This word emerged out of certain observations from a corporate week of prayer and fasting in Perth in early April. I believe it contains a key to why we see so little power in the contemporary church, and what God wants to do about it.
1. Where is God Living?
At a time where church people talk about God “turning up” in meetings and much discussion about finding God’s presence and power, it is important to accurately answer the question, “Where does God live?” The obvious answer to this is heaven, but the Bible directs us to a deeper answer, to place that naturally speaking we will not look, the broken spirit of a human being.
“Thus says the LORD: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that you will build for me, and what is my resting place? All these things are mine, But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.” (Isa 66:1-2).
2. The Loss of God’s Life in the Human Spirit
God’s hands are indeed visible in creation (Ps 19; Rom 1:20), but his heart or spirit, his innermost being, is not found in anything in the external world he has made, nor in anything in this world that we can make. He does not live in temples made with hands (1 Ki 8:27; Acts 17:24), whether these are physical constructions or our church productions and programmes. According to Isaiah 66:1- 2, his house is in the humble and broken human spirit. This indwelling is not something we can do apart from God nor is it something he can do apart from us, we must do this together.
God has from the beginning longed to dwell in the very depths of the human heart – in the human spirit. “God yearns jealously for the spirit he has made to dwell in us.” (James 4:5). He longed to have the most intimate fellowship with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but this was never achieved. When they refused to take his Word of warning into their hearts (Gen 2:17; Rom 10:8 -10) and replaced it with the word of Satan (Gen 3:5-6) they ceased to be the indwelt by the Spirit of God. They, metaphorically speaking, had cast God out of their lives. The outer punishment that flowed from this inner exorcism was that they were cast out of God’s garden of delight (Gen 2:22-24).
By sovereign divine choice, the hidden, inner alienation, of the human spirit from the Spirit of God was now matched by an outer physical separation that would terminate in the humiliation of death. Death is not as a simple biological event, but the separation of the inner from the outer in a person, the spirit cut off from its true home in the body God had created (2 Cor 5:1- 4; James 2:26). Death issues in a terrible state of naked exposure that was never in the original divine design, for the physical body itself was always meant to be a body of glory (1 Cor 15:44 -46).
The disharmony between the inside of God and the inside of humanity runs throughout scripture. “The Lord saw (outside) that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every in inclination of the thoughts of their hearts (inside) was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” (Gen 6:5- 6). The result is the flood of Noah. As an external action however this does not remedy the inner alienation between humanity and God; the evil of the human heart remains a reality before the gaze of God (Gen 8:21; Jer 17:9).
Following the flood the most dominating part of the story of Genesis 1 -11 is the incident of the tower at Babel. The tower builders attempt to make the impossible possible, to reach the powers of heaven by their corporate human activity (Gen 11:4, 6). (More on this appears in my article “Babylon: Two ways to Heaven One Way to God”). If they had indeed executed this plan it would have, from the perspective of evil and fallen humanity, been the triumph of the human spirit. God, in his mercy, will not allow this. He will not allow humanity to strip itself free from the limits he has placed upon it. The pride of Babel is cut low and the tower is never erected. The outer failure of human endeavours throughout history, symbolized by the frustration of Babel, follows in the wake of every attempt of individuals, tribes, nations and kingdoms to be great apart from God. Whether it be the spirit of nation, race or religion, all will eventually fall (Rev 11:15). The debris of human history witnesses undeniably to the futility of all human achievement apart from the assistance of the divine Spirit.
The greater the pride of the human heart however the greater the blindness to which God gives people over so that they cannot see (Prov 16:18; John 9:40- 41; Rom 1:21; Eph 4:17 -18). This is the judgement of God. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:8; 1 Pet 4:5). Nevertheless, humanity has never learned this lesson. Out of the anguish of a human spirit cut off from its true glory in God flows not humility and contrition but pride and arrogance. From Assyria to America, from Pharaoh to Saddam the extremities of the human spirit find their expression in powerful personalities and systems that falsely promise genuine human fulfilment.
Where are the poor and child-like spirits on the global and local stage to whom the kingdom of God will be given in our day (Matt 5:3; Matt 19:14)? “Fear not little flock, it is the Father’s good will to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32).
