Day 83: The Holy Spirit

The Korean church might be one of the most conspicuous evidences in our modern world that when the Holy Spirit empowers any people, a great revival and growth will surely occur. It has a relatively short history, since the first Western Protestant missionaries came to Korea in 1885. However, almost twenty-five percent of Korea’s 50 million people are now Christians, which is the largest ratio of the number of Christians to the population of any country in Asia. Many church historians point out that one of the most quintessential factors of the Korean church’s explosive growth is the great revival at Pyungyang in 1907. It was a Pentecostal Holy Spirit movement, in which speaking in tongues was reportedly observed.

In 1958, Pastor Yonggi Cho inaugurated a powerful Holy Spirit movement by founding a church that has grown to become today’s Yoido Full Gospel Church. His Spirit-filled ministry reenacted the wonderful works of the Holy Spirit written in the Bible. Consequently, this church rapidly grew into the world’s largest church with 780,000 members as of May 2008, when the church’s leadership transitioned from Pastor Cho to me. From that time on, nineteen satellite churches have become independent from our church with another 360,000 members. Since then, our church has welcomed 50,000 newcomers, so our membership reached 470,000 as of December 2011. In brief, all these statistics result from the powerful works of the Holy Spirit.

No matter how much the pastoral environment changes, a truth that never changes is that a church should receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Our church and I, therefore, are making every effort for all of our church members to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, we also emphasize that a Spirit-filled Christian should be firmly founded upon the Word of God. When a believer is filled both with the Holy Spirit and with the Word of God, his life will be transformed to be like Christ, and he will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit abundantly. Holy Spirit, come upon us!

What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?

ACTIVATION

• Write down how the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit is drawing people to you/your church. How does the Holy Spirit want to be displayed through you/your church?

• Write down how you are teaching and modeling the baptism in the Holy Spirit to your congregation. Ask the Holy Spirit for His ideas.

FURTHER STUDY

John 14:12; 1 Corinthians 2:4; Acts 2:46–47

Pastor Larry & Pat Downing
Foothills Community Church
Collections of thoughts from varied sources
Scripture verses from KJV or NIV unless specified