Are You a Landing Strip or a Resting Place for The Holy Spirit? Part 1

Did you know there are 45,000 flights in the U.S. every day? Planes are constantly landing, refueling, and taking off. One pilot gets off the plane and another one gets on and takes off. One of the ways I got a grip on my fear of flying was to realize how many planes are taking off and how few reports of accidents we hear of. If you’ve ever sat in an airport terminal and just watched the runway, then you know there are planes constantly landing and taking off those landing strips. Planes generally don’t stay in one place long; they land and take back off.

God does not want your life to be a landing strip where His Spirit flies in and flies out. He wants your life to be a resting place. He wants to reside there.

Matthew 3: 13 “Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to talk him out of it. ‘I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,’ he said, ‘so why are you coming to me?’ 15 But Jesus said, ‘It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.’[f] So John agreed to baptize him. 16 After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened[g] and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy’.”

Ephesians 4: 29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

This scripture says the Holy Spirit settled on Jesus. What a great picture of what our desire toward the Holy Spirit should be. I know I want the Holy Spirit to settle in my life as it did in the life of Jesus. This was not a visitation upon Jesus, this was a complete move in.

Three words can completely transform my wife. “Someone’s coming over.” Three short words sends my wife into high speed clean up mode. If they are coming in an hour, she cleans for an hour; if they are coming for a month, she cleans for a month. She prepares when she knows someone is coming by. There if a difference between someone moving in and someone coming by? If someone is moving in, you create space for them. You buy appropriate furniture and you may paint the room a different color. You tell them where you keep the towels and where they are supposed to go when they are done. You are getting ready to have someone reside. Now if you just stop by the house, I am not going to tell you where the towels are or where they go. Why, because you are not staying long.

For far too long, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, I fear we have been guilty of telling Him to “come on by,” but what we should be saying is, “move on in.” Take up residence. I don’t want my life to be a landing strip where He stops by; I want my life to be a resting place. We must not allow our lives to grieve the Holy Spirit, but rather we must honor Him so that He rests on our lives. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit settled on Jesus. He did not stop by; he moved in.

Today I pray that we will converse with the Holy Spirit and say: “Holy Spirit, I want you to move into my life on a permanent basis. I don’t want to be a place You stop by on occasion. I want to be a place you reside every moment of my life.”

Over the next few days we will continue to discuss how we can better host His presence in our lives.

Blessings

Greg