There’s a difference between living a “good Christian life” and allowing the Spirit of God to transform you from the inside out. The difference is not a small difference, but a drastic one.
As Galatians 5:22 suggests, this is difference between a life full of the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) and a life full of the fruits of the flesh (greed, resentment, bitterness, arguing and competition).
Here are five pieces of evidence that the Holy Spirit has control of your life.
1. The Spirit will make you passionate about worship and prayer.
I’m not passionate about praying and worshipping because I am a quiet introvert who loves to meditate and reflect on nothingness. Not even close!
I’m passionate about prayer because I know I’m having a real conversation with a real God, who loves me and hears me, and the more I allow the Spirit to rule my life, the more satisfying that experience becomes.
This week, while I was praying, God told me to send a verse to a friend of mine, to remind her God hears her prayers. She wrote me later to tell me how she had really been struggling with this—wondering if God was hearing her. Sometimes she wondered if God even loved her.
When I sent her the verse, she thought: “How did you know?” But the truth is I didn’t know.
God knew. And when we pray, worship and draw close to Him, His Spirit begins to lead through us.
2. The Spirit will make us hungry for the word of God.
The Bible is living and active. It’s a supernatural book, and it really does speak to you—like the verse that seemed like such a perfect fit for my friend, it seemed as if God was speaking right to her. He was!
When the Spirit is alive and active in you, you will feel compelled by God’s Word.
Falling in love with the Scripture isn’t about a passion or hunger for reading or even just learning. It’s about knowing God. John 1 describes Jesus as the living Word.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known (John 1:14, 18 NIV).
As you read the Bible, words jump off the page and you know God is speaking to you directly from that passage.
