Gravity – The force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass. As believers there are a few things that we long for in our lives and pray for God to do in our life. One of them is praying for the Holy Spirit to FALL! I used to hear this and not know what it meant and then it happened in a service I was attending and I knew I wanted it to happen again and again. What makes the Holy Spirit Fall? There are numerous things that might happen to make Him become evident in a meeting or in a situation. The first thing that makes it happen is “that’s what God wants.” That is the most important one I can come up with, and God being in control is what makes it something that glorifies Him and Him alone. I used to wonder, “If the Holy Spirit is falling, where is He falling from.” A place higher than us!! We think of God being on what we call “a higher plane” and that higher plane is only reserved for the One who is holy, and of course, that is God! But we pray for Holy Spirit Gravity that causes the Spirit to fall on those who are worshipping the Lord or preaching His Word, knowing that the effect will be something that is God induced, and thus God honoring. In Acts 10 Peter was preaching to a group of people and his message was telling the truth about God, and Jesus, and how the whole thing was put into place. In verse 41 he tells of his eye witness account of who Jesus is, and that he had eaten and drank with Him after He had defeated death. He told of being commissioned to preach the Gospel as one who bears witness to Jesus being alive. As He is preaching in verse 44, in the middle of his message, the Holy Spirit fell on those who were listening to the message. It was an amazing event and those who were there were amazed that God would choose to fall, and affect not only Jews, but the Gentiles who were there. It caused Peter to say that “no one would keep these Gentiles from being baptized.” In Chapter 11 some of the apostles were skeptical and concerned that the Holy Spirit would fall on Gentiles, as well as Jews. Of course God had prepared Peter to be able to deal with this because of an earlier vision He had given Peter about who could receive the Gospel and opened the door to reaching the Gentiles. Up until that point the Gentiles were not considered able to receive salvation, but God had already shown Peter that ALL could receive Jesus. So we can derive from this that the Holy Spirit falls on individuals when they are alone or in group settings. In fact. when Peter saw the vision from God it showed God was preparing his heart for the work ahead. The one thing I get from all this is that God has everything in order, so that when He does send the Holy Spirit, He comes with purpose and power.
We pray for the Holy Spirit to fall in our worship services every week, knowing that God is the one who controls that, and that it is for His glory, not ours. Until God has a plan for it we don’t see Him move, but we still long for a visitation from the Lord through His Spirit. Why? Because it gives us a sense of hope and assures our faith that God is still there and watching. Of course, we know He is, but our faith needs these times of seeing God move to affirm it and strengthen it. We know that when God shows up, lives are changed. Some Christians are scared of God showing up through the Holy Spirit because they think things will get out of control. In reality the only thing that will get out of control is our control on those things. Our lack of faithfulness many times causes us to want to keep God at “arms length” and the movement of any Spirit from God would make us get real and get right.
So, do you pray for the movement of the Holy Spirit? If so, expect it to happen and know that God will direct it for His purpose and plan, and lives will be impacted in an incredible way. WE all need a fresh touch from God, not that the first touch is getting stale, but maybe because we are getting comfortable with a faith we can control and understand. If we can control it and understand it, then it may be more faith in ourselves than in God. MAY IT NEVER BE SO!!! God spoke very specifically to Peter and in sharing that vision in Chapter 11 verse 16 Peter says about a conversation with Jesus “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Then in verse 17 Peter shares a great word where he says, “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s Way.” I don’t want to stand in God’s Way when He is trying to move and you shouldn’t either. Let the Holy Spirit change our lives by falling under the power of His Holy Spirit and may the Holy Spirit Gravity cause Him to come and fall on my life and on churches all over our land. We need God to be the center of our world and the center of our thinking and that will attract the Holy Spirit to us. God must be at the core of who we are and what we want in this Holly Spirit Gravity. When it happens He will shake up our world and draw us closer to God. One thing is for sure We need it!!! I hope we are all attracted to the power of God moving in our lives.
The Pilgrimage continues….
David Warren