Today, we in the Church are standing at a fork in the road. The last teaching wave is waning, and a new wave is coming. People are running in two different directions. One group says, "I'm a Word person; don't give me all this Holy Ghost emotionalism!"

I thank God for the Word. It's the only thing that keeps us steady, renews our minds, gives us faith, and causes us to grow spiritually. Nothing replaces the Word.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:

And I, brethren, when I came to you, come not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
(1 Cor. 2:1-5)

If we go with the Word only, people will have wonderful faith in man's wisdom and man's ability to proclaim the Word and bring revelation, but they won't have much faith in the power of God.

If we get into trouble, we had better have faith in the power of God. The Word is first and foremost, but the Holy Spirit is the power that brings the Word to pass. We need a combination of the two.

Almost every move of God in the past 2000 years started out with fire and ended up with ice because they lost the move of the Spirit! They may have had some kind of Word message, but the minute they lost the move of the Spirit, they lost their fire. God had to find someone else to use.

The second group of people say, "We've found the move of the Spirit. We don't need the Word anymore. We don't need preaching or teaching." I've heard people say, "Church has been so great! We haven't had preaching for four weeks."

Sometimes God will emphasize certain themes over a period of time, but we shouldn't get excited because we don't have preaching or teaching. Teaching is our foundation. We will never leave the Word. God doesn't take away; He only adds to what has already been built.

So there are two extremes: We can either dry up and blow away because of too much Word and a lack of the Spirit, or we can float away.

You may wish you could tie a spiritual rope around some people's ankles and reel them in out of the ozone. They walk around with a look that say's, "I'm in the Spirit." They have forgotten to stick with the Word as their foundation.

We can go in one direction or the other. I don't know about you, but I would rather stand right in the middle of the road and hold on to both the Word and the Spirit.

Source: Blood, Fire and Vapor of Smoke by Mark Brazee
Excerpt permission granted by Mark Brazee Ministries