Indicators of the Spirit at Work in Life and Mission
By Kay Horner
We began our weekly prayer meeting one evening with a time of fellowship and laughter before we prayed together. Everyone seemed unusually jovial until we had prayed for a while.
We suddenly began to sense a heaviness in our hearts, accompanied by an urgency for repentance. Eager to listen and follow the leading of the Spirit together, we began to repent for various things, such as inequities in race, gender, culture, and nationality, as well as other injustices within the Church and nation. We experienced an unprecedented awareness of the way things that break our hearts must wound the heart of God even more deeply.
The strong shift in the atmosphere had to have been Spirit-led. Essentially, God’s Spirit was working through our prayers to move us from praying about our agendas to praying in alignment with His will.
Spirit-Empowered Supplication
How the Father’s heart must be grieved by the biases and opposition to the Christian faith in society today. We live in a world that wants to condemn or demean Christianity, ban or bind our influence, and literally destroy us if it could. However, we do not need to despair as those who have no hope. Knowing we are heirs of God’s abundant promises by faith, we can pray for the fulfillment of these promises. And we can join Christ in His mission to love and evangelize those who oppose the gospel.
When prophesying the consequences for all nations that come against God’s people, Zechariah said the Lord would focus the Jewish people’s attention on the crucified Messiah—the One they vehemently rejected. God would bring true, godly sorrow that would lead them to repentance.
The Lord, speaking through the prophet, specifically said, “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son” (Zech. 12:10).
This verse describes the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives, as well. It also defines who He is—the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29) and intercession or supplication (Rom. 8:26–27).
Another prophet, Joel, prophesied about this abundant, refreshing outpouring of God’s Spirit, like water poured on thirsty ground. (See Joel 2:28–32.) And Peter confirmed it on the day of Pentecost: “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people’” (Acts 2:16–17, italics added).
The Lord has poured out His “Spirit of grace and supplication,” so how should our lives reflect Him today? How is He the power behind our mission? Perhaps, one of the best ways to answer those questions is to look at the early Church in the Book of Acts after the initial outpouring occurred.
Spirit-Empowered Practices
We may tend to isolate ourselves from the New Testament Church, feeling as though they lived in a different world. It’s true they didn’t have Facebook or Instagram to openly display their lives. Neither did they have our technology for virtual prayer meetings, shared requests, or inspirational gospel messages online.
However, Luke gives a bird’s-eye view of how they maintained fellowship and consistent prayer lives even in the face of persecution. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). The original language indicates a continual devotion and commitment to these practices.
In their book Leaders that Last, Gary D. Kinnaman and Alfred H. Ells examine those four characteristics1 (see my application in italics):
- They kept devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching or truth.
Whether we are praying individually or in a group, devoting ourselves to the Word of God is foundational for confirming the ministry of the Spirit in prayer. Here’s a clear indicator that the Spirit is at work: when inspiration or insights shared align with the principles of God’s Word.
- They kept devoting themselves to fellowship . . . that is, sharing life together, having everything in common. They were committed to deep interpersonal, interdependent relationships.
In a loving, safe atmosphere, people can humbly share what they are sensing from the Holy Spirit and respond to His convicting power that brings repentance and restoration.
- They kept devoting themselves to the breaking of bread, that is, they met from house to house and ate with one another. In the context of Middle Eastern life, to eat with someone was to accept that person fully into one’s life and family. To eat together was more than just sharing a meal. It had overtones of a covenantal act. Moreover . . . many New Testament scholars believe, that the early Christians shared the Lord’s Table with one another at those meals.
More than ritual, the Eucharist [communion] conveys the meaning of thanksgiving and gratitude. One of the clearest indicators that the Spirit has been at work is when the “covenanted” body of Christ is filled with profound thanksgiving for what they have seen Him accomplish.
- They kept devoting themselves to prayer. They invited the presence, blessing, guidance, and grace of God into every activity.
They helped nurture one another’s faith. They experienced a greater dimension of guidance and grace through the Holy Spirit’s working in and among them. The early Church knew they could not divorce the work of the Spirit from united, prevailing prayer.
Notice, they kept devoting themselves to these aspects of Spirit-led living. No authority or leader forced them. They chose to continue to grow in grace and cultivate a deeper knowledge of this newly received power of the Spirit.
