Turning Off the Faucet

Quench not the Spirit.

Yes, 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says : “Do not quench the Spirit.”

Quenching the Spirit seems to be one thing that modern Chrisitianity, at least in America, can agree upon. Whether we are Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal or Assembly of God , our churches, made up of people just like you and me, seem to have found agreement on Quenching the Holy Spirit of Christ.

In short we turn off the faucet of the Spirit of our lives holding back the flowing of the living waters of Christ. After all, if we leave the faucet or the tub running in our houses, what do we have but a mess. What is true in our lives is also true in our churches.

When our hands are on the faucet, we are in control. We can quickly shut the faucet off if it looks like things are going to overflow and result in a mess for us to clean up. Our lives belong to ourselves, not to Christ. Our hands are on the controls, and there is no danger of things getting out of control. No messes to clean up.

So I presume the first rule of modern individual spiritual life is “Control Thyself.” “Be not under God’s control.” If God begins to take over, shut down. Quench the Spirit. No mess. No surprises. No spirituality. Unfortunately, as a natural by-product there is also no spiritual guidance, no spiritual leadership, the ascendancy of form over spiritual substance, and our prayers are without power. We have become a compassionless people without passion for the things of God.

Our first love, Christ, is forgotten. We, however, are in charge. We live a life of control where we minimize risk. The Spirit is bottled up-quenched and our fleshly heart is reduced to being an acorn or pecan shell and with as much sensitivity. Where is our love, our passion, our courage?

Not surprisingly our churches do what we do individually. We conveniently forget that our churches do not belong to the denomination, to the pastor, to the leadership or to the people. The Church is the Bride of Christ. It belongs to Christ. That is what we say anyway-but it is not how we act. We act as though the church belongs to us and we control it the same way we keep ourselves under control.

The purpose of the church service can be many things. It is used to commemorate the sacrifice of Christ; however commemoration can be as deadly as a funeral service and our church services appear to be that. It can be used as a fellowship period; however one can also fellowship at a country club; however some churches today are outfitted better than our country clubs. Sometimes it is used as a Bible School. Often ministers and evangelists use it to preach the gospel which seems a frightful waste of time because instead of preaching to the unsaved you are “preaching to the choir.” This seems to me somewhat like looking for a piece of pie in a weight watchers group. Wrong place, wrong time.

However, whatever the focus, the focus is not upon worshipping and experiencing Christ. It is not upon hearing what Christ is saying to his church, unless it is filtered through the pastor and elders. After all otherwise there is a loss of control. The church, however, does not belong to the priest, pastor, elders, deacons, or even to the people. It belongs to Christ and Christ should be in charge.

Is it any wonder that when we are in charge, that Christ stays home.

Again we work hard to quench the Spirit; otherwise, things will get out of control. The announcements might not be made, meetings might have to be cancelled. What happens if we do more than sing our three hymns or hear our sermon about what we ought to be doing and how we have let down the kingdom of God by not contributing enough money, effort, support etc., etc. (you fill in the blank.)

At the end, we leave church inoculated for another week against sin. However, we also leave more inoculated against the Spirit of God. We have gotten a small taste of God, then it has been shut off. We are frustrated. We leave with a profound case of spiritus interruptus. We are unsatisfied and less on a solid ground than when we went in.

We need to fall in love with Jesus once again. We need to be unafraid and unashamed to turn our services over to Him. We need to get rid of our fear of what will happen to us and our church if Christ takes over. Sure the bishop or denominational overseer might be mad to find out that his handpicked person is not in charge, and that somehow Christ got His church back. After all the church is then back into the hands of Christ and that threatens people all up and down the line.

But Christ does not force us to give His rightful bride back to him. We can keep it as long as we want-but the presence of Christ will not be there and the rivers of life will not flow. Quite frankly, the church without Christ is just not worth it.

I would rather have Jesus than the building, the preacher, the denomination or even more than good Christian friends and reputation.

HarleyDad is sick and tired of a church without Christ. I would rather love God than to read about the love of God. Better to see God’s hand move where it is unrestricted even if it is in nature, than to live a self-controlled, spirit-quenched life.

I want to go where the River runs free.

HarleyDad.