Pastor's Circle - Bill Ury

Dr. Bill Ury is Professor of Systematic Theology at Wesley Biblical Seminary and hosts the Hour of Holiness on AFR on Sunday mornings. He joined the Pastor's Circle to discuss the Holy Spirit.
 
Do we pay enough/too much attention to the Holy Spirit?

I think we've come through an era that was all about the Holy Spirit.

The Church tends to go through extremes.

We went through the extreme of treating the Holy Spirit as a "thing" that we could call on.

I think we've modified now, but we've kind of put him in the corner. I wonder really what would happen if the Holy Spirit led the Church.

You can't take any person of the Trinity off by themselves. I think we need to fully engage with who the Holy Spirit is.

In Scripture He moves through both the Old and New Testaments, and he does get more and more personal all throughout the Bible.

We feel guilty sometimes about over-emphasizing things, but I don't think we've emphasized Him enough.

Do you receive the Holy Spirit when you ask Jesus to save you?

God is not reserved. He always gives all of himself.

My point is to say there's an area of our lives that he hasn't been allowed to fill.

The human will is a dam that God allows. The water, the breath of God, is ready to move. But He's waiting for His own to say, "Come and fill me."

That's where the relationship deepens.

It's the ongoing debate about how a Christian is sanctified. It's a major battlefield, and we seem to have lost it.

How should someone who wants to be filled with the Spirit pray?

My prayer would be, "Lord, I look at myself, and I see that I've been living my own self-will. I want my will to become your will. I want to die to my will, and I want your Spirit to fill my heart and my life."