God -- The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is God. God is the Holy Spirit.

Do we believe that? Do we wrap our faith around that? Are we walking this earth with that reality beating in our chest? Something in me says that if we did, we Christians would be massively different than we are and the truest character of God would be far more accurately advertised. Something else in me shouts that the church of 2006 needs an extreme makeover, the likes of which is only possible if God, the Holy Spirit does the making over.

Not clever church growth "experts" who have not paid a bloody price for laying down their lives for a people in the inner city or the "outer city" middle of no where. Not the touchy feely sensitive to the seeker terrified of the truth hired hand pastors secretly proud of the number of sheep they've stolen by scratching where those sheep itch instead of healing the actual brokenness of their spirits. Not "pop-theology" end times magicians playing with Bible verses like David Copperfield pretending to saw a pretty lady in half. Where, by the way, the only thing sawn to pieces is the precious Word of God.

Not a smoke and mirrors change; but a real make over by the power of God in the Person of the Holy Spirit raging through today's Temple the way Jesus did in the Temple of His day. With a whip lashing the backs of temple "professionals" and throwing the tables of their ill-gotten cash around like some kind of internal tornado was roaring through the house. Today's Temple is boldly declared to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Body of Christ, the Church, the people of God.

Come Holy Spirit! Be God Almighty in me, and the church that I pastor. Come ruthlessly to heal every layer of the wreckage of humanity that intrudes in what should be the beauty of the Bride of Christ. Come Holy Spirit and fearlessly rebuke Satan in every one of us the way Jesus did when Peter was too dumb to know the difference between the things of God and his own "stuff". Come Holy Spirit and tell us that we don't know what spirit we are of when we, like Jesus' own 12 disciples, with judgemental religious thinking were eagar to call fire down on "bad people".

Come Holy Spirit! We repent for making You God Jr. We repent for making you the author of parlor tricks that entertain only our perverse curiousity. We repent for boxing You in, pouring water on Your Fire, telling You how to pray instead of letting You pray the ragged, raw and real passions of Your needs. Come Holy Spirit, in nothing less than the full majesty of God in us, to make Jesus Christ more Lord in and through us than You have ever been allowed.