Spirit-Empowered Life and Mission
Have you ever heard of “oatmeal days”? Oatmeal days are usual days—the typical or normal expected of somebody or something. Routine. Yet what’s usual for me is not necessarily usual for you. A typical day for a New York businessman differs greatly from a day in the life of an Alaskan Eskimo.
How does Scripture define the usual or typical life for Spirit-led believers? Some of Christ’s parting words to His disciples describe what would become typical for them:
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:15–18).
Later, Peter highlighted what life should be like for those serving God in the last days: “The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. . . . As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet. 4:7, 10, NASB).
If anyone could testify of the multifaceted grace and mercy of God, it was Peter. The same one who denied Christ became the bold disciple who, on the day of Pentecost, proclaimed this new dimension of Spirit-empowered living. He not only talked about the mysteries of God, he faithfully demonstrated this new lifestyle.
Spirit-Empowered Day
In the Acts 3 narrative, soon after his powerful Pentecost sermon, we see Peter and John continuing their Jewish custom of prayer in the temple. An unnamed “lame man” was being carried to his usual place among other crippled beggars near the temple entrance. Lame from his mother’s womb, he had probably been a temple beggar all his life.
- Could he have been sitting near the temple when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to be dedicated?
- Was he there when Jesus, at the age of 12, was discussing the Scriptures and confounding the rabbis with His wisdom? Or later when He drove out the money changers?
- Had he heard the accounts of his fellow beggars—the blind and the lame—Jesus healed in the temple? (See Matt. 21:14.)
- Is it possible this lame man had tried to be healed by Jesus during one of the Lord’s many visits to the temple?
- How many times had Peter and John passed this same man seated at his usual gate, making his usual plea for alms?
However, this was no “oatmeal day” for Peter and John. Something unusual had transpired in their lives since those days when they thought all hope had been crucified on Calvary. The same Peter who had fearfully denied Christ now boldly proclaimed Him. Here’s the difference:
- Peter and John had an encounter with the resurrected Christ.
- They spent time praying and fasting in an upper room until they were filled with the promised Holy Spirit.
- They were a part of a unified community of believers who consistently spent time in fellowship, in the study of the apostles’ teaching, in breaking bread, and in prayer together.
- They left their usual day-to-day existence for a power-packed life of miracles and supernatural signs.
Out of this environment steps Peter, who tells the lame man, in the name of Jesus the Nazarene, to rise up and walk. Peter then grabs the man’s right hand and raises him to his feet! Peter’s words are no magical incantation or Christian cliché. He speaks in the authority, the right, and the might represented in this name above all names!
On a usual day, the lame man encounters the unusual power of a miracle-working God. What happens next? The man’s feet and ankles immediately become strong. He enters the temple courts, “walking and leaping and praising God” (v. 8). Imagine the experience of getting to go into the temple for the first time in his life. We would be doing some jumping, shouting, dancing, and praising God, too!
A crowd gathers in amazement, and Peter sees this as an opportunity to preach about the name and power of Jesus (Acts 3:13–16). In Acts 4, we learn that “many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand” (v. 4). That doesn’t include the women and children.
Imagine how a sovereign God had been preparing for this harvest of souls for years! He chose this unusual day to work through His Spirit-empowered followers to accomplish His agenda—to set at liberty those who were bound.
The Spirit-Empowered Meets the Unexpected
We are living in a crucial time. God wants us to position ourselves for the wind of the Spirit to blow into our lives. He wants to cleanse and empower us to speak forth the truth in love to our families, neighbors, cities, and world. God is looking for those whose minds are set on living Spirit-empowered lives as a witness to a broken, hurting world.
What God wants to birth in us may be new and unexpected. The psalmist David wrote, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved” (Ps. 62:5–6, kjv).
When we consistently walk in a loving, prayer-filled, obedient relationship with Him, the Holy Spirit can come upon us and overshadow us. And, even more exciting, He can literally reside in us and work through us.
1 Gary D. Kinnaman and Alfred H. Ells, Leaders That Last: How Covenant Friendships Can Help Pastors Thrive (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 68.
KAY HORNER is the executive director of Awakening America Alliance , which provides a broad umbrella under which the body of Christ can unite in seeking contemporary spiritual awakening.
