Vitality

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Complacency.  If the number one thing we can’t be complacent about is the reality of the Gospel piercing our hearts, what we’re saying we need is vitality in our daily spiritual life.

This is where the first several chapters of Acts (which we have been looking at on Sunday mornings the last month) become so important.  We see a community with vitality.

What gave them that vitality?  The presence of the Holy Spirit making the truth powerful.  I said a few weeks ago from Acts 2:3 that he re-energizes you – convincing you at the same time of two truths: that God loves and is present with each one of you specially, and that he is holy.  Holiness and Love, Transcendence and Immanence, Conviction and Comfort at the same moment.  When those are burning in your heart, he can ask anything of you and you would do anything for him.

But the Holy Spirit uses means to prepare you for his filling.  The apostles were devoting themselves to prayer and were together for prayer when the Spirit rushed upon them (Acts 1:14, 2:1).  After a case of frightening trial where they were hauled before the authorities, they were again in prayer when the Spirit filled them again with boldness (4:23-31).

In Eph.5:18, the Apostle Paul makes it a command – “Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit.”  He made it his prayer, praying that God “may give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” (Eph.1:17).

Do you see what this means?  You have got to have the Spirit!  In the words of Eph.5:15-18, you’ve got to “make the best use of the time.  Don’t be foolish.  Understand what the Lord’s will is…Be filled with the Spirit!”.  And you’ve got to pursue it.  How?  “Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart…giving thanks…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ…living it out in your daily life and relationships” (5:19ff).  In other words, using the means of grace in fellowship with your fellow believers.  Not “going through the motions of grace”, but using the means of grace from the heart.

There was a point in my life where I experienced that powerfully.  When I was in Kenya a few years ago as part of a team of mediators trying to resolve a conflict among some Christian leaders there, it was one of the most spiritually intense two weeks of my life.  It wasn’t fun; it was an excruciating situation any way you looked at it – but the fellowship, friendship and collaboration with the team I was working with was spiritually exhilarating and something I will never forget.  And the one thing that defined the difference was the prayer time.  We knew humanly speaking it was an impossible situation.  We knew we were in over our heads without God.  But we knew that this was a situation God cared about.  And it made you pray – really pray.  You were in meetings all day, every one electrified, and every spare second you could, you found yourself praying for help.  Every morning and every evening you prayed with these fellow workers.  You poured out your heart for them that God would help them, would fill them with wisdom and grace.  They poured their hearts out for you.  You loved one another in those prayers.  You loved and were broken hearted for the people you were praying for together.  And every time you prayed, God answered.  Things happened.  Verses came to mind at the right moment.  Solutions appeared that weren’t there before.  Hearts were changed sometimes dramatically.   The truths of the Gospel showed themselves to be without a doubt the true power of God.  It was awesome.  It was war-time prayer.  It’s true that the mediation didn’t end like we hoped.  But it was worth it; it was kingdom work.  God was doing something and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it yet.

But what I remember was the vitality.  You were alive and the Spirit was alive in you.  You felt your need for God and knew that he was present with you.  I imagine the early church having that kind of intense, battlefield dependence and clarity.  They were living for a purpose, a mission.  They were in earnest with one another for the Spirit.

And that’s the kind of vitality we need.  Do you want it?