As we read the Bible, we can be tempted just to focus on the parts we understand well and skip over those subjects that are mysterious and confusing. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is surely one of those subjects! But how is the Church affected if the person and work of the Holy Spirit are not studied? More important, how is our own spiritual growth stunted if we don't understand the Spirit's transforming power within us?
Did you know that the Holy Spirit helps you understand the Bible better and assures you of your eternal salvation? After you learn more about the Holy Spirit, you'll understand why Jesus told His disciples that they would be better served by Jesus leaving them and sending them the Holy Spirit than by staying with them (John 16:7).
In Ephesians 5:18 the contrast and comparison to being drunk illustrates the idea that we are to be influenced by the Holy Spirit. When we are under the influence of something, we will say and do things we normally wouldn’t.
The Spirit is interested in transforming us from the inside out. Flying closer to the flame sets that in motion. He is at work in dozens of different ways, some of them supernatural. Flying closer to the flame makes us acutely aware of that.
The Holy Spirit within us encourages us to follow God’s will over our own desires. He leads our heart according to the truth of God’s Word. Even as He’s constantly shaping and moulding our hearts through the power of His Spirit, we are to follow Him.
We need to remember that God's power in the resurrection also works in us, and we need only to access His power through the gifts He gives us by His Spirit.
Joy—it makes people wonder at your secret. Yet joy is no secret to the trusting Christian. When we choose to grow closer to God, resting in His character and provision, joy spills over into our lives so that others can’t help but notice.
When we live God’s way, we experience the Fruit of the Spirit in good times and bad. Because it’s a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit, this fruit is not tied to things of the world, emotions, health, or anything else.
The quality that distinctively sets apart believers as followers of Jesus is not a pithy bumper sticker or a fish emblem dangling from a necklace or a gilded dove pinned on the lapel. These are only symbols of our faith. The true mark of a Christian is love.
There are times when defending one’s rights is essential; to do less would result in chaos. However, we are not addressing those issues in this message, but rather the sin of standing in stubborn defiance against and questioning any and all authority that has the right to confront, correct, or instruct us.
Like the apostles, we live during the same in-between time and have been equipped with their apostolic testimony recorded in Scripture and clothed with the same Spirit of power to carry out the same plan of reaching the world with Jesus’ message.
For millennia, average Christians as well as learned theologians have strained more than one brain cell to try to understand the incomprehensible mystery surrounding the conception and birth of our Saviour. We'll not lose ourselves in the unsolvable riddle that is the conception of God the Son. Rather, we'll lose ourselves in the wonder that is God the Holy Spirit's most significant mission.
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