Passion Pumps Me

passion 
permeates 
my person 
pumps me 
then plummets 
unwieldy 
but willing 
for you 
to work magic 
transform 
passion 
into power 
potent 
patient 
wielded 
by you 

Waiting is a challenge, especially when we yearn for what we’ve been told is coming. As a teen (that’s me in the photo above) when I was away at MK boarding school, I kept counting the days until Christmas or Easter vacation when I could be home for a while. When my mother was expecting her sixth child, I (the oldest) could hardly wait to hold that little one in my arms. But most of all, I was thirsty for spiritual growth. I knew I belonged to Jesus. I knew that he was teaching me how to depend on him for support rather than those surrounding me, at home or at school. But when I read books by spiritual mentors like A.W. Tozer, who gifted us with his classic The Pursuit of God, and Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest, I wanted to achieve closeness to the Holy One that was beyond mere believing. I wanted to know he could work in me and through me. I wanted to be sure he lived in me.

When the missionaries gathered at the field conference one year, the scheduled speaker suddenly could not come. So a pastor who was there for another mission’s conference agreed to come. He spoke about the Holy Spirit in ways that made me yearn to know that I was filled with God’s Presence, his Spirit. One day many of the missionaries I loved and respected were joining the line that was waiting for the speaker to lay hands on them. Most of them were asking for healing. I turned to my dad, who was sitting beside me, and told him that I wanted to go and ask for prayer to be filled with the Spirit. He agreed to accompany me.

When it was my turn, I told the pastor what I desired and knelt in front of him. He prayed for me, but I was listening more to my own inner prayer. And after a moment there was a Voice audible only to me that said: “Hon, you already have me!” I stood, thanked the pastor, and returned to my seat.

What happened that day reassured me that being inhabited by the Spirit did not require flames of fire or a different language being spoken, as had happened to so many in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost. They were gathered together, waiting for what Jesus had promised them. And on that day, the Spirit fell on them in a visible, auditory way, so that it would be obvious that they were entering a new era. Jesus had ascended but they would not be abandoned to live on their own. They had the assurance that the Spirit would be in them, gifting them as needed.

Pentecost was last Sunday, sometimes not mentioned at all in modern churches. It was a traditional harvest feast for the Israelites and became a time to remember the laws in their covenant with Yahweh, who had saved them from slavery in Egypt (Deut. 16:12). These Jesus followers in Acts 2 were now in a new covenant relationship with God, one sealed by Jesus’ blood. They needed to be equipped to serve their Master, and human effort was insufficient. With his Spirit in them, they would have the empowerment they needed. He had promised this when he spoke to his disciples just before he ascended to heaven:

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶ and said to them, “Thus it stands written that the Christ would suffer and would rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” ⁵ (Lk. 24:45-49 NET)

That was what they were waiting for, what Jesus said his Father had promised: a gift that would clothe them “with power from on high.” They were waiting, grouped together, about 120 of them, praying and encouraging each other in the wait. Ten days after Jesus had ascended, it happened: the Holy Spirit filled the believers.  The disciples had heard Jesus’ prayer after that Last Supper he had with them, a prayer to his Father filled with astounding words:

²³ I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me. (John 17:23 CSB)

The unity of Father and Son meant that when Jesus said that he was in them spiritually, God himself was in them. And then when he was ascending, he promised power from on high. This was the Spirit, who would empower them to take the Good News to the world. It’s true! As 1 Corinthians 13 makes clear, the Spirit is the one who decides which gifts each believer needs in order to fulfill their purpose in the Body. I know I could not have fulfilled the requirements of my ministry if it had not been for Spirit empowerment.

“To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be energized and controlled by the third person of the Godhead in such a way that under the acknowledged lordship of Jesus Christ the full presence and power of God are experienced. Spirit-filling leads to renewal, obedience, boldness in testimony and an arresting quality in believers’ lives.”^[1]

And every single disciple—that includes us—needs the Spirit to empower them to love others, a crucial heart change (cf 1 Corinthians 13). It is not something humans do naturally. There are always divisions threatening to rip unity apart. But if we are truly submitting to the Spirit he has sent to us, to live in us, he will give us the power we need to love others. That is what is meant by “fruit,” the qualities the Spirit grows in us:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22-23 NET)

And he will give us whatever other gifting conforms to his plan. We may not know what it is when we start out, but he will teach us:

²⁷ Now as for you, the anointing that you received from him resides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, it is true and is not a lie. Just as it has taught you, you reside in him. (NET 2:27)

That “anointing” refers to the filling of the Holy Spirit: he resides in the believer, who resides in him as well. We live in him and he lives in us. And this filling is not a one-time event. We may not realise it when we read our English translations, or when we listen to certain preachers. Here is a Bible dictionary explanation. The terms “baptized with the Spirit” (Acts 1:5), “filled with the Spirit” (Acts 2:4), and “received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 10:47) “are virtually synonymous when used of initial experiences of the Spirit, but ‘filled’ is also used to designate subsequent experiences and renewings of the same divine power^[2]. . .For example, the command in Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit,” is in the present tense, so it “implies the need to be regularly filled and re-filled with the Spirit.”^[3]

These are truths I had to learn during my long spiritual journey. It is easy to become lax in practicing the Presence of God in us and instead begin to trust in our own impulses. But by spending time in the Word and in conversation with our Master, we can keep ourselves open to that regular in-filling. I see it as similar to the way a cup filled with coffee can get jostled and spill when the holder gets distracted and trips, or how sin can rip a hole in the fabric of our close relationship with the King and the filling slips out. We need to stay open to what the Spirit is doing in us and saying to us.

In my poem I was expressing my own strong desire to know the Spirit’s empowerment, and acknowledging my weaknesses in maintaining that imperative connection. Maybe you are there too. Our desire for that ability to do what we are told to do by the Master can be transformed into the strength to actually do it when we submit, and daily make sure we are submitting, to the Spirit who lives in us.

That is what I was learning when I was that teen yearning for intimate relationship with my Lord. His reassurance that he was not resistant to “filling me,” that he already lived in me, has been an anchor throughout my life. May we followers all have that same filling over and over! It brings the transformation we yearn for. As Oswald Chambers wrote, words that incited my poem:

“Forge and transform my passion into power…” 

---

^[1] Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.