Am I Supposed to Feel God's Spirit? — Rural Reset 20/21 [22]

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: Rural pastor TJ Freeman explores what it means to feel the Holy Spirit's presence. He emphasizes that spiritual conviction often surpasses fleeting emotions. Through personal stories and biblical insights, he encourages trusting in God's promises and recognizing divine work in our lives, even when feelings are ambiguous.

Key Points:

• Do you feel left out? Maybe you go to church and feel as if you are missing something. Fortunately, Romans 8:16 helps us see that being filled by the Spirit is less about an actual feeling and more about a conviction. 
• The Fickleness of Emotions: Emotions are constantly changing. They are unreliable and unpredictable. They can be caused by various biological processes and outside circumstances. The Spirit is unchanging and promises that it is always with us Christians. 

Listener Takeaways:

• Study the Bible. The more you know God's Word, the more you will remember and rely on it when your emotions take a turn. Knowing God's Word helps us wait on the Lord in difficult times. 
• Don't measure the presence of the Holy Spirit by your feelings, but by the Word of God, by the work of God in your heart, and by His faithfulness.
• Reflect on your desires and your actions. Can you see some evidence over time that you're becoming more like Christ? That is evidence of the Holy Spirit.
  
  

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Transcript

Are you supposed to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit? You ever wonder that? You look around and you see other people who seem so moved by the Spirit, and you're just not feeling what they're feeling. Or you read about the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in you, and you're controlled by the Spirit the same way that, like, alcohol controls a drunk.

And you're going, I think I should probably feel something. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel. If you've ever wondered about what it's like to know that you have the Holy Spirit living in you, then this episode is for you. Well, thank you for joining us here on Back to Rurality. My name is TJ Freeman, and like you, I live in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, in fact, I am a rural pastor, and I know what it's like to wish that you had more resources on some topics like the one we're approaching today, the Holy Spirit. In a small town, you might be really limited in your access to who you can even ask about something like this, so we're just gonna dive deep.

Well, we're gonna dive in, at least. into this topic of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot more, actually, we could cover, but we'll kind of cover the basics here about what it means to have the Holy Spirit in you and whether or not you should be feeling the presence of the Spirit. Now, I know exactly what this is like.

I grew up in a really conservative church. I mean, there's no drums. Everyone combs their hair to the side. Don't go dancing. Don't even look in the direction of a place where people are dancing. Pretty conservative, right? And so you can imagine there wasn't a whole lot of like, raising your hands. I mean, every now and then, somebody would yell a nice hearty amen from the back row.

 The rest of us secretly thought that was kind of strange. So, yeah, growing up in a place like that, we were really taught that you're not supposed to feel. You're just supposed to know and do. And that put me in a place where, I really started to wonder, sometimes, am I missing something?

Those people that look like they just really get lost in the presence of God during congregational singing, are they experiencing something that I'm not experiencing? Am I missing something there? Or the people who would say things like, Man, I just really knew the Lord was leading me to do this, or leading me to do that.

Well, what does it mean to feel led? by God's Spirit. I started to wonder, is there like, quiver in my liver I should be looking for? Should there be a burning in my belly? How am I supposed to know that the Holy Spirit is living inside of me? Well, the scriptures actually help us with this. Romans 8. 16 is a good passage to start with.

It says that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. So somehow the Spirit is bearing witness to you. This verse used to scare the daylights out of me. Because I thought, I don't know that I sense any kind of testimony happening between God, the Holy Spirit, and my spirit.

And if I did, I really don't know what that would look like. But you know, this really isn't so much a feeling, but it's a deep conviction that's rooted in the truth of God's Word. The Spirit confirms our identity as children through the promise of Scripture. Even if our emotions Your emotions, man, they could be all over the place.

Something could be from the way you were raised. Something could be from hormones. Something could be from an experience you had. Something could be from illness. I mean, there's all kinds of things that impact our emotions. And not having a sense of feeling about God's presence does not necessarily indicate the lack of God's Spirit.

But here's what will happen. Over time, the more you walk with the Lord, the You'll grow in your love for the things of God. That is true of every Christian. In fact, the fruit of the Spirit begins with love. And so you begin to develop a love for God and a love for the things of God that replaces your love for the things that you used to put all your focus on.

