You Are A Saint!

 By Kerry Wright  (Hamilton, New Zealand)

 How many times have you been in the middle of a Worship service and a wonderful sense of the Holy Spirit falls? It seems you are on the verge of a breakthrough within yourself and your fellow church members - then “out of the blue” a human voice shuts down that wonderful place with the “Notices,” or a genuine lack of not knowing (or wanting to know) what to do next. Because it has become quieter at that point in the service, the leader thinks that the Spirit of God has gone, and then carries on with the “programme.” Those who have entered into that wonderful sense of the Spirit of God are left feeling that the Holy Spirit has literally “packed His bags” and disappeared.

What happened?

Of the many seminars I have taken, this sorry story seems to antagonize the heart with groans and nodding heads, and yet, week in and week out, we continue as though nothing had happened until some other week comes and that peculiar event happens again - and we respond exactly the same way. Constantly frustrated we cry out for more worship that just gets us into that place again - there was something . . . Someone there! In our spirits we know it is the call of God wooing us into a place we have never been before. The trouble is we never seem to know what to do and, because it comes every “blue moon,” we still cannot get on top of it.

Locked into a cycle of responses, we sing in tongues (if that fits), or the next song on the list completely shuts out that romance, or someone prays out loud, stirred by the event that lasts for seemingly hours - and the sense has gone again. Sometimes we speak out or prophesy, but then the prophecies go for too long and that, too, breaks this wonderful place of His presence. Then we get all frustrated again, wanting to go back there, but never figuring out why we can’t stay!

Soon after this the arguments start. “There’s not enough worship!” and the other side of the congregation cries, “There is too much worship, and not enough teaching!”

Now what do we do?

The Pastor is relating to saints who were torn apart by “wild horses.” People go to church, hoping someone will talk to them. Others go to worship, and don’t get to that place. Others go to get a wonderful faith-challenging sermon to inspire them for another week, only to find it was a very dry sermon on a very steep mountain. While others go just to make relationships, because you cannot get anything of any depth in the secular world - but nobody does. And somehow we consistently go week in and week out to church.

With faith like this we should be Saints! And, frankly, I think anybody who experiences this is! Or he/she is a complete “nutter”! Why would anybody in their right mind subject themselves to so much frustration week in and week out?

It is just your luck, when you went to some other church (out of sheer desperation), only to find you missed the “Sunday of the Century” in your own church!

“What a blast”, they said. The Holy Spirit turned people upside down. Aunty Nan, that spiritual recluse, became a prophetic giant in the space of five minutes and the church responded with such a unity that that cynical weasel who used to sit in the back pew came forward and made a confession which “blew the place apart.” Old Tom Clancy stopped smoking, and Fred Murray, the nearest thing to a wooden horse, actually cried, “Praise God”!

So you “hang out” the next week for church, only to witness the greatest monumental crash in history again! “Should have gone to the other church”! And here we are in “blind man’s alley,” again wondering why we’re looking at that oh! so familiar brick wall.

Let’s sit back from all the fluster and think . . .

Why would we experience these things if the Holy Spirit didn’t want us to?

So He must obviously want this too! But let’s think. The Holy Spirit is not an influence on our meetings. He’s a person, just like Jesus. He wants us to experience His presence, comfort, and counsel. He wants others to experience it as well. But He can’t, if He cannot work through us. He must come to dwell in flesh and blood. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wants to use us to touch others. This puts a completely different light on our worship. It is not inward looking - it is outward looking!

1 Corinthians 14;16 (NIV):

What shall we say Brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

This means that when we sense “this place” within our worship, it is time to look outward, not inward. The Holy Spirit wants to move, and we see the door. The fact that we miss it, is most certainly because we are looking inward at ourselves, at our programme, the next song, the sermon, the notices, whatever. We have been taught to respond to what is happening on stage rather than to listen to the Holy Spirit.

The book “Rees Howells Intercessor” (page 32) quotes: “Once the first Hymn was given out, the meeting conducted itself. There was no leader, but the people felt an unseen control. Speakers were often interrupted by a chorus of song and prayer, but there was no sense of discord or break in the Harmony…”

Here is an experiential witness to 1 Corinthians 14:26. Once we realize that the Holy Spirit wants to have the control within our church services, we then can let Him do what is needed for us to have that intimacy we long for.

If you have experienced the frustration, you are perceiving things correctly in the spirit, coming to your spirit from the Holy Spirit. You were right and you were looking at the door to revival! You are a saint!

All that is needed now is obedience!

Kerry Wright is a prophetic musician who takes seminars teaching musicians and Pastors the applications of prophetic worship in churches.