This post is part of my Myth-Busting blog series.
Some people believe the myth that those who are really Spirit-filled will always experience victory. This belief is a cousin to the idea that if you have enough faith you will always experience health and wealth.
Just as faith doesn’t guarantee a life free of disappointments and hardships, the Spirit-filled life is not a life free of disappointments and hardships. Jesus is the epitome of spirituality, but he never became an earthly king. Instead, “through the eternal Spirit [he] offered himself unblemished to God” so his death might give us life (Hebrews 9:14).
Biblical Victory
In the Bible, “the one who is victorious” may suffer and face poverty (Revelation 2: 9 & 11). Their victory is that they resist their culture’s anti-Christian values and are “faithful, even to the point of death.” And their “victor’s crown” is eternal life, not achieving success in the eyes of the world around them (vv. 10–11).
Spirit-Filled “Success” and “Failure”
The Spirit’s empowerment may at times lead to great successes, but it doesn’t guarantee them. Barnabas, for example, “was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith” and through his ministry “a great number of people were brought to the Lord” (Acts 11:22–24).
By contrast, Stephen, who was also “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5 and 7:55), was stoned to death when he preached the gospel (7:58). Similarly, Peter and Paul both had their lives threatened and were imprisoned on account of Christ, but they continued to preach the gospel because they had power and boldness from the Holy Spirit.
Today the Spirit continues to inspire people to stay committed to Christ in the face of adversity, even to the point of martyrdom.
Fallen Creation
Aside from the fact that those we minister to can “resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51) and, therefore, our Spirit-empowered ministry is not always well-received, we live in a fallen creation that is yet to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21). As a consequence, even though we “have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23).
Spirit of Hope
However, as we long with hope, God does not abandon us, for the “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” (v. 26). As James Dunn observes, the Spirit is not only present “in the heights of spiritual rapture,” but also “in the depths of human inability to cope.”[1]
This means that if we find ourselves outside of some experiences of victory, this is not necessarily a sign of a lack of spirituality—in fact, at those times the Spirit might be particularly active in our lives. And that is no myth.
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[1] James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 38 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1988), 479.
*This is an edited excerpt from, Simply Spirit-Filled: Experiencing God in the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit, by Dr. Andrew K. Gabriel, © 2019 by Emanate Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson.
Read Chapter 1 or Order Simply Spirit-Filled
Andrew K. Gabriel, Ph.D., is the author of Simply Spirit-Filled: Experiencing God in the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit as well as three academic books, including The Lord is the Spirit. He is a theology professor and VP of Academics at Horizon College and Seminary and serves on the Theological Study Commission for the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. You can follow him on Facebook or on Twitter.
It’s a conundrum Andrew, my wife and I do a lot of mission work and my wrestle has been to understand why the believers from these places look to these wealthy ministries of NA and aspire to those teachings. I thank you for posting this truth and reality of the christian life.
It is really sad that for the lack of willingness among most believers to search the scriptures have become saddled with more problems than blesses. Thank you for sharing these nuggets of truth.
One of the most successful Spirit-filled believers, King David, certainly experienced victory, but also experienced many losses, lows, and disasters (see many of the Psalms). Good stuff Andrew.
And many of the disasters King David experienced were at least partly of his own making …