THE BREATH OF GOD

John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

I was having a really hard time receiving from the Lord. Somehow I had gotten stuck in a performance or doing mode. In my head, everything was dependent on my actions. It was my praying, and fasting, and believing,and confessing that would determine the advancement of the church. Somehow I had taken the weight of the ministry square upon my shoulders. If we had successes, it was because of the things I had done. Of course the failures, also would fall right in my lap. After sixteen years of pastoring, I was running on empty. I had forgotten how to receive from the Lord. That’s when revival hit me right in the face. I found myself in revival meetings and everyone was receiving, that is everyone but me. I was trying too hard to receive even in that environment, I was really stuck. That’s when I heard this still small voice. “Breath”, He said. “Breath”, what could that mean? Then a thought crossed my mind. Breathing has two parts, exhaling and inhaling. As for me, I was stuck in the exhale mode. That’s when it struck me, I needed to chill out, stop doing and start receiving. I needed to just breath. Here are some thoughts from A. B. Simpson about spiritual breathing.

“The emblem under which the Spirit is here presented to us is the breath and the air, the atmosphere in which we live, and the act by which we inhale or exhale its vital properties and its vitalizing power.
The value and importance of the atmosphere is self-evident. We can live for days without food, and for a lifetime without sight or hearing, but we cannot live an hour without breath. To breathe is the most essential of all our physical functions and is in the Scriptures almost synonymous with life. Again and again we find such expressions as, “Every living thing that hath breath upon the earth.” We cannot see it, we can scarcely feel it, and yet around us there is an ocean of air without which we could not exist, and without which almost all of our senses would be blind, deaf, and vain.”

So go ahead, take a breather. Breath in the fresh breath of the Spirit. This is the place of renewal and refreshing, this is where everything becomes new again.