(This is Part 3 of my blog post. If you haven’t read Part 1 of this teaching, you can access it here and Part 1 will give you a link to Part 2.)
CAPACITY – SPACE
As already outlined previously, too many people don’t have enough bandwidth to do what they’ve been called to do, because they have not tapped into the grace of God that comes through His Spirit. They are trying to fulfill their purpose in life without having enough bandwidth. Just like your internet bandwidth will determine the maximum amount of data you can receive in a particular span of time, your ability to be connected and in sync with the Holy Spirit will determine the maximum amount of your purpose that can be fulfilled in your lifetime.
I have witnessed marriages, ministries, and businesses fail way too often because they ran out of bandwidth. We know that everything has a season attached to its fulfillment and within that season is a purpose. Far too many did not fulfill their purpose. Whether it was a lack of time, patience, comprehension, love, money, manpower, or energy, they were not able to complete the assignment that God had for them.
We don’t have the bandwidth to receive all of what we need to receive—to do what God has called us to do—because we’re not partnering with the Holy Spirit as we should. We’re not allowing the free flow of the Holy Spirit to take precedence in our lives. There are so many other things that are hindering our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Just like our internet bandwidth is going to determine the maximum amount of data that we can receive in a particular span of time, our ability to be connected and in sync with the Holy Spirit will determine the maximum amount of our purpose that can be fulfilled in our lifetime. One of the things we have to understand is the Holy Spirit is a real person who has a real personality. There are things that grieve the Holy Spirit, just as there are things that make the Holy Spirit happy.
He is the actual Presence and Spirit of God that has been sent to empower us and to help us live this life where we can be witnesses. What happens is that we are not treating the Holy Spirit as a real person. For instance, we’re not listening to His voice…and often we’re ignoring His voice.
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We begin to know the Holy Spirit more as we partner with the Word. What is He telling us? Well, we can find out what He is saying when we look at the Word. We discover His voice when we look at the person of Jesus who is the door that has given us access into the Kingdom, and access to His Spirit. We discover what the Holy Spirit is saying when we look at Jesus, the Word, the actual Word written that became flesh and dwelt among us.
As we begin to understand what the Holy Spirit is saying, we start to look at the Word and listen to the Word and obey the Word more. As we partner with the Word, we begin to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit. This is how we develop a relationship with Him. We want to develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit where we are not grieving Him. This is one of the things that we have to remember as believers. Once we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which every believer should do in order to increase their capacity to fulfill what God has for them, we have to be open to a continual filling. There is a continual pouring into us that we need to be able to receive from Him.
Go with me here for a minute…Pretend your purpose in life is to fill a bathtub and let’s say that the faucet of that bathtub is you. The water is the Holy Spirit. Your ability to fill that tub will be determined by the faucet’s ability to let the water flow through it. The bigger, more open, and clutter-free the faucet is, the easier, quicker, and greater the Holy Spirit can flow through the faucet. The faucet and the water working together will fill the tub. The more open you are to the Holy Spirit’s leading, the greater the flow and the quicker the tub will fill up. Subsequently, a part of keeping that fresh flow of the Holy Spirit working in our lives is our ability to be led by Him.
The more open we are to the Holy Spirit’s flow and His leading, the greater the flow and the quicker the tub is going to be filled. For this to happen, we have to know how to work with the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures tell us in Ephesians 5:18 that we are to continue to be filled. As a matter of fact, it is translated to mean “be being filled.” In the Greek text, that word “filled” is actually in the continuous present tense. Given the verse, this means that we are to continue to be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit so that we can be enabled to do everything God has called us to do. In other words, there’s always a continual partnership and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Can you imagine marrying someone and after the wedding, you never see them? You never spend time with them. Never live with them. You never partner with them to do anything. Well, that’s how it is if you just receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and don’t begin to develop a relationship with Him.
If the church wants to really experience this next move of God (because there is indeed an amazing and great move that is in store for us) we have to partner with the Holy Spirit. And one of the ways we do that is by increasing our capacity to “house” Him. Our capacity is increased as we continue to “be being” filled.
Think about the disciples—the 120 who were in the upper room when the Holy Spirit arrived on the day of Pentecost. They were in the upper room of the house. They were in the highest place in the house and they were ready for a move of God. They were ready to “house the move of God.” They were ready to receive the Holy Spirit. They were ready to “house the Holy Spirit.”
Our next Part of our teaching will zero in on Matter. There are some matters in your life that the Holy Spirit is ready to resolve once and for all! How do we position ourselves so that we have the capacity to contain or should I say navigate this next move of God? Stay tuned to this blog to find out more.
Dr. Kisia Coleman serves as the Lead Pastor of Empowered People Church and the Co-Founder of Kingdom Church Int’l. Ministries, a non-denominational Christian ministry in which she and her husband founded. Her job has encompassed many roles in leadership and the organization’s development. She is a Certified Life and Leadership Coach and the Founder of KishKnows, Inc., which has several divisions including consulting, coaching, and book publishing services. Dr. Kisia is also the author of several books and stage productions. In both October 2012 and October 2013, she was the proud recipient of the Literary Award given by A.I.M. (Association of Independent Ministries) out of Houston, Texas.
Dr. Kisia and her husband live in a suburb of Chicago and are the blessed parents of five children: two boys and three girls, which include two orphaned nieces and a nephew that they have raised since the untimely deaths of the children’s parents.
DR. KISIA L. COLEMAN
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