Zachariah 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
“Some Christians neglect the word and seek only the subjective experience,” said John Morgan, a Confederate Cavalry officer in the American Civil War. Comparing the Christian life to an ancient Roman aqueduct he said that just as those stone waterways brought water from nearby mountains into parched cities, so the objective word of God channels the flow of the subjective experience of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Morgan added, “Without the solid Word of God to contain and channel that experience, the experience itself drains away into error and is lost. However, other Christians boast wellengineered aqueducts based on extensive knowledge of the Bible, but they are bone dry.” I always say that the Word without the Spirit is nothing more than theoretical theology; the Spirit without the Word tends to Christian mysticism but the Word and the Spirit is Emmanuel – God with us.
The Bible is a compilation of 66 writings, written over a period of about 1,500 years by many people who received visions and revelation from the Holy Spirit. The whole Bible is wholly inspired by the Spirit of God and has been supernaturally preserved through millennia until today. The Bible, God’s Word, reveals his principles (that is doctrines), his purposes (that is promises) and his precedent (that is processes). Therefore, the word confirms the actions of the Spirit while the Spirit activates the word.
The Holy Spirit is God. He is the presence and the person of God living and moving with us on earth, today. The Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus and poured out on all flesh on the first day of Pentecost after Calvary. The Spirit works miracles and manifests his gifts in the Church still today. (God never changes. How he behaved and worked in Bible times he still behaves and works today.) The Holy Spirit works together with the writings of the Bible to bring it to life.
As God-trackers then, we are called to base our life’s track on not just the objective written Bible or just the subjective acts of the Spirit but upon both word & spirit. The word and the Spirit are synonymous. Therefore, we need to be sure that we don’t exclude either the theology of Scriptureorthemanifestations of the Holy Spirit from our lives. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God! Signs and wonders by the Holy Spirit follow the preaching of God’s Word. So, open your heart to the flow of the manifest acts of the Holy Spirit through the solid aqueduct of God’s Word.
— Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa Dudley Anderson began writing for radio in 1994. Dudley currently writes a weekly e-mail Christian motivational thought called GodTracker and has complied 2 devotional books based on GodTracker.