A spiritual awakening can sound a lot crazier than it needs to be. It's simply when The Spirit of God awakens in you. Once you feel The Spirit of God, also known as the Holy Spirit, everything in you begins to change.
You think and act differently once the Holy Spirit is inside of you. The Holy Spirit gives you the ability to walk through this world, just as Jesus Christ did.
Jesus lived of perfect obedience to God, the Father. His obedience lead to his death, where he took on the sins of all of the imperfect people who choose to believe in him.
After Jesus rose from the dead three days after his death, proving that he was who he said he was, he left us the Holy Spirit to help guide us through this life.
15 "If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. - John 14: 15-18
What You Will Learn in This Article
The Greatest Spiritual Awakening
Most spiritual awakenings today refer to being woke. You go from the pursuit of things like money, fame, and power. An in an unexpected moment, you begin to chase something different. You feel a new calling on your life.
The spiritual awakening I am talking about is unique to following Jesus Christ. When you follow him with all of your heart, you're given the Holy Spirit in return, among many other gifts we will talk about later.
The reason that this is the most significant spiritual awakening is that it's not merit-based. The grace received through Jesus Christ is a gift. When you get gifts in life, you don't work for them, which makes them special.
They represent an outpouring of love!
Everything gives from Jesus is a reflection of the love God has for his people. Sin separates us from a God that can only be in the presence of holiness. Yet he still chooses to pursue a broken people, and he provided a way for our sins to be paid for so we could be in a relationship with him once again. All of this is because of his goodness, and not because of how awesome we think we are.
11 Signs That You Have The Holy Spirit
When you accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your Lord and Saviour, and repent for your sins, you will be given the Holy Spirit. Here are some signs that let you know that the Holy Spirit is in you.
1. Chasing Jesus
When you receive the Holy Spirit, you begin to desire to pursue Christ.
Matthew 22:37-38 "And he said to him, 'you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment.
The greatest commandment we have is to love Jesus with everything that has in us. We now have the Holy Spirit in us that can show us how to Love in a Godly way.
Pursuing Christ means that everything we do is for His Glory.
2. You Use Your Spiritual Gifts
In 1 Corinthians 12,13, and 14, the bible talks about the different spiritual gifts. The key to these gifts is that they are to build up the body of Christ and not for our benefit or Glory.
For example, you may have the gift of running as I have a child. Though it was a gift from God, it was not a spiritual gift because my running was not building up Christ's body.
Spiritual Gifts Include:
- Wisdom
- Healing
- Miracles
- Tounges
- Prophecy
- Distinguish Between Spirits
- Interpretation of Tounges
- Apostleship
- Teaching
- Administration
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, it talks about how we all have our job in the body of Christ. Just like there are different parts of the body, we all have specific giftings to help build up the church's body. Following Christ provides you with a new purpose.
3. You Let Go of Your Fleshly Desires
Colossians 3: 5- 8 "Put to death, therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Romans 8:5 is another excellent verse on the topic.
These verses are getting at because hen you start to walk with Jesus, you are made new in him. You put away your old ways that depended on your own will and flesh. Instead, you trade them for the ways of The Spirit, which allow you to walk as Jesus did.
4. You Produce Fruit
Matthew 7:15 20 talks about how you know a tree by the fruit it produces. Good trees produce healthy fruit, and bad trees produce poor fruit.
The Fruit of The Spirit (Galatians 5:22)
When you begin to follow Jesus Christ, your life starts to look like the things above. You bring the fruit if the spirit with you to every aspect of your life.
5. You Gain Godly Wisdom
1 Corin 2:9-10 says "What no eyes have seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him." - These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
Now think about this for a second, God has no limits. He is infinite and the alpha and omega. Yet the Spirit can search the depths of God and that Spirit is within us. How amazing is that?
With The Spirit, we gain a God wisdom that can't be explained in words.
6. You Learn to Lean Into The Spirit
You still have a choice to follow your own will over the Spirit. Just because you are given The Spirit, does not mean you will follow it 100% of the time. No one is perfect and it takes time to learn how to rely on the spirit instead of the flesh. The spirit will tell you what to say, how to think, and lead you in how to act.
7. You Stir Up The Holy Spirit
The Spirit is felt strongly at specific times, but it requires you to practice good spiritual habits. These habits include the following:
- Bible Study
- Meditation
- Prayer
- Fast
Outside of fasting, these practices should be done daily. When you take time to study the word, you get to know more about God's story and his unending grace. When you meditate and pray you get to talk, and listen to God. In these moments he reveals himself to you more, and more.
The spirit is felt strong in these moments because you are actively seeking God.
Why This is Different from Other Spiritual Awakenings
The biggest difference is that the Holy Spirit is not earned by you. What you deserve is death because you're a sinner but God loves you so much that he was willing to send his only son to take on all of that sin.
When you believe in Christ you get to rise with Christ, and you get an abundance of gifts that you don't deserve at all. The gifts included are what make this spiritual awakening special.
How is Receiving The Holy Spirit a Spiritual Awakening
Receiving the Holy Spirit is a spiritual awakening because your spirit becomes awake to the heart of God. The things that God desires, so will you. You will be aware of things that you were not aware of before. The things of this world will begin to melt away and mean less.
The more you learn to follow the Holy Spirit, the more you will live in how we were meant to live before the fall of man in Genesis 3. Living a holy life will be the only thing that feels good going forward.
You will begin to feel the Holy Spirit tug you. Maybe you will be thinking impure thoughts or thinking about giving into temptation. In these moments, the Holy Spirit will awaken and help to guide you in the right direction.
Conclusion
If you want to have a serious spiritual awakening that will last for eternity, you're going to want to give your life to Christ. Follow him, learn about him, and pursue him while you help others to do the same. The Holy Spirit will be your guide and help to make sure you walk through this world just like Jesus.