“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” – Acts 1:8
Illuminating Scripture
Just before Jesus went to the cross and died to redeem us, and then return to the Father, they were all very anxious about His leaving, so Jesus tries to comfort them by telling them that the Holy Spirit will come and teach them all that they need to know (John 14:26a) and the Holy Spirit, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). Paul writes, “who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1st Cor 2:11).
Recalling the Word
The Holy Spirit really gives us help in recalling Scriptures, and sometimes even chapter and verse, but Jesus promised this would happen prior to His death and departure to heaven by saying, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). Have you ever been with someone when a Bible verse came to mind? That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. He will illuminate Scripture but He will also bring it to mind.
Speaking of Christ
The Holy Spirit will never draw attention to Himself or another person but only to the Person and work of Christ, so Jesus knew that “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13) since the Holy Spirit “will bear witness about” Christ at all times (John 15:26c).
Seeing Salvation
The Apostle Paul was abundantly clear in writing that “the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1st Cor 6:9-10) but in seeing God’s Spirit birth them into new creations in Christ (2nd Cor 5:17), Paul could now say to them, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1st Cor 6:11). How many of us have seen lives changed and souls saved with our own eyes? It’s the Spirit of God mixed with the Word of God that creates children of God for the glory of God.
Conclusion
For everyone who’s been born again, they have the Holy Spirit living in them, just as Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). The power is not in us; the power is in God’s Spirit, in God’s Word, and most of all, in the Person of Jesus Christ Who is God Himself.
by Jack Wellman
Prayer
“Grant to me, O Lord,
to know what I ought to know,
to love what I ought to love,
to praise what delights You most,
to value what is precious in Your sight,
to hate what is offensive to You.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes
nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of ignorant men;
but to discern with true judgment between things visible and spiritual
and above all things to inquire what is the good pleasure of Your will.”
Thomas á Kempis
Comments