95%

 I just read a stinging statement made by pastor and author A.W. Tozer decades ago. "If the Holy Spirit were withdrawn from the church today, ninety-five percent of what we do would go on and no-one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, ninety-five percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference."

Which one of the 95% do we fall in? I wonder if God withdrew the Holy Spirit from our worship gatherings, Bible studies, and programs if we would even take notice. How much of it would continue on business as usual. I try to be sensitive to the Spirit of God in worship. In what I preach, in how to conduct the invitation, in worship. Many times I feel Him grieved. Often I sense Him quenched from doing more. It breaks my heart. 

I wonder if others notice. Do teachers? Does the worship team? Do the deacons? Do the ushers? Do the parishioners? Do the youth? Do the senior adults? Do the intercessors? We plan and program things to death. We need the Spirit of the living God to flow among us, comforting, convicting, calling sinners to salvation, and stirring cold indifferent hearts. We need the Holy Spirit to breathe life on what we do on Sunday mornings. I fear some of our gatherings are religious rituals devoid of passion and power. What a tragedy. 

We should long for God to blow the breath of the Holy Spirit into the sails of His church to move us through the waters of this age. We should long to be tenderhearted and sensitive to His leadership in our services and response to Him. We should aim to be submissive to His leadership in our daily lives. I long for God to move in us, through us, and among us. This world will never be transformed without the Holy Ghost. We try. We plan, program, and promote. What we need to do more is to pray, petition, and plead for Holy Ghost anointing and empowering again. 

Luke 4:1 tells us Jesus was full of the Spirit before being tempted by Satan. In Luke 4:14 He retuned in the power of the Spirit. We read about the role of the Holy Spirit from Acts 2 throughout the rest of the book. In Acts 4:31 the disciples were filled with the Spirit after a prayer meeting and spoke the word of God with boldness. Paul even testified in Acts 16:22 that he felt bound in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit played a prominent leading role in the early church. The Holy Spirit is relinquished to supporting role in God's unfolding drama today if He has any role in the cast at all. Could that be the reason we are not nearly as effective as the early church at transforming culture? 

May we be of the 95% who wholly lean on the Holy Spirit to move in our churches. May we submit to His leadership. May we cry out for Him to move among us as He did in the days of old. We sure need Him to do what He did in the past again.