Two very different people

Josh Salinas opens by honoring his pastors and calling Elan his home. Looking around a diverse room, he notes how differently God has made each of us, and no one is more different from him than his wife. She dances up mountains; he would rather work out in the dark in silence.

Are you going to walk with me?

The message was born on a trail near their home. Josh was running, his pregnant wife was walking, and when he spotted a man hovering around her, his protector instincts kicked in. The man rode past on a scooter and said, "Don't worry, she's loyal," and all Josh could muster was, "Yeah, that's right." Walking to the car still fuming, he saw two little girls playing and felt his heart shift as the Holy Spirit asked whether he was going to walk with Him. That question frames the message, which continues Elan's current teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Walking by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16–18)

Scripture pictures the Spirit as a dove, and if you wanted a dove to stay on you, you would move slower, speak softer, and change where you go. Galatians 5 says to walk by the Spirit and deny the flesh. The Greek word for walk also means to imitate or follow in someone's footsteps. Walking in the Spirit is not two friends strolling side by side; it is letting Him go ahead and following. In prayer Josh sensed God sharpen his title: are you in submission to my Spirit, or are you trying to get the Spirit to submit to you? Quoting Bill Johnson, the Spirit is in me for my sake and comes upon me for your sake, which sets up the two halves of the message: fruit and gifts.

The fruit of the Spirit

Elan's verse of the year, Matthew 7:17, says a healthy tree bears good fruit, and people are recognized by their fruit. If you get hurt by thorns trying to receive someone's fruit, it is not good fruit. Some scholars read Galatians 5:22 as singular: love is the chief fruit and everything else flows from it. Living by the Spirit means inviting Him to tend the garden of your heart, because there is a battle over your soil. What should be on our receipt is not what we have done for God but who He is making us to be. Revival does not come by pursuing the miraculous but by pursuing God's heart; every revival in church history began with someone on their knees, like Evan Roberts in Wales praying, bend us, Lord.

The gifts of the Spirit

From 1 Corinthians 12, Josh names the manifestation gifts and testifies to what Elan has seen: Ruth healed in an eye that could not see, and a brother whose post-surgery knee pain left after prayer at a men's gathering. It would be wrong to look at Jesus healing the sick and say that was fine for Him but not for us. Why does God heal a pinky toe? Because He loves you and wants to reveal His heart. Josh prays people will come to Elan because they hear God is moving and stay because they taste the fruit. He asks whether we are secret cessationists, affirming the gifts in theory but assuming God does not work through us. Mark 16:17 says the signs follow those who believe, whatever their job.

Authority under submission

Mark 11 promises mountain-moving faith, but we cannot order faith by the yard or make God do what we want. Our authority is always under submission to Him and to leadership. Josh tells how hearing the name Aimee Semple McPherson one morning sparked his love of church history and her stretcher meetings. But as a teenager he became so obsessed with the gifts that he stepped past the fruit. The fruit reveals God's character; the gifts reveal His heart.

More of Him

Josh closes by asking: do you want access to power, or do you seek relationship with God? Do you want something from the Spirit, or do you want the Spirit? Having grown up without a father, he prays nightly over his wife and unborn daughter, telling God he does not know how to be a good dad, and hears, "Don't worry, I do." When he tells the Lord he lacks joy or peace, the Spirit answers that what he lacks is more of Him. The closing prayer: may we never walk faster than You are walking.