The things of the world. The things that just naturally the human heart longs for. Those things get replaced with a love for God God's people, the things of God, as you develop that heart, and, and you start to look back and you go, yeah, I do get really excited about gathering with God's people for corporate worship.

 I hear the word preached, and there's something that just feels settled within me, as I hear the gospel proclaimed. And I might even want to let out a little, amen. You sing with the people of God, and you may not feel comfortable, or even moved at all to lift your hands. That doesn't matter. But you're singing these lyrics and you're going, yeah, that's true.

We're singing a song at our church called, He Will Hold Me Fast, that I've loved for a number of years. And it reminds me, things like this, when I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast. He'll not let my soul be lost, his promises shall last. I hear that and I'm like, yes, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the one holding me fast.

It's not my grip on him, it's his grip on me. And in that moment, that's what's happening, the Spirit is testifying with my spirit. This is true. I'm believing these things to be true, and I'm enjoying hearing them. I'm thankful for them. I'm thankful for other Christians around me who helped me grow in them.

I'm thankful for the testimony that I see in them. I got to watch this last Sunday as a whole stream of people went forward to receive communion. And it was just a reminder of the kind of work that the Lord's doing all throughout our community in the life of our church and through the life of our church by saving people from all around our county, bringing us together to worship Him.

Communion was like a visible reminder of what the kingdom of heaven is like. I saw it and I was moved by it. Why? Because God's Spirit is in me testifying, this is right. This is good. We're a part of something so much bigger than just some me and Jesus little movement. This is God's redemptive plan for the world and I get to be a part of it.

 It's the advancement of his kingdom and I get to see it. These things are encouraging. So, you know, you'll have some degree of that the longer you are a Christian. When things of God become more lovely and more valuable, that's part of the way that the Spirit testifies with your spirit that you are God's child.

Similarly, when you stand over some scenic area, I live near the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. It's pretty awesome. Now, I've never been to that fake Grand Canyon out in Arizona. I don't know. It's probably okay. But the one here in Pennsylvania, man, it's pretty cool. I walk out there and I'm just amazed every single time.

It's pretty cool. And I always have this thought when I go there, Man, God made this so that we would worship Him. So that we'd see it and be in awe. And when we, when our jaws drop a little bit, and we go, that's so beautiful. It's giving credit to the one who made it. And there's something about my spirit that just goes, God made this.

And that's good. I think that's part of the Spirit testifying to my spirit, and I get to belong to the One who has made all of this. There's other fruit of the Spirit that you can look up in Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, etc. You should find that you're more joyful. That even when hard circumstances come, you can find joy in the midst of that because you know God is good and He's using all of these things for your good.

You have a peace about you that the Bible says past is all understanding. When you experience the fruit of the spirit, that's part of the way that the Holy Spirit testifies to your spirit that you belong to Him. And when you sin, and you fail, and you run back to Christ, who you know is the substitute, the one who stood in the place of ruined sinners like us, who covers all of your sins, and you find that hope.

Restored. That's the kind of thing where God's Spirit's testifying with your spirit. With that comes the second point, a desire and ability to live for God's glory. A desire and an ability to live for God's glory. It doesn't mean that you're always perfectly doing this, but you want to live in a way that glorifies Him.

You as His representative, made in His image and then redeemed through the blood of Christ, you want to make Christ known. You want to be a good example. that points other people to Jesus as they look at you and see the things that you're doing as you try to show the world what Jesus is like. We are his representatives here.

We tell about him and the way we live speaks about him as well. So having that desire and then growing in your ability to resist the temptations that, that gnaw at you and to walk more faithfully. Not in an unwise way like you used to, but in a wise way according to scripture. I talk to people all the time who discover the ability to live differently in their own strength.

An example of that is going to 12 steps program, a rehab, having some kind of training where you're focusing on the way that you live and you're seeing certain outcomes happen. You can muster up the strength to do a lot, but you do kind of know when the Holy Spirit is the one giving you the power to grow more in godliness.

That's something very different. You're finding supernatural strength to do things that in your own strength you couldn't do. Like what we're going to talk about on next week's episode, love really difficult people. You grow in the ability to do stuff like that. Your desire and your ability to live for God's glory, those are evidence.

