Forgotten God – Chapter 2

Last Sunday was the second week team-teaching a Sunday School class at church that is going through Francis Chan’s latest book: Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter two title: “What are you afraid of?”

The main point that Chan talked about was how we have fears when if comes to our desire to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.  The two “fears” he writes about are:

First: A fear that God won’t “come through”, meaning that we pray for the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and nothing happens.

• If we pray boldly and nothing happens or changes, does that man God failed?  [NO!] We may not say that outright, but do our inhibited prayers reflect that? [Hmmm…]
• He pretty much calls us out [OUCH!]:

“I think the fear of God failing us leads us to “cover for God.”  This means that we ask for less, expect less, and are satisfied with less because we are afraid to ask for or expect more.”

FYI: He’s not going down the “Prosperity Gospel” path here…

Second: A fear that says, “What if God actually DOES what I pray for?”  What if His will actually is what I pray for?

• This is the fear that says, “what if He asks me to go or do something that I’m not comfortable with” or even purposely not wanting to know His will or even not praying that it be done in our lives for that same fear.
• To me this is a heart issue.  It really says that a person may be praying for something only because it’s the “right” think to pray or ask for…even thought they don’t desire it.
• The rub here is that if we say we want to live Holy Spirit-empowered lives, we must be willing to surrender to WHATEVER the Spirit has for us.

The bottom line: We all have fears.  Saying we are not fearful of the unknown or what God has in store for us is probably disingenuous (unless I’m the only one here).  Saying we’re fearful, but resting in the Spirit’s protection and surrendered to His will is honest and really living in faith.

A reminder:

¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Romans 8

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On to chapter 3: Theology of the Holy Spirit 101.  Chris is teaching, but I’ll still post some thoughts…