Positioned for the Holy Spirit

Most of us know the feeling of pressing the elevator button a second time. The button already lit up and the elevator got the message, but after a few seconds we want to remind it. We like having something to do, and when there’s nothing to do, we at least want an arrival time. That’s why the disciples’ question in Acts 1 makes so much sense. They’re eating with a Jesus they watched die, and now they ask Him, “Lord, are You going to restore the kingdom now?” Jesus doesn’t give them a date. He tells them to wait in Jerusalem for what the Father promised, because power is coming when the Holy Spirit comes on them.

In our Making Room series we’ve been asking what it looks like to make space for the Holy Spirit in everyday life. This week Pastor Michael Torres, who pastors with his wife Miriam in Santa Maria, California, came with a direct challenge. We live in a culture that hates inconvenience. A twenty-minute drive-thru wait or onions on a burger we ordered plain is enough to test our patience. So what happens when the Holy Spirit wakes us at 3 a.m. to pray, or nudges us to love the coworker who drives us crazy, or calls us to serve in kids’ ministry on our only day off? Too often we negotiate. We tell God we’ll do it if the timing works, or if that person walks by one more time. Pastor Michael called that what it is: complacency, and a limit we put on what the Spirit wants to do.

He gave four marks of a life positioned for the Holy Spirit. The first is action. The Spirit’s power was never meant to be an encounter we enjoy and then forget. It isn’t a feeling that leaves us unchanged. Jesus said, “You will be My witnesses,” and that comes with a responsibility. Our cities are full of addiction, deception, and people who don’t know Jesus. Your coworkers, neighbors, kids, and grandkids may only see God’s love through you. That also applies to the older generation in the room. You may have retired from your job, but you haven’t retired from the kingdom. The church needs every generation.

The second mark is patient expectation. The disciples had seen Jesus heal the blind and raise the dead, and He still told them something better was coming. They waited about ten days until Pentecost, and they waited expectantly. They didn’t let the presence of God become routine. Many of us treat church like a check-in and check-out, and we get restless when worship runs one song long or the message goes ten minutes over. Believers in persecuted countries meet for hours at the risk of their lives. Jesus let interruptions into His day. Maybe our hurry is the very thing keeping us from what the Spirit wants to do.

The third mark is unity. The disciples waited together. Their patience, trust, and hearts were tested, and nobody stood up and walked out. Pastor Michael gave a pastor’s honest observation: the people who complain the most are usually the ones doing the least. Unity is helping a single mom with her kids, helping an older guest find a seat, serving coffee, and asking your pastors, “What do you need?” Jesus said that when two or three gather in His name, He’s there with them (Matthew 18:19-20). Picture what unity could do in your home, your workplace, your family, and this church.

The fourth mark is belief. In John 14:12, Jesus says that whoever believes in Him will do the works He did, and even greater works. The Hebrew word for believe, aman, carries the idea of a parent holding and supporting a child, and of quieting a crying baby. When we come to God with all our mess, His peace settles us as we learn to trust Him like a child in a parent’s arms. But belief also means renewing our minds. If you still think like an orphan, you’ll live like one. If you still think like a victim, you’ll live like a victim. Many of us have added rooms onto our lives without fixing the foundation underneath. We try to stack kingdom thinking on top of old mindsets, and eventually it collapses. Second Corinthians 10:5 tells us to take every thought captive and make it obey Christ, the same way we’d stop an intruder breaking into our home instead of letting him help himself to whatever he wants.

Pastor Michael used a birdcage as a picture. Our minds are meant to have open space for the Holy Spirit to move in and out. But when we pack them with the labels other people gave us, like “not smart enough,” “too far gone,” or “not good enough,” there’s no room left. He also named something uncomfortable: resisting the Holy Spirit and bargaining over what we’re willing to do for His kingdom is a form of pride.

So here’s the invitation. Will you believe again? Will you trust again? Will you wait in His presence with expectation? Clear out the old mindsets, say yes to His interruptions, and position yourself for the Holy Spirit. As Pastor Michael put it, what do you have to lose?