In an age where great darkness is on the face of the earth (Isa 9:22) and powerful human spirits (from George bush to Osama Bin Laden) project influence across the face of the globe it is vital that Paul’s prayer become real in us: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” (Eph 1:17- 19).
3. The Triumph of the Spirit of Jesus
This brings us to the true triumph of the human spirit, Jesus and his cross. So humble is Jesus that he can say of himself, “I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matt 11:29). As the wholly submitted person, Jesus is completely filled with the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:28; Luke 4:18 -21). As such, real power, the power of God, flowed out of him to heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, feed the hungry and preach the gospel (Luke 5:17; 6:19; Acts 10:38). The inner servant heart of Jesus (Mark 10:45; Phil 2:5ff.) was completely revealed in his humble manner of life and the selfless deeds he performed for humanity. As the one whose spirit the Father never had to oppose, he was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The inside and the outside were in perfect union. This comes to a climax at the cross.
Despite all appearances to the contrary, the cross is the triumph of the human spirit. For the triumph of the human spirit is not its own power but in its submission to its maker. The cross gathers up into itself what has always been the inner truth of sacrifice. “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps 51:17). “The LORD is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Ps 34:18). “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Surely to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” (1 Sam 15:22). The essence of sacrifice has never been in the outward loss of a materially costly object, but in the yielding up to God of inner pain.
The cross gathers up into itself all the extremities of the human spirit. The difference here is that the spirit of Jesus has in it no self- exaltation, no pride, no arrogance. In the cry from the cross, “I thirst” (John 19:26) we sense the unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger of Christ, the Anointed One of God (1 John 2:27), for the outpouring of the Spirit. In the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) we sense the total brokenness of the human spirit searching for a God it cannot find. This is all that God has ever wanted – from Adam, from you and from me.
This is not the end of Jesus’ story. The triumph of his spirit consists not only in the act of presenting the agony of rebellious humanity’s brokenness to the Father for healing, but in releasing his own spirit to God. “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46). When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30). This is the total surrender of the innermost being of Jesus to the innermost being of God.
It is this ultimate submission that allows the Father to perform the work in humanity that he had always longed to do. The spirit of Jesus was now stripped of all the limitations of his earthly humanity (John 1:14) and enters into the fullness of glory (Luke 24:26). At last, what God had always desired from the beginning of creation has come to pass: the human spirit is completely united to the Spirit of God. The infinite humiliation of the Son of God means that the resting place of God (Isa 66:1- 2) is now the spirit of the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). It is not too much to say, that the Spirit of God is now the spirit of a human being.
For this reason, Jesus is now the giver of the Spirit. “Being therefore exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.”(Acts 2:33). From now on, from Pentecost, all the power of God flows out of and in communion with a completely humble human spirit.
4. Power in Our Spirits Today
What is true for Jesus is also true for us. To the degree that our spirits are humble and contrite and tremble at God’s word (Isa 66:2), to that degree power will flow out from them. “I came to you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:4-5).
In the church today we see much plausibility but little power. Little of the apostolic power to heal the sick, raise the dead, transform the rebellious and convert culture at the deepest level. Pastorally, I see much evidence of Christians who look good on the outside but whose lack of spiritual power shows that they are not broken on the inside. Jesus warned us not to be like the Pharisees, clean on the outside but dirty on the inside. “On the outside you appear to people as righteous but inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matt 23:28). Prophetically, I see many churches that have an exterior excellence but lack the holiness of the inner life. Jesus promised, “Out of the believer’s innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:39). This however will never come until our hearts are submitted to the painful but glorious union with the broken heart of God.
The time is coming however when the Spirit of God will pour forth out of the church. Not out of the spirits of the self- competent, naturally gifted and able, but from those whom the world counts as nobodies (1 Cor 1:26- 28). It is the “little people”, the sexually abused, addicts, depressed, weak, homeless, prostitutes, gays, indigenous, poor and so on, those whose spirits are crushed and have nothing to exalt themselves, who will be at the cutting edge of the kingdom (Matt 5:3; 10:42; 18:6; 19:14; Luke 12:32; 17:2). The choice is ours. Let us pray to be more like Jesus, let us ask for a deeper share of the brokenness of his spirit on the cross. “But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.” (Isa 66:2).