RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him — the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2)
Early in my marriage, my wife and I ministered in a rural community in South Louisiana. I became the interim pastor of a country church and in the process met some wonderful Christian people. One family in the church really touched my heart. They would take abandoned children into their homes and care for them.
Jerry was one of those children. His parents had abandoned him when he was about 10. This church family took the boy into their home and into their hearts. They loved him with the love of Jesus. They treated him as though he were their own child. It was the first time Jerry had experienced the love of a mother and father.
At the close of one Sunday morning service, I invited people to give their hearts to Christ. Jerry responded immediately. He prayed with me and invited Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. Jerry’s young life was radically changed. He discovered the love of the Father. He was so full of the Holy Spirit’s love, he wanted to tell everyone about the Savior.
He told his friends at school, his neighbors, and anyone else who would listen. It seemed that God was using Jerry more than any person in our church. Almost every Sunday, someone would pray to receive Christ because of Jerry’s testimony. Week after week, he would bring his friends to me and tell me they wanted to know Christ.
Jerry was a tremendous inspiration. But where did such power in his life come from? He was young. He should have had a poor self-image. Instead his heart was aflame with the love of God. Such power can be explained only by the deep work of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures say, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jerry was courageous because he had come to know God the Holy Spirit — and His power.
In describing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the Bible first mentions “love” as evidence of a life surrendered to the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills our lives, we are filled with the love of God. That love is the source of counsel, and it gives us the power we need to speak to people about Jesus. Young Jerry had power because for the first time in his life, he experienced true love. You didn’t have to teach Jerry, motivate Jerry, or twist his arm to make him share his faith with others. He had experienced the love of God. He heard God whispering into his ear, and he whispered what he heard to everyone he met. He had that supernatural, natural power in his life.
One of the names given to the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of counsel and power.” When we come to know God intimately, we’ll know Him as the Spirit of counsel — and the Spirit of power. He counsels us and empowers us by His love. Fear loses its grip on us, because the perfect love of God casts out all fear. We become courageous for Christ, because we know the one true Source of the counsel given us, and we have the power to do the will of God. As the Holy Spirit is shed abroad in our hearts, He longs to reveal Himself to us as the “Spirit of counsel and power.”