ConneXus Blog

By Julia Fowler, Worship Arts Pastor

Text: Excerpt from Head, Heart & Hands, by Dennis P. Hollinger

In the past couple of weeks we've been talking more and more about the ability to share our Faith with others.  This coming Sunday our topic will continue down the road of considering how it is that we are able to do this, among other seemingly impossibilities: the help of the Holy Spirit. 

It's amazing how God works, and unfortunately I don't have enough space/time to write how the pieces have come together, but our God has a great sense of timing, and if we will keep ourselves open to his leading, and stir up the desire within ourselves to know Him more, He'll be more than accommodating to teach us and help us to do just that.

In my world the pieces of the last book I read (The Shack) coupled with the last ROOTED class I took (Becoming A Contagious Christian) coupled with the class I'm taking right now are all seamlessly, miraculously working together to bring my attention back to the importance of knowing what I believe (my theology) and putting what I believe to practice (vital spirituality).  One of the books from my current class is what I want to ask you to consider through today.  The book is titled Head, Heart & Hands by Dennis P. Hollinger. 

In it he writes: "All human beings seem to have a quest for presence and power.  Men and women long to have a personal touch whereby they feel the nearness and care not just of others, but of an Other.  We hunger for the personal presence of transcendence in our lives in order to know that in this great cosmos we matter and are cared for.  Humans also long for personal power.  In our moments of fragility, ineptitude and failure, we hunger for a power beyond ourselves to enable us to transcend our foibles (an idiosyncrasy or small weakness) and sins.  Presence and power seem to be universal needs of the human race.   In biblical faith the Holy Spirit in particular grants presence and power to those who have said yes to God's grace.  The Father and Son are, of course, part of these wonderful gifts, for we can never separate too far the persons of the one God.  But in the Bible it is particularly the Holy Spirit who is present in our moments of perceived abandon and who grants power in our times of helplessness.  In Romans 8 Paul reminds us that anyone who belongs to Christ has the Holy Spirit living within them.  Therefore, he wrote, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that swells in you" (v.11)  

How are you engaging the work of the Holy Spirit in your life today?

Have you invited him to be a part of your process?

Do you have questions about the work of the Holy Spirit or the work of Entire Sanctification?

Have you been entirely sanctified?