God bless you. of God's Spirit living inside of you. You might not feel it, but you know that it's there because you can see some of the evidence through the way that God is using you and shaping you and helping you. And then just watching God's faithfulness over time in your life, that's more important than any kind of feeling.

2 Corinthians 5 7 tells us that we walk by faith and not by sight, or you could say not by feelings. So our faith rests on the promises of God, not on our emotional experiences. And I want to just give you a quick story to illustrate both sides of this for me. When I was in the hospital, I think I mentioned this before on the podcast, I don't remember.

So if I have, just think I'm like some old grandpa who tells the same story over and over. And if I haven't, let me know and I'll share more details on another episode. But I was in the hospital with COVID real bad. Wasn't sure what the outcome was going to be. I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker all the time.

It was going down the tubes fast. As one of my elders says. And I reached out to a friend who had almost died of another illness. And he told me, don't be surprised if when you start getting better, it feels like the Holy Spirit left the building. And so what happened is I started off feeling this strong sense of God is with me.

He's got me. And I will say, there was a feeling associated with that. I don't think you have to have the feeling, but I think in God's kindness, he let me feel a sense of his presence. And I think as a kindness, he often does do that. It's not what we count on, but in his kindness, God often does give you a sense of that.

I felt well protected. I knew that if I closed my eyes in this world and died, I would open them in the presence of God, and I was okay with that, which is not a normal way that I would typically feel, and God just comforted me. But my friend was right. As I started getting a little bit better, it felt like the Holy Spirit left the building.

I did not have that abiding sense of God's presence, and it, to be totally transparent, it scared me a little bit. Why am I not feeling this? And then I remembered, hey, the Bible tells us that God never leaves us or forsakes us. He is here with me. The Bible also tells us that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.

Waiting on the Lord strengthens you. It doesn't weaken you. And if you're constantly feeling a sense of God's presence, there's nothing to wait on. But when you have those times where it's like, I just don't know. I just feel alone right now. I feel scared. I feel uncertain. Well, you wait on the Lord in times like that, and He does strengthen you.

So I think God allows us to experience times where we feel something. And there are times maybe long stretches of times where you really don't feel anything and you just go hey, Feelings are subjective. God's Word is objectively true. I'm gonna trust that what the Bible says a Christian is I Understand to be true of me somebody who's repented of sin Who's trusting in Christ alone for salvation who has surrendered their life to the Lord who believes that these things are true Who's confessed this as true?

That's what a Christian is and that's me A Christian is somebody who sees some evidence of God's Spirit working in them, and I see that. I can see his example of faithfulness in my life, and I'm going to count on that, even when I don't feel it. So, some practical application for you. Just remember that we don't measure the presence of the Holy Spirit by our feelings, but by the Word of God, by the work of God in our heart, and by His faithfulness.

So, maybe go back and think about how Romans 8 16 applies to you, and when you doubt, just remember, God's Spirit is going to testify with your spirit that you belong to Him. Be praying and asking to see that for confidence that comes from His Word and what that looks like. Then reflect on your desires and your actions.

Can you see some evidence over time that you're becoming more like Christ? Those desires are not natural. The ability to do that is not natural. That's supernatural. That comes from the presence of God's Spirit. And then when your emotions waver and you're up or down, whatever, just trust the Lord through all of that.

So what did we cover today? We covered that some people seem to feel the Spirit more than others, and that feelings are really not what matters most. What matters is what God's Word says and what is true. You don't always feel His presence, but through Scripture, Through the testimony of God's presence in your life and the changes that you begin to see there's a lot of evidence there of the fact that you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

If you're worried about that, why not email me? I have a new email address just for you. You ready for it? It's TJ as in Thomas Jr. Yes, that is what it stands for. Someday, if you're lucky, I'll reveal my middle name It's at brainerdinstitute. com TJ at Brainerd Institute dot com. I'd love to chat with you more about these kinds of things.

Of course, as always, pop on over to Facebook. There's a community there at Facebook dot com slash back to reality. We'd love to have you be a part of. I post some videos and thoughts in there and we'd love to have you join our mailing list as well. Just go to Brainerd Institute dot com. And you'll find it there.

Thanks for listening to this episode. This has been part of our Rural Reset series. Next week is our final episode in the series. And it will be on the topic of Love. Hope to see you then. For now, let's get back to life. Back to Rurality.