Fire in Your Bones:

Ablaze with Holy Discontent

By E. Glenn Wagner

It's funny how often those of us called to teach often end up as students instead.

Several years ago, I was ministering with the persecuted church in what will remain an unnamed country. As we did some bob-and-weave moves to make sure we were either not being followed, I got together with some of the most incredible Christ followers I've ever met, young and old. Many had endured the harshest of prison conditions, yet had a joy and daily experience of Christ that is a rarity in American Christianity.

I am convinced God brought me to this place to create a holy discontent in the state of my soul. I thought, "How have we within the American church allowed what God intended to be the 'normal' daily life and experience of the believer become the 'abnormal'? How could we settle for such a cheap imitation of the real thing?"

Once again, it brought me back to the importance of "good" versus "great." Here's what we need to understand:

• For God, good is abnormal.
  
• For God, great is normal!

Let me illustrate by challenging you to answer the following 20 questions. During the past three days:

1. Were you driven by a desire to sacrifice your personal preferences on behalf of someone else?

2. Did you walk with spiritual authority, not afraid to utilize God's power to free others?

3. Have you been filled with a sense and understanding that your decisions, choices and behavior were all being empowered by what can only be explained as supernatural?

4. Did you enter into someone's life with a wisdom that surprised you and was beyond what you have previously known?

5. Did God's Word leap off the pages as if the Lord Himself were speaking to you?

6. Were you compelled to run toward a "sinner" rather than run away?

7. Were you repulsed by the merely "religious"?

8. Did you risk your reputation on behalf of another?

9. Did you weep for those who don't yet understand God's power?

10. Did you speak truth in love and grace rather than judgment or in retribution?

11.Have you heard other believers speak of these things as an ordinary part of daily life, yet you've never really lived in such a reality yourself?

12. Did you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit?

13. Did you experience supernatural power?

14. Have you felt a compassion for those with no faith?

15. Did you feel a desire to assist the poor and suffering?

16. Have you found yourself filled with joy and praise even in the midst of heartache?

17. Were you propelled by an inner desire to know God in all His glory and to bring honor to Him?

18. Do you have moments of victory and inspiration, but they are sporadic and

inconsistent?

19. Have you felt compelled to have personal fellowship with the Lord?

20. Did you feel the need to ask God to set your soul on fire for Him?

As we read the New Testament and the story of the first-century church, we should be bothered by the fact our Christian walk does not seem to be as exciting or filled with risk. I am troubled when I hear of other people and places in the world where the Christian community is seeing tremendous evidence of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. What is happening there is like reading the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament. Have you ever asked, "Why would they receive this moving of God's Holy Spirit while we do not?"

When Christ followers are set ablaze by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, and have known what it means to exist with that "fire in their bones" and have seen how God works in and through them showing forth the very power of the resurrected Christ, they - you - will never be satisfied with anything less.

We must be ready to respond when God calls. Sir Winston Churchill put it this way, "Into everyone's life there comes an opportunity into which one must choose to step." The Apostle Paul, an even better source, counsels, "...be careful how you walk, not as unwise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil."¹

You now have an opportunity for change. Will you choose to take the risk, believing what God has promised and see His power and glory manifest in

you?

We are not going to change this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it but by the combustion within it - of lives ignited by the Spirit of God. When say we depend on the Holy Spirit, however, as Vance Havner observed, "We're so wired up to our own devices that if the fire doesn't fall from heaven, we can turn on a switch and produce false fire of our own. And if there's no sound of a mighty rushing wind, we've got the bellows all set to blow hot air instead." God save us from a synthetic Pentecost!

Are you ready to see divine power at work? Then here are five truths you need to know:

1. The life empowered by God is available and is to be the norm for everyone who has trusted in Christ as Savior.

2. To be on fire, empowered by God, it is necessary to move from ordinary to extraordinary.

3. The empowered life brings a consistency to you as a Christ follower.

4. The empowered life is observable. The Holy Spirit is invisible, but when He is present, there are tangible manifestations.

5. The empowered life is determined by your heart, not your circumstances.

As chronicled in scripture, there's a reason for the power that flowed through the lives of New Testament believers and early church leaders. They were touched with fire from above:

• John the Baptist. "For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."²
  
• Jesus. "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert..."³
  
• The 120 waiting in Jerusalem. "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance."⁴
  
• Peter "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: 'Rulers and elders of the people...'" ⁵
  
• The early church. "And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness."⁶
  
• Stephen. "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."⁷

As I read the New Testament record and see the specific people who were filled with the Holy Spirit, I begin to notice a pattern of certain evidences that

occur consistently in the lives of Spirit-filled men and women. When there is fire in your bones, you should possess at least the following three things:

• You will not be able to keep quiet about the truth of God.
  
• You will have a supernatural boldness.
  
• You will experience God's supernatural law as a daily reality.

Get ready to expect the unexpected when your heart is on fire with the truth and Spirit of God.

E. Glenn Wagner is a best-selling author and the founder and president of FutureLead (www.futurelead.org), an organization committed to equipping people to live and lead with purpose and passion. He has served as a pastor and was on the founding board of Promise Keepers and served as Vice President.  He has authored  numerous books including, God: An Honest Conversation for the Undecided (Waterbrook Press) and his latest book, Fire In Your Bones (Life Bridge)..For more information, or to schedule Glenn to speak at your church or conference please contact info@futurelead.org.

NOTES

¹Ephesians 5:16.

²Luke 1:15-17.

³Luke 4:1.

⁴Acts 2:4.

⁵Acts 4:8.

⁶Acts 4:31.

⁷Acts 7:55.