26th April 2021 – The Holy Spirit Is With Us

Jesus has told His disciples that He is going away, and they should not let their hearts be troubled, but they should believe in Him, trust Him, follow Him, love Him, love each other, do the works He did, even greater ones, because of the completion of the cross, the prayer in His name, and through loving Him by obedience to His commands. Much advice Jesus has given them in preparing them for His leaving them. All of this is to comfort them, but there’s more, He then says He will pray for them, and God will answer. He speaks about His relationship to them as that of a father to his children. And even though He has been clear that he must go, He says, “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.”

The disciples had just invested 3 years of their lives. They had given up time with their families, businesses, roofs over their heads, and all sorts of other comforts. They had gone through storms on the sea, angry crowds who wanted to throw people off cliffs, seeing “ghosts” on the water, demons here, demons there, hunger, and all the elements in hopes of a part of the coming kingdom that Jesus was going to establish. And now he was going away and so what next?

He gave more assurance to them by promising to return to them but no longer in human form but in the power of His glory, the Holy Spirit who is the 3rd person in the trinity; He is our helper, the very present help in times of need. Knowing about the Spirit will help us appreciate His ministry and rely on Him more. Learning to call Him a “him” rather than “it” will demonstrate a great truth to others around you.

The bible teaches that the natural man is crippled, not necessarily in his intellect, but in his spirit, in his heart. He cannot understand, eyes of his heart are not open. The Bible says the world cannot receive the Spirit because it does not see Him or know him. This indicates the revealing of Christ to believers because they will know Him (the Spirit) because they know Christ.

He enables you to serve and do things that you are commanded to do, because He is inside of you. He makes you part of the church at large, and places you in a church locally. The Holy Spirit is part of the plan, and performs many awesome, necessary, and helpful things, but don’t just desire the Spirit’s power or blessings, desire the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Love Him, believe Him; this is the work that you need to do today and the Lord will make all things better for you in His time in Jesus name.