Holy Spirit Needed

This is a little long, but it is a quote and I really appreciate the thoughts. We modern day Methodists have seemed a bit shy of the Holy Spirit. We should not be, Wesley certainly was not. I am trying to be more Spirit dependent and more Spirit aware.
A great teacher, Dr. Steven Seamands, has written regarding the Holy Spirit, who is vital to our life and leadership as pastors, “The Holy Spirit is vital. We see this in the Old and New Testaments. When the Spirit comes there is life giving power and it is energizing. The wind is one of the ways we see the Spirit. The diving energy, the life – force, the vitality. This is the Greek understanding of dunamis, the breath of God.”
And then it happened, “Wind, breath, spirit entered them and they came to life and stood up on their feet- a vast army.” Ezekiel 37:10 So it is when the Spirit comes. The dead comes to life, the exhausted have new energy, the weary press on and gain momentum. There is revival, animation and action.
The church is absolutely dependent on the life- giving work of the Spirit. Without the Spirit, it quickly degenerates into a mere human religious institution.
“The presence of the Spirit is vital and central to the work of the Church,” wrote Samuel Chadwick in his classic book, The Way of Pentecost. “Nothing else avails. Apart from Him wisdom becomes folly, and strength weakness… Scholarship is blind to spiritual truth till He reveals. Worship is idolatry till He inspires. Preaching is powerless if it be not a demonstration of His power.”
“Prayer is vain unless He energizes,” Chadwick continues. “Human resources of learning and organization, wealth and enthusiasm, reform and philanthropy, are worse than useless if there be no Holy Ghost in them. The Church always fails at the point of self-confidence. When the Church is run on the same lines as a circus, there may be crowds, but there is no Shekinah. Education can civilise, but it is being born of the Spirit that saves.”
“The energy of the flesh can run bazaars, organize amusements, and raise millions; but it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes a Temple of the Living God,” Chadwick concludes. “The root – trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost, and things will get no better till we get back to His realized presence and power.”
Dr. Semands of Asbury Theological Seminary also writes, “Oh, how we need the wind, the life- giving power of the Holy Spirit. And, of course, that holds true not only in our life together as believers, in our churches, but also in our personal, individual lives as well. How far will our religious self- determination take us? Not far at all.”

Happy Thanksgiving. So Orange.