long, you walk in the conscious sense of the presence of God in the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. In, in personal experiences, whenever I needed the presence of God to be close to me, especially when moments that are troubling or when I'm alone, that's when the Holy Spirit is the most personal, and I know the presence of God is wrapped up in that particular entity of Himself. And to have that closeness, in that presence, I realize exactly what part of the triune God that is.

I think it was Star Wars where the phrase was, "May the Force be with you." Too often we can take terms out of contemporary culture and import them into our understanding of Scripture, and that would certainly be the case with spirit, because many people think of the Holy Spirit as something—since the Spirit does not have a human body like you and I have a human body—that the Spirit therefore is impersonal, like electricity is a force, or lightning is a flash of energy; that the Spirit is energy or force, or—but the Spirit is represented to us in Scripture as a person and always referred to as He, not it. In fact, I really—really, out of my own personal background—I used to—people used to say when they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, "I got it," and, "Oh, that's terrible theology," because you don't get it. Actually, what happens is the Spirit gets you. The Holy Spirit is not just a spirit that's out there, you know. A lot of times, especially students, see the Holy Spirit as this strange entity, you know, because we watch a lot of movies and ghosts scare us. We think of ghosts; we go, "Oh, my goodness, I don't want a ghost in my life." But the Holy Spirit is not just a spirit; He is the Spirit of God, and that spirit, that precious Holy Spirit, is the one who we can have communion with, relationship with. Jesus said Himself, He has gone, He's gone to be with the Father, and He sends us His example, His personhood in the Spirit. And so I love the fact that I can have a relationship with Jesus in the Spirit, through the Spirit, and it's by the Spirit that we're able to do this.

I know that we always prayed; we always added the Holy Spirit at the end of our prayers, and I never really thought of Him as a person. It was mainly the Holy Spirit was more like a, like a force. We referred to Him as the Holy Ghost mainly, but never really thought of Him, you know, in terms of being a person who who was with you and in you, especially not. Well, after I had given my life to the Lord, it was the first time that I really opened up the Bible, and it became a living word to me. And even though we, I had grown up hearing the Bible being read in church, and my father would read the Bible when we would have our family devotions, I very rarely picked it up myself and opened it and and really read from it for myself. And it was after that that I started to learn more of who He is and that He is a person and that since I had given Him my life, He was now living in me and He was with me all the time. So it was a, it was a whole new revelation to me, actually, to learn that the Holy Spirit is a person.

There are a lot of terms that are used of the Spirit's personality. For example, you don't lie to electricity; you don't lie to a force, but you can lie to the Holy Spirit, and you can quench the Spirit, and you can grieve or sadden the Spirit, or you can you can be convicted by the Spirit, because the Spirit exists to convict us of—basically, I say this as an attorney as well as a minister—the Spirit is the prosecuting attorney of God, and His, His role initially is to bring us to Christ by convincing us of sin, judgment, and righteousness to come. And the Spirit is out to overturn the verdict of the world that brought Jesus to the cross. The verdict of the religious establishment and the and the political authority was: He is a criminal; He is condemned; He is a false prophet. But the verdict of the Spirit is that He is God's Son, and everything He said is truth. And the Spirit is out to convince us of that reality. That's a personal work.

But I think I'm looking at the Spirit's personality, though the thing that really, I don't know, it strikes me most now—that's not that it's the most important objective characteristic of the Spirit—but the thing that strikes me subjectively is the Spirit speaks. Time and time again in my own life, I have sensed that, that still, small voice—never an audible voice. I've always wanted to hear an audible voice, but of subsequent—I've learned subsequently that anybody in the Bible that heard the audible voice of God subsequently suffered greatly. So that sort of took care of that concern of mine. I'm happy I hadn't heard the audible voice, but but it is that—that is the impression the Spirit puts upon your heart. I know, I know when I was like general superintendent, you know, I was sitting out on a platform overlooking a crowd of people, about four thousand or so delegates that day, and I thought, "Who is adequate to lead this host? Who can do that? I can't do this." And I felt the Spirit say to me from the scripture, because He'll bring all things to your remembrance, it was something like, "George, remember My yoke is easy, My burden is light. You've always enjoyed everything else you've done in the ministry; enjoy this, too." It gave me a great deal of release as I as I stepped into this role.

When I was reelected this last—at the last general counsel, and I had another word come to me—the Spirit said to me through Caleb: "Ease." You know, Caleb was 85 years of age, and 45 years earlier he had been one of the two spies that said, "Let's cross over." And Caleb said, "I, I have just as much strength; I am just as vigorous today as I was then. Now give me this mountain." And that was a great word of encouragement because mentally I want to have the have the the facility, the physicality, and the strength and the faith of a Caleb who said, "You know what? God has not put me in this position to mark time; He's put me here to do something." There are mountains; there is an unreached America; there are thousands of churches that need to be planted; there are thousands of young people that need to be equipped to serve Jesus Christ effectively with strength in their generation. Here at the general counsel, we have resources that need to be produced that will effectively evangelize and disciple the nation and bring the Pentecostal message to the world. There are all kinds of things to to do. And so the Spirit is saying to me, George, in this term of service, "Don't go passive, you know, don't just sit behind a desk and occupy yourself. I've called you to for such a time as this, and you've got, you've got as much vigor and strength as you did 45 years ago. So go for it." In that, that kind of assurance the Spirit can put in our hearts, and that's not just for me; I mean, every one of us needs to have this sense of destiny. The Holy Spirit wants to put destiny into our lives so that we will, will accomplish what our mission is, you know. Each of us has something God wants us to do in life, and the Spirit is able to help us and direct our paths to do that.

The Bible speaks about all three members of the Trinity, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. There is one true and living God. God is three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each are distinct persons, and each is God, but God is one in perfect unity of purpose and love. God the Father is our Creator; God the Son, Jesus Christ, is our Savior; God the Holy Spirit is our Helper. Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit, and we especially see the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts and in the teaching letters of the New Testament writers, especially the Apostle Paul. But because a significant part of the Holy Spirit's work is to glorify the Son, many have difficulty understanding the Holy Spirit as a person rather than as merely a power or a force. In John 14, Jesus tells His disciples, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever—that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you." Jesus was revealing a great mystery about God. Jesus had been with them, and they knew how He had helped them. Now He promised them another Helper. Jesus promised two things concerning what His followers' relationship with the Holy Spirit would be: first, His permanence—that the Spirit would be with them forever and abide or remain with them; second, His presence—that the Holy Spirit would be in them. This was certainly a mystery revealed. The Old Testament spoke often about the Holy Spirit coming on prophets, priests, judges, and kings, but Jesus now was revealing that the Holy Spirit would come to be in His people. God was with Adam and Eve in the garden, and we continue to see through the Old Testament that God was with His people as they wandered in the wilderness, being present with them in the cloud by day and the fire by night. But when Jesus, God the Son, became flesh, He took on human form, and God entered into another relationship with man. The Apostle John wrote, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." God was not only with His people but among them. Now Jesus was teaching His disciples that God the Holy Spirit would come and be in them. God's relationship with His people progressed from being with His people to being among them to finally being in His people.