DEALING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHRISTIAN
I send greetings in the name of Jesus:
We have spoken about the Christian life in general, but if we intend to grow in Christ and understand spiritual things about this world we must understand the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Each of us has some kind of perspective about who the Holy Spirit is, but things get mucked up when it comes to why He was sent, and what His real work in us is. ( I can tell you right now it does not have to do with speaking in tongues). In John 16:13-14 " But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."
The truth that is spoken of from the Holy Spirit is the truth of Christ directly. It is the truth about Christ and about what His teaching is to us that will continue to grow within us and transform our minds and hearts. The Spirit also helps us through a very patient practice to discern right from wrong about scripture and about this life in general. To keep things in context Jesus said that the Spirit would tell them about things to come; which means that God would reveal the nature of their mission and the opposition that they were about to face as well as what the final outcome of their efforts would be. I know many people may say " proves we should be prophesying" but once again that is not His work within us, although it is a gift given through the Spirit. You see they didn't understand what was going on much more than we do today until the Holy Spirit began His work in the Apostles to write down His thoughts and teachings in Christ that today make up the New Testament.
The Holy Spirit works within us in various ways and yet we can see from Jesus own teaching to Nicodemus in John 3:1-8 that the Holy Spirit is a direct part of this new birth that Jesus mentions and that it reacts within us like the wind within us which can come from any direction. We cannot understand where it comes from or where it goes much like the wind, but we can feel its presence all around us and within us. Romans 8: deals with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives in that through the Spirit of God living within us we who are guilty have been declared to be free of sin and punishment of that crime against God from the beginning of our creation. Without our acceptance of Christ, we would never have received that gift, and so the Holy Spirit is God's way of sealing us once and for all time to Christ. The only thing that can break that gift is our own will. We cannot be taken from the hand of Christ but we are still free to choose. The question is just like Adam and Eve will we allow ourselves to be deceived again by the enemy? That is why we must grow in the power of God's Spirit
It is important to know that the Holy Spirit has many different parts to His work within us. The Spirit of God has intellect, emotions, and will. The intellect can be seen in
1 Corinthians 2:10-11 this scripture speaks of the Spirit is the only one who can know the mind of God. Romans 15:30 speaks to the emotion of the Holy Spirit as it is He who gives us overflowing hope. 1 Corinthians 12:11 speaks of the Holy Spirit exercising His will. It is God's Spirit that determines how the gifts that God gives us are used, and not us as mankind.. I want to take more time to discuss the workings of God's Spirit in us when we come back in the next blog. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
We have spoken about the Christian life in general, but if we intend to grow in Christ and understand spiritual things about this world we must understand the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Each of us has some kind of perspective about who the Holy Spirit is, but things get mucked up when it comes to why He was sent, and what His real work in us is. ( I can tell you right now it does not have to do with speaking in tongues). In John 16:13-14 " But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."
The truth that is spoken of from the Holy Spirit is the truth of Christ directly. It is the truth about Christ and about what His teaching is to us that will continue to grow within us and transform our minds and hearts. The Spirit also helps us through a very patient practice to discern right from wrong about scripture and about this life in general. To keep things in context Jesus said that the Spirit would tell them about things to come; which means that God would reveal the nature of their mission and the opposition that they were about to face as well as what the final outcome of their efforts would be. I know many people may say " proves we should be prophesying" but once again that is not His work within us, although it is a gift given through the Spirit. You see they didn't understand what was going on much more than we do today until the Holy Spirit began His work in the Apostles to write down His thoughts and teachings in Christ that today make up the New Testament.
The Holy Spirit works within us in various ways and yet we can see from Jesus own teaching to Nicodemus in John 3:1-8 that the Holy Spirit is a direct part of this new birth that Jesus mentions and that it reacts within us like the wind within us which can come from any direction. We cannot understand where it comes from or where it goes much like the wind, but we can feel its presence all around us and within us. Romans 8: deals with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives in that through the Spirit of God living within us we who are guilty have been declared to be free of sin and punishment of that crime against God from the beginning of our creation. Without our acceptance of Christ, we would never have received that gift, and so the Holy Spirit is God's way of sealing us once and for all time to Christ. The only thing that can break that gift is our own will. We cannot be taken from the hand of Christ but we are still free to choose. The question is just like Adam and Eve will we allow ourselves to be deceived again by the enemy? That is why we must grow in the power of God's Spirit
It is important to know that the Holy Spirit has many different parts to His work within us. The Spirit of God has intellect, emotions, and will. The intellect can be seen in
1 Corinthians 2:10-11 this scripture speaks of the Spirit is the only one who can know the mind of God. Romans 15:30 speaks to the emotion of the Holy Spirit as it is He who gives us overflowing hope. 1 Corinthians 12:11 speaks of the Holy Spirit exercising His will. It is God's Spirit that determines how the gifts that God gives us are used, and not us as mankind.. I want to take more time to discuss the workings of God's Spirit in us when we come back in the next blog. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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