Trusting the Spirit

The men’s class on Wednesday night has been going through a study on the Holy Spirit. I would have to say that I love studying the Holy Spirit. I also have a hard time with studying the Spirit because it can really challenge the way I’m thinking and living.

I believe that one of the hardest parts of following the Spirit is fully trusting in Him. The problem I have in trusting the Spirit isn’t about whether He will come through on what He says He will do or if he can use me in the Kingdom. The problem I do have with trusting the Spirit is that I do believe He is going to come through on what He says He will do. I do believe that the Spirit can use me for the Kingdom. I also realize that fully trusting the Spirit is likely to wreck my comfortable life.

I look at people that Jesus interacts with in the Bible. The ones that choose to follow Him have one thing in common, their lives change forever once they begin to walk with Christ. That is why we see Nicodemus come to Jesus, in John 3, at night. Nicodemus has a comfortable life as a Pharisee when he comes to Jesus. He knows that even being seen with Jesus could hurt his standing in society. He was afraid to fully commit to Christ at this point. Yet, in John 19 we see Nicodemus has been changed by Christ. He is there at the tomb helping take care of the body of Christ. Nicodemus had been changed once he met Christ. He no longer cared about his standing in society or his comfortable life that he had. He knew what he had to do.

I can really relate to Nicodemus. Sometimes, it is scary to fully give ourselves to Christ and to the Holy Spirit. It most certainly cost Nicodemus his comfortable life when he decided to follow Jesus. Jesus told us all in Luke 14 that it will cost us to follow Him. We know that once we decide to give all of ourselves and fully trust the Spirit He is going to change our lives forever. It will be an adventure. We will be a part of some amazing things that God is doing in His Kingdom. Yet, it is still frightening to give up our comfortable lives to let the Spirit use us powerfully for helping build His Kingdom. As frightening as it may be, lets pray for the courage to fully trust in the Spirit and start letting him wreck our comfortable lives.