Dark Rooms

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Now that it's spring and the trees have all their leaves, my kitchen is dark most of the day. We have a large maple tree in the backyard and a small woods behind our house that block out the sunshine.

This morning I idly thought, "Most homes have dark rooms." Then I thought, "Most hearts have dark rooms too."

What are the dark rooms in your heart, the places you don't want anyone else to see? These could be sad, traumatic, hurtful, or painful experiences that still ache too much to share with anyone.

They could also be dark thoughts, those places of sin we desire to hide. Would anyone still love us if they could see into those dark rooms? Envy, greed, anger, pride, judgment, lust, just a few of the dark rooms of the heart.

As believers, we know light and darkness cannot exist in the same place. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit (and we are), how can we reconcile the existence of light and darkness in our hearts? We are not fooling God. He knows all about the dark places within, but yet we still try to hide those secret little rooms inside of us.

It seems our dark rooms constantly need to be discovered and broken open. The doors and windows must be opened to let in the light of God's love and forgiveness and let in the fresh, clean breeze of the Holy Spirit to blow away that which is wrong within us. God won't force the locks, we have to willingly open the doors ourselves so He can enter and clean out the dark rooms in our hearts.

Some of my dark rooms have rusty hinges because I have kept them locked tight for too long. It might be time to get some spiritual WD 40 to loosen the hinges so the Lord can go in and do His work letting light into my dark rooms.

Word + Spirit = Power

I chose to review Word Spirit Power: What Happens When You Seek All God Has to Offer from a list of potential review books because I've been thinking about the Holy Spirit frequently this year.  I feel like I have a reasonable understanding of the God the Father and God the Son, but don't understand God the Holy Spirit very well.

Word Spirit Power is written by three men, none of whom had a charismatic or Pentecostal background.  As each shares his testimony he explains how he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed his life and led him to a charismatic-type belief in the role and power of the Holy Spirit.

However, the main premise of Word Spirit Power is that the emphasis on the word of God, the Bible, coupled with visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit will cause churches to experience and more fully understand the power of God.

R.T. Kendall, one of the authors, states that "Word" churches expect to hear but not see much and that "Spirit" churches expect to see but not hear much.  He believes that when the word and spirit come together in churches, people will see the power of God manifested.  All the authors feel the time of unification of the word and spirit in churches is coming soon.

I appreciated reading each man's testimony and how he attained a new understanding of the Holy Spirit's role in his life.  The back cover of the book states that the three men together have over 170 years experience in the ministry and I feel that added weight to what they had to say.  They utilize the Bible extensively to illustrate their points which I thought also added credence to the discussion.

I've belonged to both word and spirit churches as a Christian so I've experienced the strengths and weaknesses of both types of churches.  Do I agree with what the authors have to say?  Some of it.  Do I disagree with what they have to say?  Some of it.  But their passion for both God's word and His Spirit are fervently expressed throughout each author's section of the book.

My real disappointment was that the book wasn't what I'd hoped it would be about.  My search to learn more about who the Holy Spirit is and what His role is in a believer's life continues.

Word Spirit Power: What Happens When You Seek All God Has to Offer by R.T. Kendall, Charles Carrin, Jack Taylor
Chosen Books, 2012
Christian Living, 207 pages


The publisher provided a free copy of the book for my review.  All views expressed are my own.