On this page: Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit
In this series, your host, Terry Modica, will lead you through the discovery (or deeper-than-ever-before discovery) of what living in the power of the Holy Spirit can be really like for you.
This is also a video course with reflection questions found at gnm.org/paracletia-course-description-C04/. Transcripts are available for download there.
We are given the fullness of the Holy Spirit when we are baptized. In today’s world, we face many challenges and evil forces that threaten our joy and inner peace, and so we need to release the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you feel powerless in dealing with the difficulties you’re facing? Do you feel empty and alone? The Holy Spirit was given to you by Jesus, to be your Helper, a constant, faithful, supernatural Companion. If you feel like there should be more of God’s help in your life, you’re right. There should be. There can be! God desires this for you even more than you do.
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Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit
Introduction: We are given the fullness of the Holy Spirit when we are baptized. In today’s world, we face many challenges and evil forces that threaten our joy and inner peace, and so we need to release the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you feel powerless in dealing with the difficulties you’re facing? Do you feel empty and alone? The Holy Spirit was given to you by Jesus, to be your helper, a constant, faithful, supernatural companion. If you feel like there should be more of God’s help in your life, you’re right. There should be. There can be! God desires this for you even more than you do.
Let me ask you something. With all the bad stuff that’s going on in the world today, do you feel powerless to make a difference? Do your prayers seem powerless against all the evil that’s out there and all the things that are going wrong? What about in your own life, in all those areas that you need God’s help with? Well, there are three stages of maturity in the prayer of petition when we’re asking God for help.
Let’s say, for example, you need to find a job. In the first stage of prayer, it sounds something like this, “Dear Lord, I need a job. I need a job that uses my gifts and talents. Lord, I’ve applied to that company. Help me to get the job there. I really don’t want to have to relocate. Lord, help me. Lord, hear my prayer.”
Now in the second level of prayer, that prayer becomes something like this, “Lord God, I need a job, but you know what’s best for me. Lord God, you know the kind of job that will have the best longevity for me, the kind of job that will use the gifts and talents that you’ve given me. So, Lord God, I want what you want. Thank you for hearing my prayer.”
Then the third stage becomes something like this, “Lord God, I need a job. You know what’s best for me. You’ve given me gifts and talents, and you don’t want them to go to waste. You are good. You are all-good. You are all-loving, all-caring, all-wise, all-knowing. You are all that I need for all that I need.”
Now see, in the first stage, we’re treating God like he’s a magic genie, or Santa Claus. We’re giving him our wish list, and when we don’t get the answer to our prayers the way we’d like them to be answered, or how fast we’d like them to be answered, we feel kind of let down, don’t we? We feel like maybe God’s abandoned us. The second level of prayer is a prayer of trust, and that prayer of trust brings us hope. Even while we’re waiting for the prayers to be answered, we have hope, because we know that God wants what’s best for us. And we want what God wants.
But in the third stage of prayer, we not only trust God and experience hope, but that level of trust also brings us confidence, because we know that God IS. God IS. That’s all that matters. God IS. God is the great “I am.” God is all-loving, all-kind, all-caring. He’s on my side. He’s wanting what’s best, and he’s all-creative and able to produce something beyond what I can imagine. Because God IS. God is God, and we are immersed in that Lord and Savior when we pray at this third stage. We are immersed in God’s goodness. We are immersed in the power of God when we are immersed in God. And in this third stage we are fully alive in that, consciously appreciating that, and relying on that, entering into that.
And so, I invite you to take this course with me on Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit as we explore what it’s like, and how, to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.