Holy Spirit

As long as I've been posting to this blog, I'm quite surprised that I hadn't gotten around to this topic much earlier.
Years ago, Francis Chan wrote a book about The Holy Spirit titled, Forgotten God. It was a short read but a powerful look at how little people understand and interact with this very real and present “Person” of The Trinity.
I’m not about to rewrite Francis’ book but I am addressing the same mindset. How much do we know? More to the point, how much are we seeking to deal rightly with God, The Spirit?
We think about God the Father and things come easy – Creator, Old Testament Deliverer of Jews from Egypt and all of that. We think about Jesus, The Son and even though His presence in the Old Testament is clearly referred to in the New Testament, we usually equate Him with His human embodiment, righteous life and sacrificial death and The One who’ll be visibly active at the time of His second coming.
Now what comes to mind when we think of God, The Spirit?

Here’s The Word:

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Here’s another one of those times where knowing Greek actually has benefit. “Another” in this case, means “one just like me”. When you think of what Jesus was saying, it’s mind-blowingly awesome. As He had taken on flesh, and the physical restrictions of it – another Comforter like Himself without physical restriction is what was most needed for our benefit. The Holy Spirit can be in everyone’s heart and minds at the same time, working individually on that person’s growth. Not that I don’t believe that Jesus CAN do what The Spirit does, but just as Jesus committed to spending day by day life as a person for 33 years, He’s still into finishing these things the way they need to be finished.

So take that idea of purpose. Reconciling fallen man into redemption with God, and you see The Spirit’s role: That’s exactly what the Holy Spirit is – He’s the Agent of transformation to Christ-likeness, changing us from the inside out. He reveals and affirms truth. He bears witness to the truth of our conversion from our association with sin; from being enemies of GOD to becoming children of God and light.

Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

Look again at John 14:16 . The last words are “for ever”.
Here's something you might find interesting.
When we first read Genesis, and you see God creating everything, you don’t come away with a strong presence of Jesus in that. However, when you first read John's Gospel, the very first verse introduces you to the reality that Jesus, then called The Word was there. He was that Agent by which God the Father created all things that were created. I think we can take that idea and apply it to what we see in John 17.

John 17:22-23 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one

Now you really don’t see mention of The Holy Spirit, but in the same way that we saw with Jesus' involvement in creation, I believe that God, The Spirit is that agent that binds us together as one into unity with Himself, The Word(Jesus) and The Father.

Hopefully, this post will whet your appetite and give you a desire to investigate The Spirit of God. I often mention that although these posts can be entertaining and somewhat provocative to some higher “natural” standard, their true intent is to encourage and “spur” those who have The Spirit to continue to yield to Him and let Him perfect you into Christ-likeness. It’s SO common to tend toward “the rules”, trying to muster the fortitude to “DO RIGHT”, but Biblically, this thinking falls short and can never justify us.

Many people don’t have a firm grasp on The Spirit. Although we understand that He's "present", that only makes us try to live to impress Him as an onlooker rather than be indwelled by Him. We need to let Him fulfill His purpose for us - He's the power by which we empty ourselves, resist temptation, assimilate wisdom from above and endure with Godly patience and perseverance.
Scripture talks about how we're to be IN - In God, Colossians 3:3, In Christ, 1 John 2:24 and In The Spirit, Gal 5:25. We need to realize that no matter how noble the desire, our natural abilities won’t get us any closer to God. It takes God to get close to God and the most beautiful thing about our predicament is that this is exactly what's provided the work of God, The Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

In Him,
Cros