We say we want the Spirit,
but when He arrives,
we ask Him to use the side door
and please not interrupt the program.
We don’t mock the gifts –
we just ignore them politely,
like a waiter clearing a place
we never sat down to eat at.
We smile at the idea of tongues,
but we turn up the music
when the sound comes near.
We quote Paul’s warnings
without craving his blaze.
Our churches are lit
with the illumination of order
but none of the blaze of life.
We have replaced the bellows of prophecy
with the wheezing of fearful rabbits,
and we call that humility.
We call our drought ‘discernment’
because it hurts less than saying
we’re afraid to look drunk.
If Pentecost happened today,
We’d douse the tonguesnof flame
And call the rising steam, “incense”.
Like we elected a new pope,
a vicar of wood.
Addicted to what we can see,
We’d publish a blog series
on why wildfire doesn’t fit
with our brand.
We’d call the tongues of blaze
a metaphor,
and sell devotional mugs
with half of Peter’s sermon on them –
the half that doesn’t demand we repent.
But maybe
you still fear
what this might cost.
Maybe you fear
being called strange,
emotional,
out of order.
Afraid to let your faith
find freedom from your liturgy’s chains.
Let me speak to that fear:
the Spirit never sows chaos –
He brings new creation.
He hovered over the waters once,
and where there was nothing,
He summoned form, and function,
and blaze.
He does not bypass the mind –
He renews it.
He does not discard the Word –
He fulfills it,
in breath,
in power,
in flame.
This is not a detour from doctrine.
This is doctrine
made visible.
The Spirit comes
not just to inform,
but to empower.
To awaken wonder.
To fill the room
and the ribcage alike.
Justin Martyr said:
the gifts still move.
He saw them in his day –
healing, tongues, prophecy –
not confined to the Apostles,
but flooding the Church
like a the pull yet to recede.
Irenaeus, that fearless bishop,
testified to miracles
as natural fruit
of a living vine.
He called the Spirit
the one who shapes and sanctifies,
not just past tense,
but present.
Still.
Tertullian roared:
“The soul by nature is Christian,”
and the soul set on blaze
by the Spirit
will not sit silent
in pews arranged like tombs.
And Cyril of Jerusalem?
He taught his catechumens
to expect the gifts.
To see them
as baptism’s exhale
still warm in the lungs
of the faithful.
This is not fringe.
This is foundation.
You say you want wisdom?
Then ask not only for truth,
but for truth that walks,
and weeps,
and burns with the nearness of God.
You say you want holiness?
Then seek not only to resist sin,
but to be filled with a blaze
that displaces it.
You say you want assurance?
Then do not settle
for signed documents
when you were promised
a sealed soul.
Ask.
Again.
And do not ask
with hands half-raised
or with eyes downcast
as if ashamed to want
what your Father commands you to pursue.
These gifts are not elite.
They are essential.
They are not decorations.
They are deployments.
They are not rare.
They are ready.
So plead.
Beseech.
Fast.
Lay on your face if you must,
but do not stop seeking
until the Dove descends
not just on your theology,
but your tongue,
your touch,
your teaching,
your Tuesday mornings.
Because the Spirit still moves.
Because the Church still needs
to see the Word become flame
not just in doctrine
but in demonstration.
Do not call yourself “balanced”
if your balance is just cowardice
in a powdered wig.
Do not call yourself “biblical”
if you ignore what the Bible
cries out to give you.
Tongues are not toys.
They are the taste of heaven
breaking language in your mouth.
Prophecy is not spectacle.
It is the scalpel
that removes tumors of delusion.
Healing is not superstition.
It is the medicine
of a kingdom that has already come.
So I plead with you –
pastor, father, daughter, friend –
do not leave this life
having only read
about the Spirit.
Do not teach your children
a faith so safe
they never need
the blaze.
The Word became flesh –
but He also became felt.
Taste.
Touch.
Desire.
Pursue.
Because the same Spirit
that spoke galaxies
and raised Christ from bedrock
waits now to fill
you.
Not once.
Not dimly.
Not symbolically.
But personally.
Powerfully.
Permanently.
Let Him in.
Let Him ignite
the dry wood
you mistook for a legacy
and make of you
a pillar of flame
that does not consume,
but confirms.
And may you burn
until the Church
can no longer explain
your life
without the Spirit
that shapes it.
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