2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
I love the presence of the Lord. How many times have we been somewhere and said, “The Holy Spirit was in that place?” There is a certain awe that one should feel when God’s presence is uniquely felt in a corporate gathering. However, we should not get so caught up with the “feeling” of His presence as much as the “purpose” of His presence. Our text does not say, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there are good feelings.” It says, “there is liberty.” The purpose of His presence in this text is transformation. When you pull back from this verse and take a macro view of the purpose of the presence of the Holy Spirit, I believe you can simplify it to this: transformation and mission (see Acts 1:8). In short, when the Holy Spirit is present something happens.
The verse following our text amplifies this thought: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, emphasis added)
After a corporate gathering, especially one that I have the responsibility of leading, I always reflect and evaluate. Within that evaluation I ask myself the questions: “Did the Holy Spirit have His way and was anyone’s life impacted, challenged or transformed?” Although I love to “feel” the presence of the Lord, the real evidence is in a transformed life. Let’s make sure when we encounter the presence of the Holy Spirit that we allow His freedom to saturate every area of our lives so that we may be the agents of change in this world to transform it.